And finally, part two of an interview with second-year GSCFM student, Denise Moller, CBF, CICP. Moller was chosen by her classmates as the class of 2012's Best Student last night during the graduation ceremony, and will receive her award at next year's Credit Congress in Las Vegas.

I've said this to everybody, but it seems like the networking here is just as important as the educational sessions. What would you say the difference is between the networking atmosphere in the first year and the networking atmosphere in the second?

I think the first year you come here you really don't know what to expect. You meet people that are at all different levels in their career, and it's fortunate. I am not at the point at my career, say, where [current second-year GSCFM student and Immediate Past National NACM Chairman] Kathy Tomlin is, and it meant a lot to me to be able to look at someone that's further on in their career, and see what steps I could take in my career to reach my personal goals and my professional goals within the industry. So just speaking with her and other people, and the financial statements courses, were the highlight of this. Not that the others didn't serve a purpose, but if I had to say what was the most important for me I would have to say the networking and the financial statement classes.

Are you guys planning on staying in touch after graduation?

I do hope that through Credit Congresses we'll be able to meet up with people, and I know that over the course of the last year I emailed different people and texted different people, so I do hope that we'll be able to stay in contact.

I know that some people's companies are not as willing to send them to different things, and I for one am very fortunate to be able to participate in those, so I know I will see certain people. [Fellow second-year student] Julia Ungren, her company just acquired a company that's an hour away from me, and next week she's coming in for a meeting, so we're hoping to be able to get together, and hopefully we'll continue to do that.

Like I said, I'm not at the end of my career. I'm hoping to establish a network over the years because I feel that the things you pick up from other people are what make you a better person for your company, things that you might not necessarily learn on your own, but that you learn from experiences with others.

How long have you been doing credit?

I have been doing collections 26 years, but I have been doing credit for six, and I never really knew there was a huge difference just because this was my job responsibility and this is what they called it. Then when you get into other companies, what they're calling credit and collections are two different functions; there are the collection people and there are the credit people. I have worked for other companies that are much smaller compared to some of these others, and I never worked with companies where, you know, we're making these multi-milion dollar deals and we're getting these financials. I rarely, rarely see financials

So that has been one of the best things for me as far as NACM is concerned, being exposed to that so that I'm not so tunnel-visioned.

NACM thanks all of our first-year and second-year students for attending the Graduate School of Credit and Financial Managment (GSCFM) program! To learn more about how to apply for next year's program, click here.