WK senior advisor Stacey Emms is saying goodbye to years of juggling study with twin babies after completing her Chartered Accountancy qualification.
An advisor with WK since leaving school 10 years ago, it’s the second qualification Stacey has completed via distance, after first completing her degree extramurally.
Her degree, a bachelor of businesses with an accounting major, took her about seven years to complete, while her chartered accountancy required three years of studying about 10 hours per week.
“I did a few of my papers while I was pregnant and then I did most of them when I was on maternity leave … I just had one last paper to do when I came back to work,” Stacey says.
“I’m really lucky that I had a lot of family and friends in town that could watch the boys for me, and work has been really flexible with my maternity leave so that I could finish it.”
Gaining the chartered accountancy qualification was always something Stacey wanted to do in order to be able to add value for her clients.
“It’s not something I had to do, it was just a goal that I wanted to do; when I started studying I thought ‘why stop half way, I may as well do the whole lot’,” she says.
It was also a bonus to have real-life scenarios from her work at WK to apply to the theory she was learning.
“The things that I have learned when doing the papers and study I could relate back to clients … it has definitely improved my knowledge base and value add,” Stacey says.
Putting the hard work in while the twins, now two, were young means Stacey can now take a step back and enjoy quality time with her family without study at the back of her mind.
“It was hard, but it was worth it. I was struggling away and trying to stay up until midnight to study but I could see the benefit at the other end,” she says.
“There will still be ongoing things that I’ll need to do, but it’s a big relief. Now that the boys are getting a bit older I feel like I have done my time, my study, and that I can spend my free time with them; I’m glad I have got it out of the way.”
Stacey says having the support of WK was a big help to get her through her studies, and to adjust to life with the twins.
“WK looks after staff which is great. They don’t pressure you to study but they are very supportive of doing it … and they are all about the work-life balance.”
Stacey continues to work part time while raising the boys and is looking forward to returning to WK full time when they are old enough.