A Chapter in Excellence
Student leader is accountable for his own future
By Risa G. Merl

It takes a lot to become president of a professional organization on campus. But it takes even more to admit that the organization isn’t serving its members as well as it could and to go out and find something new. Just ask Zameer Upadaya, accounting senior at Florida International University. Upadaya was president of FIU’s Accounting Association when he felt discontent with what the organization was offering its members. “I started to see that we had exposure to [accounting] professionals in Miami, but we didn’t have exposure to professionals across the country,” Upadaya says. “And we need that because business today is global.”

Upadaya did research and found out about an upcoming convention for the Association of Latino Professionals in Finance and Accounting (ALPFA)—an organization that’s been around for thirty years. He and five other students traveled to Las Vegas to participate in the convention. After learning more about ALPFA and deciding it was the right group for him, Upadaya approached the national president of the organization to ask about getting a chapter started at his school. “The most important part was opening doors of opportunity for students at FIU to meet people within the community and across the country in terms of networking, scholarship, and internships opportunities,” Upadaya says.

Upadaya now sits on ALPFA’s national board as their only student director. “We meet every quarter in a different city to further the vision of the organization, set the guidelines for fundraising, and set the tone for what we want to do,” he says. Upadaya helped to create a professional ALPFA chapter in Miami as well. Like the national board, this chapter wanted a student from sit on the board, so Upadaya stepped up to fill this role as well. He transitioned out of this role after a year, and other FIU students have taken this position. “They sit on the board with professionals in the community who can help them find a job and scholarships. It says, ‘Yeah, you’re a student, but you’re regarded now as someone who’s about to become a professional.’ You have all these opportunities just open up to you,” Upadaya says.

One of his goals is to create more opportunities for students across the country by starting up more ALPFA college chapters. “We have a chapter at FIU, we’re starting one at the University of Central Florida, we have a couple in New York, and we have one that I just helped start at the University of New Mexico,” Upadaya says. “We have 20 student chapters, and the numbers are just growing.” At the last ALPFA convention, Updaya was awarded as its national student of the year. “Hopefully, we can get someone from FIU to win again next year,” he says.

Currently, Upadaya is working for Johnson & Johnson in its financial leadership development program while he finishes up his last class at FIU via correspondence study.

Contact Upadaya at 954-802-1197 or visit ALPFA at www.alpfa.org.

Copyright © 2006 Oxendine Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved