When Bailey Wright is in, she’s all in. This smart, energetic accounting student works hard at whatever she takes on, be it education or career preparation or pastime.

Wright began at Mississippi State without a major, but she soon found accounting was a good fit. Now a senior, Wright is an ASAC Ambassador and a member of Beta Alpha Psi. She holds a 4.0 GPA, is enrolled in MSU’s Shackouls Honors College and is also a member of the Phi Kappa Phi and Beta Gamma Sigma honoraries. She is due to graduate this December – a semester ahead of most of her classmates.

“The accounting program does a good job of teaching us what we need to know and also preparing us for our professional careers,” says the Pascagoula, MS, native. “The internship program is great – they connect with a lot of firms and really encourage you to participate.”

Wright attended four summer leadership conferences in 2016, exploring firms in Birmingham, AL; Jackson, MS; Memphis, TN, and Nashville, TN.  She was able to interview at some of the conferences and has accepted a spring 2017 tax internship with the Jackson firm.

Wright intentionally got a jump on the internship interview process, which typically takes place during the fall, to help keep her full autumn schedule manageable.

She serves as President of the MSU chapter of the Accounting & Financial Women’s Alliance, an organization for which she was a founding officer in 2014.  It now boasts about 75 members. The group focuses on connecting with professional peers as well as active community service, such as tax preparation assistance for low-income families.

“Our main project this fall was the ‘Professional Perspective’ event, where we invited accounting professionals representing different types of careers to speak about their jobs and about how women can succeed in the accounting world,” Wright notes.

The accounting major is also an artist.

“I’ve sung since I was young, and I knew I’d keep it up in college,” says Wright, who participated in national and state honor choirs in middle school and high school. “Without it, I wouldn’t be nearly as happy as I am.”

She is a member of the Mississippi State Singers. As the university’s premiere vocal ensemble of about 50 members, the choir requires a commitment to three practices a week. While the group is composed of both voice majors and non-majors, it was Wright who was tapped as the soprano soloist in Fauré’s “Requiem” performed last February with the Starkville-Mississippi State University Symphony Orchestra. She also took part in the Singers’ spring performance tour in Austria and the Czech Republic.

After graduation in December and her spring internship, Wright plans to start on her master’s degree and complete it by May of 2018. No doubt she will continue to go all out to succeed. When asked how she manages to do so well in so many areas, her modest reply comes back:

“Scheduling helps. I’m an extensive planner!”