Meet Lauren Ledesma – a double major in Accounting and Business Administration and a member of the Class of 2023. Lauren had a different experience at Chapman than most considering she transferred in the spring of 2021 as a junior. One of the most impactful experiences she has had at Chapman was when she had her first on-campus class in the Fall of 2021. She said, “it was the first time I had actually felt like a college student.”

Campus Involvement

Since she did not spend all 4 years at Chapman, her involvement was limited. However, she joined a sorority, Kappa Alpha Theta, and the Chapman Accounting Society. One of her favorite memories has been Kappa Alpha Theta’s Bid Day in 2022 when she accepted a bid and met some of the most incredible people that she would soon grow very close to. “It was great to be accepted into an amazing group of women and it helped me get more involved with campus life,” said Ledesma.

Important Figures

In Lauren’s short time at Chapman, she has met so many amazing people, but one person who has helped her through so much in such a small amount of time has been her friend Maggie Stalnecker. “We are both accounting students and had many of the same classes together. Even though we have been in multiple amounts of classes together since the Fall of 2021, we only started becoming friends the fall semester of 2022 and we immediately connected about way more than just accounting,” she said. Since the discovery of their soul-mate-level friendship, they have spent countless amount of hours together talking about school, coffee, and anything they can think of.

Additionally, there are a few professors who have made a profound impact on Miss Ledesma, one of them being Professor Lacy Willis. Lauren had Lacy for Intermediate Financial Accounting 1 & 2 and Audit. She said “Lacy’s classes have definitely been some of the hardest classes I have ever taken but having such an amazing professor helped a lot. She has definitely been an inspiration to everything I was to achieve in accounting.” Another professor that has impacted Lauren’s Chapman experience is Professor Hank Adler, an accounting professor who filled his classes with countless stories from his 25 years as a tax partner and various aspects of his life. Because of Hank, Lauren now reads the Wall Street Journal on a regular basis. Hank has taught Lauren invaluable lessons and she says that she will sincerely miss taking his tax classes.

Post-Grad Plans

Right after she graduates, Lauren is planning a great Europe trip with her best friends to Italy, Greece, Switzerland, France, and the Netherlands since she never got the chance to study abroad. After she returns from her trip she will be starting a full-time position at the firm that she has been an intern for, Luttrell Wegis, as a Forensic Accounting Associate. She will also be studying for the CPA exam.

—

Lauren’s advice to incoming freshmen is to “be open to new opportunities and experiences. Never lose sight of why you started and what you are working towards. And also that everything works out for the best, things might not work out the way you planned but everything will always work out the way it is supposed to be.”

We are so excited to see where Lauren’s future takes her and want to congratulate her for an incredible run, while short, at Chapman’s Argyros School. Go get ’em, Lauren!