Putting students first

Davis Family Faculty Fellow Sonia Singh thrives in using her passion for teaching to help students succeed.

“@ProfSingh when is the homework assignment due?”

“@user123 Friday night 11:59pm :-)”

Davis Family Faculty Fellow Sonia Singh stands out among the University of Florida Warrington College of Business’s prestigious faculty partly for her extensive work experience and partly for her drive to help students succeed. One of the ways she supports her students is through an online forum where she can be counted on to respond to any question in less than 10 minutes.

“I want students to have everything they need to be successful,” she said. “By fostering a supportive and collaborative relationship with students, I hope to empower them to explore their interests, hone their skills and expertise and navigate their professional aspirations with confidence.”

In her courses at the Warrington College of Business, Singh has covered everything from introductory, intermediate and advanced financial accounting to courses concerning federal income taxation, governmental accounting, tax research, accounting regulation and more. She also teaches a course in the LL.M. in Tax program at the Levin College of Law.

“If it covers financial accounting or taxation, I can teach it!” she said.

Being a quadruple Gator with undergraduate and graduate degrees in accounting, a Juris Doctor and a Master of Laws in Taxation degree – and maintaining several professional licenses, including her CPA license and membership of the Florida Bar as an attorney – Singh is not only equipped to grant her students the academic insight they need to understand these topics, but she can back it up with professional experience, as well.

From childhood, Singh grew up working at her parents’ accounting business. At first, she only helped with simple tasks, but her responsibilities grew until, by the time she was in college, she was handling individual and corporate tax returns every tax season. While in graduate school, she branched into accounting consulting for small to mid-size businesses.

It was also while she was in graduate school that Singh discovered her passion for teaching. Every Friday, she found herself looking forward to leading accounting lab sections in her role as a student assistant and especially to the “lightbulb” moments that gratified her when she succeeded in explaining a difficult problem.

“I know it’s an overused sentiment, but accounting really is the language of business,” she said. “I view accounting as an invented science. With accounting, even the most complex transactions can be analyzed in a logical manner, and everything must be balanced.

“Once you understand the logical rules, any transaction can be analyzed and explained to fit together nicely. I found, and continue to find, that accounting is fascinating and beautiful. I hope my enthusiasm and passion for teaching and accounting inspires the students to appreciate accounting as much as I do.”

Since becoming a full professor, Singh teaches many of the classes she took as a student, including the Tax Professional Research course (TAX5065) for the recently retired Jesse Boyles. In this course and others, she’s taking the opportunity to contemporize the material by integrating data analytics and artificial intelligence. One of her priorities is to teach students how to handle modern tools and foster their adaptability so they can use technology as it advances throughout their careers. Of the Tax Professional Research course, she said,

“To say that I had big shoes to fill is an understatement!” she exclaimed. “Still, given my background as an alumna of the Fisher School of Accounting and the Levin College of Law and being licensed as a CPA and lawyer, I am confident that I can successfully update and excel at teaching the course. So far, after two semesters of teaching the course, the student feedback has been overwhelmingly positive.

“I have had a lot of fun incorporating my legal expertise into the course while also building on Professor Boyles’ foundation by updating [it] for new technologies and research practices.”

When she’s not teaching or preparing her own course materials for publication, Singh can be found exploring Gainesville with her husband and two children, teaching her daughter how to play video games and caring for her parrots, Yoshi and Bubbles. Throughout her day, she keeps a device close at hand to be available for whatever pings come from the student forum – just another way that Singh prioritizes putting students first.