CalCPA Outstanding Accounting Senior Award 2024-2025
Nicholas Saba, Accounting class of 2025, received the 2024-2025 California Society of Certified Public Accounts (CalCPA) Outstanding Accounting Senior Award.
During COVID, Nicholas engaged in learning about the financial system by opening his own brokerage account, and was fascinated by the sheer importance of accounting data he analyzed during this process.
When Nicholas came to Santa Clara University, he started as a finance major, but at the beginning of his sophomore year, he took an introductory accounting course with Professor Danny Wallace. The instructor’s enthusiasm, charisma, and storied career revealed that accounting was Nicholas’s true passion. Nicholas was excited every time coming to class, and he enjoyed learning all the various methods, practices, and case studies Professor Wallace had to offer. Nicholas remarked, “He is the best professor I have ever had and was an integral part of why I am an accounting major.”
Nicholas has taken it upon himself to explore accounting beyond the classroom. He interned at Truveta, a start-up working to help centralize and analyze healthcare data in the US. Because of its small size, he had direct access to the CFO and the controller, and the conversations he had with them and the work, completely deepened Nicholas’s interest in the field and confirmed his desire to pursue the accounting degree.
Finally, Nicholas would like to thank Chair Siqi Li for nominating him for the CalCPA award. Secondly, he would like to thank Professor Wendy Donohoe. Professor Donohoe was his academic advisor, and without her counsel and classes, he would not have been an accounting major.