Logan Arciba can see a long way past graduation. He’ll walk the stage this December having earned both his BBA in accounting and his master’s in accountancy. “My plans after graduation are to work as a tax associate at an accounting firm while pursuing my CPA and eventually joining the United States Air Force to commission as an officer,” he says. “If all things go well, I want to open my own business after the Air Force with my knowledge in accounting and any other experience I gain along the way.”
Arciba is equal to these goals in part because of some important lessons he’s learned at TLU—and not just in class. Some of the most profound lessons, in fact, were rooted in challenge.
“Growing up, I always knew I had to work hard, but in college it became a whole new meaning,” he says. It was fairly early in his undergrad career that Arciba learned that keeping up with homework, extracurricular assignments through his involvement in Bulldog Investment Company, plus devoting enough time to his studies meant staying up into the wee hours multiple nights—sometimes for weeks in a row. But in hindsight, he says those sacrifices paid off. “While at times I would be frustrated by the sleepless nights or how hard some of these studies might be, the reward was always sweeter,” he says. “As a result, one of the best lessons I’ve learned is that sometimes you will need to work hard, lose sleep, and be stressed out to get to the place you want to be and grow.”
During his sophomore year, Arciba had experienced some hardships in his personal life, and that, couple with the fact that he wasn’t used to studying (up until then he’d always managed to earn good grades without a lot of effort), left him with less than stellar grades. He began to question whether he could handle such a tough degree program. “But through my advisors and the people surrounding me, I learned better time management and how to become organized in the things I do with planners, setting reminders on my phone, and making time to study. As such, I really learned it is not how you start but how you finish, and rather, how you handle adversity when it gets thrown your way.”
Carrying those lessons forward into his life, Arciba’s goals transcend a dream job, a big paycheck, or a corner office. “Whatever I do in my life, I want to make a difference in people’s lives,” he says. “I want to do something that can bring people happiness and spread peace.”
It all boils down to doing his part to make the world a better place. He may one day open a nonprofit, although he’s not sure yet what that will look like. And he sees the value in simply living the right way, making a positive impression on those who cross his path. “At the end of the day, we are all humans and if I can teach one person to have more compassion and empathy and they spread that to another person, then I am doing what I want to do,” he says. “There are genuine people out there and I think people tend to forget that, so if I can remind people of that, then I would be very happy.”