How a MAC or MBT equips you with the skills to land your top job—and accelerate your career

Depending on your aspirations and chosen area of accounting expertise, pursuing a Master of Business Taxation (MBT) or a Master of Accounting (MAC) can be an excellent springboard toward a successful career, though the qualifications approach the field from different angles. 

Whichever master’s is the right path for you, it will help you develop the key skills you need to excel in your dream role—and to progress in your career. 

We spoke to two students who pursued their master’s at the Villanova School of Business about their programs, the jobs they secured ahead of studying, and how what they learned made them better in the workplace. 

How a MAC and MBT prepare you for the workplace

Both Isabella Francati and Ryan Blakeley agree that their highly specialized programs prepared them for the roles they had secured.

“Once I’d decided that I wanted to study for the extra credits, I wanted a curriculum that would make me a well-rounded professional who could step right into the workplace,” says Isabella, confirming that Villanova delivered on this, allowing her to hit the ground running when she secured a role as an international tax consultant at Deloitte.

Isabella says that as well as gaining a firm understanding of many types of taxation, her program also gave her an excellent grounding in analytics and exposure to software that she has gone on to use in her role.

The focus on analytics was also invaluable to Ryan. “The MAC made a lot of sense for me and my goals, and the analytics aspect really applied to me,” he says. “I really enjoyed the analytics-based classes I took at Villanova.”

How to combine a master’s with a professional role

Ryan has always enjoyed numbers and puzzles so a career in business and accounting was a logical move. Prior to enrolling in his MAC Ryan completed an undergrad degree at Villanova, during which he interned at EY. While there, he was offered full-time role with the accounting giant, which he accepted when EY agreed to allow him to delay his start date so he could undertake a MAC in order to complete the 150 credits he needed for his CPA license. He says that being able to start his MAC in spring rather than having to wait until the next year was very helpful.

Isabella (right) has also always been a “numbers person” and, while at college took an introduction to accounting class which, she says, “just clicked for me… and I discovered I like tax specifically because it’s very hands-on and we are able to make a difference for our clients.”

Isabella interned at Deloitte twice as part of her Business Administration bachelor’s  and was offered a role with the company—which she took up after completing her MBT and securing her CPA credits.

The skills will you learn in a MAC or MBT program

The MBT curriculum explores how taxation impacts business operations and strategy, with emphasis on tax research, policy, ethics, and the use of data analytics and emerging technologies.

Isabella says she took every tax class that she could while at Villanova. “Tax planning, corporate and partnership taxation, state and local tax, and mergers and acquisitions… I got a taste of everything, including international tax.”  

She believes having knowledge of different elements of taxation has been invaluable for helping ask the right questions in her role, for being able to communicate in meetings and to understand the needs of her colleagues and the demands they face. 

“There’s so much terminology in my line of work, and I became familiar with many acronyms that I’d have no idea about if I had not taken the MBT courses,” she adds. 

The MAC curriculum touches on taxation but primarily covers financial accounting, managerial accounting, and auditing.

As well as deepening his knowledge of data analytics Ryan learned about how data is warehoused and its different interactions within a system. “The program bridged the gap between seeing data and understanding data. That’s helped my career a lot, I now know how to work with different data sets, cleaning the data, looking at outliers, knowing how to query the data and to use it most effectively. Skills like that help me every day on the job.”

Ryan says that these skills have also helped him with AI implementations, and to understand that “you always need some human input to understand what data is telling you”. 

He also flags financial statement fraud and data security as key learnings from his master’s—Ryan is now a senior in EY’s forensic and integrity services. 

An opportunity to learn from experts, and from your peers

Ryan (right) enjoyed the group projects that he worked on during his program. “Everyone is at the same stage on the program, and you’re truly collaborating at this stage,” he says. As well as providing knowledge and insight for real-world situations, collaboration also nurtures softer skills such as communication and learning to trust your colleagues.

Isabella highlights the added value of being in classes led by experts. “Many of the teachers were current or retired partners at Big Four accounting firms, so we got insight into their work experiences. We were able to learn from what they had seen in real life, which we could then go onto apply in our own work,” she says.

How an MBT or MAC can help futureproof your career

“Taxes are growing and changing every day,” observes Isabella. “There’s a lot of tariff talk at the moment, as well as the implications of AI, tax reform and so on.” A solid foundation in tax matters and an agile mindset are valuable takeaways from a master’s.

Ryan believes that the skills he developed at Villanova, paired with what he has gone on to learn at EY, have prepared him for a highly successful and fruitful professional life.