Amazing Experience at Illuminate

Hi everyone! My name is Harry Patel, and I am a grade 10 student at Upper Canada College. Today I had the pleasure to attend the National High School Business Conference. Here are my thoughts highlighting what I learned while attending the conference.

The day began with an informative lecture from a forensic accountant working with Canadain Law Enforcement. He told us what led him to work in forensic accounting and some of the cases he worked on. The story that stuck out to me was when he had to piece together financial transactions and discrepancies from a kingpin's bank account and assist in the prosecution. Overall, it was a fantastic presentation and showed me how versatile an accounting degree could be.

After this initial presentation, we moved into two workshops; the Illuminate employees hosted the first workshop along with the CEO Alina. They talked about mental health and ways to decrease stress and improve one's mental wellbeing. Julia Buckley, a CPA recruiter, hosted the second. She spoke about the importance of soft skills in the workplace and how often those who find themselves without employment often lack these crucial skills.

Following this, we had a 15 minute Q&A session with University Students where we talked about what to expect at university and what summer courses we should do to enrich our application.

In the latter half of the day, we moved into our case study, which had to do with forensic accounting. My team and I worked diligently and barely finished in the allotted time. I would say for myself this was the highlight of the entire event.

All in all, this was a tremendous experience. I learned so much throughout the competition, and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in business.