PERSONAL ETHICS PAPER (What Ethics Means to You): Write a 10 page, single spaced paper setting out your thoughts and views on what it means TO YOU to be an ethical professional. Use your answers and thoughts from Checkpoints 1-3 in writing this. Please use your answers to the questions asked in those checkpoints as well as the following points as you write this final assignment: How do you currently see yourself in terms of the ethics theory we have studied this semester? What values do you hold dear? (Checkpoint #1) Who, if anyone, or what events in your life have led you to who you are today? Is there a mentor in your life that helped you to develop these values? (Checkpoint #1) What values would you like to add to your life in the future? What steps do you plan on taking to become the person you want to become? Or is there someone that you identify with and admire that embodies your ethical standards?  (Checkpoint #2) Upon becoming a CPA, what obligations are you undertaking and to whom are they owed? What values will underlie your approach to professionalism and how will they be manifested in the practice of your profession. What are the most important characteristics of the professional and by what standards have you determined those?  (Checkpoint #3) What do you see for yourself as a person and as a professional in the next five years? Ten? Twenty? (Checkpoint #3).  Expand on this section, give it plenty of thought, measureable goals, and create the future road map of your career and also personal goals if you choose. Please use single line-spacing/Arial 12 point font/1” margins and, again, YES, you can use your three checkpoints to write it.   Checkpoint #1: Write a two to three page typed, single spaced paper on what ethics means to you, and what or who has had influence over your ethical values. This assignment, as are Checkpoints #2 and #3, is about YOU, so please talk in the first person and do not tell me what the book says. I want to know about YOU and what YOU think. What ethical theory fits you best and why? Do you see yourself as an Egoist, Utilitarian, Deontologist, etc.? Why? Give examples. Have you always been this way or have you changed over time? If you have changed, which ethical theories did you transition between? Give examples. Have you had any significant positive and/or negative influences in your life? What did you learn from them? What does ethics mean to you?   Checkpoint #2:   Write at least a two to three page typed spaced paper based on the following criteria: 1)    Choose a specific VIRTUE (see the Mintz book if you are not sure what a virtue is – the one you pick does not have to be one of Aristotle’s Cardinal Virtues) you would like to develop in yourself. Explain what the virtue means to YOU and why YOU want more of that virtue in your life. 2)    Design a Service Project you COULD do this Semester, which would help you develop this particular virtue. Demonstrate you know where and how to secure this volunteering opportunity. Be as specific as possible. Name the place, time, hours, and what you would be doing, for whom and under what supervision. 3)    Explain How and Why your proposed service learning internship would change your personality, improve your habits, and result in your acquiring this virtue in YOUR life.     Checkpoint #3: Identify and document your  “Suggested Principles of Conduct for MY Successful Accounting Career/Life.” This should be a document that you can refer to daily. It can be in any format you like (although it must be in paragraph format in your Ethics Paper) and be as detailed as you like it to be for this Checkpoint. The assignment will be based on the amount of thought you put into the principles you select for your life, not the number of principles you identify or the length of the assignment.