Before Aoran Li could change the world, the numbers had to add up right.
A native of Beijing, Li earned a dual undergraduate degree in International Economics and Trade and French Studies from China’s University of International Business and Economics. But she quickly realized she’s have to broaden her skills and experience to have the career she ultimately wanted.
“I worked on a social enterprise project with two of my friends as part of the Hult Prize competition,” Li says of the famed start-up accelerator for young socially conscious entrepreneurs. “During the process, I found myself very weak in my financial knowledge. Looking ahead in my career, I thought it would be important for me to understand accounting and finance better, to improve my chances for long-term development.”
Li’s undergraduate studies included time abroad at NEOMA Business School in Reims, France, and she originally thought of returning to Europe for graduate school.
“I lived in Europe for six months and learned all about European cultures,” she explains. “I felt it would be really helpful if, while earning my master’s degree, I could learn another major culture — American.”
With a campus so close to Boston, Bentley was on Li’s “dream location” list of universities in the United States. And the graduate school’s size, academic specialties, and accommodating application process for international students helped narrow her choices even further. Looking back after finishing her graduate accounting degree, Li says she didn’t regret the decision for a minute.
“Bentley’s graduate accounting program is flexible, and the facilities are equipped with the best technologies,” Li says. “The class size was perfect, and I loved the professors I had at Bentley.”
The feeling is mutual. In May, Li was awarded Bentley’s Federation of Schools of Accountancy Student Award, presented to the student that department faculty vote as most outstanding, inside the classroom and out. The combination of her stellar grades and campus involvement (during her time at Bentley, Li was a peer mentor in the undergraduate Women’s Leadership Program at the Center for Women in Business, and served as vice president of marketing for the Graduate Accounting Association and president of Graduate Women’s Leadership Organization) made Li an easy choice.
For now, Li plans on taking her master’s in accounting back to Beijing to continue her work in risk assurance at PricewaterhouseCoopers’ office there. Ultimately, however, she’d like to return to the challenge that set her on the path to Bentley in the first place: starting an organization that enact some kind of social change.
“My goal is to start or work in a social enterprise,” Li says, “something to help alleviate people’s problems and make our world a better place.”