Moah Son transferred to Baruch after a single semester at NYU—the buzz among her friends was that the accounting program at Baruch was superior. “I ended up in the same place—or better—than the people in my class who went on to
private schools,” she muses. A dazzling academic achiever (her GPA is 3.95), Son attributes her success to playing the violin since childhood. Long before college, she was first violinist with the Long Island Youth Orchestra, eventually becoming concert master. It was the violin, Son believes, that instilled in her the discipline that has made her an outstanding student, and it was the violin that became her passport to the world. “I think it’s shaped everything I’ve done. It demands that you be very meticulous.” Because the orchestra performed extensively, Son traveled to 35 countries while still a high school student. The passion for travel has stayed with her. Of the many places she’s been, Son says, “I really loved Africa—the culture, the wilderness, the importance of family and clan.”
Son is game to go anywhere anytime. During the January 2002 intersession, she hopped onto a Hunter College–sponsored study-abroad program that took her to Florence, Venice, and Pisa. The summer between her junior and senior years, she worked in London, one of only three students nationwide awarded a prestigious offshore internship with Deloitte & Touche, the firm she will join upon graduation.
Son regards accountancy as the core of all American business but says her true passion is for the law: “I’m very outgoing and outspoken. The law fits my personality.” In two years’ time, she plans to attend law school and emerge as a tax accountant. While that may sound very far removed from the violin, there’s harmony in everything Son does. Don’t be surprised if one day she’s the tax accountant for the New York Philharmonic.

—ZB