Just curious any charterholder has a phd? How do you rank the difficulty of completing a CFA with phd?
For example, for me, I guess completing CFA is twice as hard as completing my undegrad degree
This is a joke right? If you’re talking about any of the quantitative fields (statistics, math, engineering, psychics… etc) the CFA is nothing in comparison. Nothing in the CFA program is difficult, it’s just a lot thrown at you at once over dozens of topics. If the CFA was 2X harder than your undergrad, I’m sorry, you must have had a crummy undergrad
Thanks for letting me know I have a crummy undergrad. I suspect it long ago as I encountered one finance grad who does not know how to do time value of money
There is little in the world that compares with writing a Ph.D. thesis, be it quantitative or not. And the CFA doesn’t even come close. CFA might be better compared with a Master’s degree. I’d say the amount of work compares to one of those accelerated full-time 1-year professional masters’ degrees, except that it’s actually spread out over three years.
CFA material wise was 3rd year undergrad at best…the hard thing about CFA is that you get 1 shot and if you fail, you get wacked and no girls will ever date you… i took some phd courses in econ when i was in grad school…they were very difficult (but useless). PHDs require a ton more work in addition to way more brain power…however, not many ppl fail their PHDs, they just take forever to do it
Personal Experience: Master’s degree (Math) ~ Actuarial exams (through to ASA) > Bachelor degree (Math) ~ CFA Exams. CFA Exams on par with 2 or 3rd year undergrad.
Are we talking difficulty or prestige here? Still think the CFA designation pisses on having any kind of masters degrees (in terms of prestige). When I meet people with master’s degree (I have one myself btw), I’m like, yeah whatever, you stayed in school for another year or two like half the people in this office did and took some classes that were a bit more challenging than undergrad, and maybe spent a summer writing some thesis that was nothing ground breaking. I meet someone who has done CFA while working full time and has a family maybe, I think wow, really impressive. It’s not so much that I’m impressed with what they know, it’s the fact that they’ve showed so much commitment. I’m studying for level I and work full time and have kids, this is more challenging than completing any degree I’ve ever done. And I’m only on level 1 !!! Maybe I just did shit degrees. Ph. D., different story, I’m still more impressed with that than CFA.
And I also have a hot classy babe wife who demands lots of attention too.
I passed CFA 3 and I feel that having a masters is much more prestige. Entering into a masters is not easy (At least for me)
@maisatomai: under what circumstances did you do CFA !, II, III? Were you studying, working, have a wife, kids, girlfriend, part-time job? Also, have you done a master’s? (please don’t interpret this as a high and mighty statement, I’ll explain why I’m asking this below) I think my attitude to CFA vs. master’s is skewed towards the CFA for 3 reasons. 1) I’ve done a master’s and I think any time you’ve done something, the mystique, the glory, or whatever you want to call it is taken out a little bit. When I was in high school, getting through college seemed like this huge challenge, and then you do that and it wasn’t really so bad and you think doing a master’s is this huge challenge, and then you do that and think it really wasn’t that bad, and then you think getting into a top firm is going to this huge challenge, and then you do that and it just seems normal and not a big deal as it did before. Maybe when I’ve passed all 3 levels, I’ll look back and think it was pretty easy, but from everyone I’ve spoken to I’m thinking maybe I won’t. 2) my personal circumstances (i.e. working 50+ hours a week, 3 hour daily commute, wife, kids, etc.) really accentuate the challenge of pursuing the CFA accreditation. Studying is what I do in my spare time, it’s not what I do full time. With my master’s, bachelor’s, etc, it’s what you do full time, and then you have spare time to do what you want. For this reason I think the master’s is easier. If you did a master’s whilst working full-time, then no, it’s not easier, I agree with this. 3) The CFA is directly related to the industry I’m in. It’s an extremely practical curriculum. We had a consultant come in recently to help us with some stuff, and on his email signature it mentioned he had the CFA charter. This is like a gold seal to me. I immediately make positive assumptions about this person. If this person had a master’s in chemistry, yeah that’s cool, but I really wouldn’t care. At the end of the day, these discussions are all a bit “I bet you spiderman can beat batman”. I’m just telling you from the perspective of my education, work experience, and personal circumstances, how I see things.
Actually I did my CFA 1,2,3 under quite tough circumstaces. CFA 1) Thesis year. CFA 2) Arrival of my first baby+full time work. CFA 3) Arrival of my second baby+full time work. I totally agree with your last statement. But what the other forummers said make me think that actually passing CFA level 3 is not a acheivement after all. FrankArabia said it is just 3rd yr undergrad work. All the hundred of millions of graduates in the world will acheive that.
