Junior Candace Brown has big dreams

Candace Brown, a junior accounting major, hopes to one day open a credit union geared toward college students. And she’s not waiting until she graduates to get started on achieving her goal. Instead, Brown is taking steps now to prime herself for the future, and one of the key ways is through an internship with Southern Community Banking and Trust. Brown is an intern in the corporate office of accounting and finance at Southern Community Bank. Among other things, she is learning to depreciate fixed assets, and balance and reconcile accounts. After graduation from Winston-Salem State University , Brown said she intends to enter graduate school and earn both a master’s degree and Ph.D. in accounting. Ultimately, she would like to become a certified public account and start a credit union. “Students need to be managed financially from the age of 18-25 in order to prevent bad debt,” she said. The internship at Southern Community Banking and Trust is one in a long series of steps Brown will take on the road to fulfilling her dream. She said, “It is a great experience to take along with me to graduate school.”  Earlier this year, Brown was featured in the leadership lecture series at the School of Business and Economics. Scott Bauer, chief executive officer of Southern Community Bank and Trust, complimented Brown on her involvement in the series. He added that “she did a wonderful job, and she is a great speaker.”