I agree that the CFA material is not hugely complicated. What makes it difficult is that you need soak up all that material to sit 1 exam. If that material had been covered in a 3rd year undergrad degree, it would be 12 exams. So much crap I learnt in college I just memorized the night before the exam and then just regurgitated the next on the exam, then I had forgotten it within a week. You could easily get away with not really understanding stuff and still do well. My approach to CFA is completely different 1) I actually want to know most of the material. College (undergrad and grad) was just about getting a piece of paper for me so that I could get a good job. The reason I’m doing this CFA business is because it frustrates me hearing people at work talking about stuff I don’t understand. 2) I can’t memorize the of volume of formulas required to pass the exam. My approach with all the formulas is to actually try to understand them (i.e. why is that in numerator/denominator, etc.). This is an approach that I rarely had in college. Just memorize the 12 formulas, take exam, forget. The above basically explains why I don’t have much relative respect for MSs than I do for CFA titles.
CFA or PhD? It’s like comparing a steak with a roast chicken. You can eat them both but they’re very different animals. Now I haven’t done a PhD, though my wife has one from spending nearly four years examining a fungus which grows on sheep shit, but I think it’s fair to say that a PhD requires more work than the CFA, although it’s spread out a lot more. As we all know, the CFA is difficult not because of the material, but the sheer quantity of it. But it’s probably more difficult than an undergrad - how many people do you know who failed their undergrad? About zero I suspect. You’ve got to be a complete smackhead to fail an undergrad, but failing the CFA is pretty easy.
Definitely a pretty apples and oranges comparison. Still would like to hear from people who have done both. I still don’t really get how most PHD programs work. I know guys who finished their PHD in physics by the time they were 23 and I know other, also very smart people, who are 30 and still working on their PHDs in English. It’s not such a clean cut route near as far as I can tell. I wonder, a lot of you that are calling CFA similar to 2+3 year of undergrad, if you are coming from math, finance and econ backgrounds to begin with. If I studied finance in undergrad then I would probably find the curriculum pretty easy too because because this would mean that I already have four years of studying this stuff, obviously like it because I’ve decided to major in it, and am probably naturally talented at it vs other subjects. One of my majors was Russian. I figure if you finance majors had to become fluent in Russian suddenly over the course of 3 years while working full-time you would consider it damn difficult and probably impossible. I went to, from what I am told, an elite liberal arts school (rhymes with Bratwurst) and I did not find it very challenging. If you wanted to work your ass off and learn a lot you could. But if you wanted to coast you could as well. Not the case with the CFA. I worked way harder then I ever worked in undergrad and failed level 3 band 5 last spring.
I can’t believe this is even being argued, as someone pointed out you can’t fail undergrad, you can’t fail a PhD, you CAN fail the CFA and odds are you will at least one level. CFA is much harder in this respect, there is always that element of luck involved, whereas with the PhD it’s just like a masters as long as you put in the time you will get it eventually. With the CFA no amount of time can ever 100% sure secure a pass. What material is harder? PhD no doubt. Which one is harder to get through CFA and it’s not even debatable.
Some of the earlier commetns on Master’s vs. CFA in terms of prestige or notability; BS in Finance/Math/etc. with the CFA designation easily trumps a Master’s without the CFA, at least in the world of finance. I have a Master’s degree, and so do many people in this buisness. It’s almost becoming the new bachelors degree. A Master’s degree and the CFA charter is very desirable combination. That being said, there are many people in my firm who are successful asset managers and do not have a CFA charter nor the desire to get one. I think after you have a cetain amount of experience and a track record, that, in many cases, speaks for itself.
Few people fail a Ph.D. as in “get tossed out of the program.” Many many people give up before the end. Many a person with a non-professional masters’ degree is a Ph.D. dropout, if you scratch the surface. Social science and humanities Ph.D. candidates tend to take longer than exact sciences and mathematics Ph.D.s. I personally think this is because logical arguments made with natural language (in social sciences) and heuristic interpretations (in the humanities) are a lot harder to evaluate convincingly, whereas the mathematical and experimental stuff either works or it doesn’t or if it only partially works, it is clear where those borders end. As a result, it is a lot harder to build a strong case for a thesis in a qualitative subject, and it requires a lot more analysis of evidence and contrary hypotheses, which takes a lot more time. None of this means that the quantitative stuff: math, physics, etc. is easy, but it is easier to show whether your contribution to the field is a) correct, and b) original. When I taught, I was surprised to find that teaching the qualitative parts of topics was much much harder to do than teach the quantitative parts. As a learner, quantitative stuff is sometimes more intimidating, because if you are incorrect or wrong, it is more apparent. But as an instructor, figuring out how to get across effective qualitative analysis is much harder to do, because it’s harder to explain why “this way is right, this way isn’t” (or, more likely, “this way is better; this way is worse”).
i have done both an MA and CFA. MA is by far more prestiges and harder (if you want to do well). no question about it. the MA experience was intellectual, the CFA was just a tradesman’s license. i will be the first to say this, CFA is a requirement. Masters is a privilege. PHD is for the gifted or downright nerds.
Frankarabia, did u do ur ms in a ultra elite school? Maybe that explains for the toughness?
top 3 in Canada which isn’t “elite” compared to your MITs, Harvards, etc…however, grad work is grad work (advanced macro, econometrics and micro should not be terrible different, however i did hear U of Chicago is a step ahead of everybody) …