Did you guys learning anything in college? I may be graduating at the end of the year. Seems I only know the basic stuff like CAPM, WACC, DCF etc. When did you guys learn about modelling and analysing companies? What’s the difference between MBA and masters? Do you think i’ll be ready to do CFA next year and pass? Thanks for any input.
Plenty of people leave college with minimum financial knowledge. If you do the CFA curriculum you will be fine. You’ll learn modeling on the job if you get one. As far as the masters, I assume you mean masters of finance. These degrees can vary. A standard MSF is very much like an MBA with a heavy finance concentration. The program takes 1 year because you remove the marketing and management type stuff. There are also masters in financial engineering or quantitative finance. These programs are very quant, and require a quant undergrad with legit computer programming skills. If you put in the requifred work, you can pass LI with no problem.
arbitageur Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Did you guys learning anything in college? I may > be graduating at the end of the year. Seems I only > know the basic stuff like CAPM, WACC, DCF etc. That’s about all I learned that was immediately applicable to investment banking/equity research > When did you guys learn about modelling and > analysing companies? I didn’t do any financial modeling in college. Everything I learned was either during my summer internship on the buy-side, or in my experiences in equity research/private equity. It obviously helps to have some technical knowledge going into the job, but most of the time, if you’re just interviewing for jobs, they just want to see that you’re hungry for the job and you know what you’re getting yourself into. > Do you think i’ll be ready to do CFA next year and > pass? I don’t know anything about you, so I can’t comment on this.
I did my undergrad in business. A BBA from UofT (Toronto). I found that every subject on the level 1 exam except ethics and part of fixed income was a review. even for level 2, things like multiple regression, derivatives, about half of portfolio management, equity (as a side note, Gordon from GGM was a UofT prof) etc. was already covered in school. Anyone else find this? P.s. dont get me wrong, the exam is still tough, but relearning something is much less stressful than learning it for the first time.
Personally, I did most of the curriculum through my coursework (I’m a Finance major, Econ minor), but not in as much depth. The only quant subject that was really new to me was derivatives, but that was only a small part of the Level I exam. I had a modeling class as a Junior (which is where I learned VBA and SAS - definately good things to know going in), but it wasn’t terribly similar to anything that I did in my internships.
UndergradCFA, quick question, did your school have a semester long course in derivatives? I am just trying to get an idea of what type of courses people take in undergrad. For example, I took a financial economics course where about 2 months were devoted to deriving CAPM and Black Scholes.
I_HeartAccounting Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > UndergradCFA, quick question, did your school have > a semester long course in derivatives? > > I am just trying to get an idea of what type of > courses people take in undergrad. For example, I > took a financial economics course where about 2 > months were devoted to deriving CAPM and Black > Scholes. I’m actually taking it now, in my final semester. It’s one of those courses where nobody does well (I put it off for a reason, after all), but you learn your way around the Hull book, at least. Though a few friends said that after taking the course, the CAIA was a cake walk, so it’s something I might try if I passed Level I.
State university finance major. I passed L1 with about 100 hours of self-study less than a month after graduation (and I was a VERY marginal student). Any competent finance curriculum should cover equities, fixed-income, derivatives, economics, accounting, and foreign exchange, among other financial topics. In addition, any competent business program should cover Excel in-depth and some VBA. If not, I’d say the program’s academics are pretty worthless.
so kkent, you studied L1 during university? and undergradCFA, you’re also in college? impressive. Im double majoring in actuarial studies and finance…but I dont attend lectures (and not working), so I have plenty of time at the moment. Is it possible to sign up for CFA now and do the exam in 2010? Because next year, i’ll hopefully be doing Honours (i dont know if you guys have heard of this - it’s equivalent to graduating cum laude but takes an extra year on top of the undergraduate degree which is only 3 years in australia). As for internships…I didnt get any. Many internships were cancelled this summer and many firms reduced their internship intakes (and I also imagine that there’s a lot less firms offering internships in aus compared to usa). I happened to accept an internship that later got cancelled. Does this put me in a disadvantage when I go looking for graduate jobs?
I learned a lot of basics in Undergrad, but I did learn quite a bit of modelling b/c this Stats class I took was taught by this triple time 3M winner of a prof who LOVED Excel. Honestly, don’t worry too much - you’ll pick up where undergrad leaves off with the CFA program. As long as you have the basic concepts ingrained, I’m sure you’ll be fine. For example, in Level 2, you cover the discounted free cash flow to equity model. If you understand the layout of any DDM model, you’ll grasp it quite quickly. Also, try to take as many financial accounting courses as possible (if you plan on truly being an Analyst). Understanding all the nuances of GAAP will help you immensely!
arbitageur Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > so kkent, you studied L1 during university? and > undergradCFA, you’re also in college? impressive. > Im double majoring in actuarial studies and > finance…but I dont attend lectures (and not > working), so I have plenty of time at the moment. > Is it possible to sign up for CFA now and do the > exam in 2010? For God’s sake why would you want to be an actuary?
kkent Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > State university finance major. I passed L1 with > about 100 hours of self-study less than a month > after graduation (and I was a VERY marginal > student). Any competent finance curriculum should > cover equities, fixed-income, derivatives, > economics, accounting, and foreign exchange, among > other financial topics. In addition, any competent > business program should cover Excel in-depth and > some VBA. If not, I’d say the program’s academics > are pretty worthless. I am beginning to think that kkent is an amiable guy, except when threads on anything right-wing appear on AF. Were you the Chairman of the Christian Union in the State University you attended?
No, i definitely dont want to be an actuary. My highschool career advisor told me to do it. But i had no idea what i was getting myself into, although it makes finance seem a lot easier/enjoyable. I’ll stop studying actuarial studies once I finish my undergraduate degree.
i got to pitch my proforma dcf model-based research report on nike in a class. also got to do a corp. fin class harvard style - 100% cases. from what you guys have posted, i guess i got lucky.
JOE2010 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > kkent Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > State university finance major. I passed L1 > with > > about 100 hours of self-study less than a month > > after graduation (and I was a VERY marginal > > student). Any competent finance curriculum > should > > cover equities, fixed-income, derivatives, > > economics, accounting, and foreign exchange, > among > > other financial topics. In addition, any > competent > > business program should cover Excel in-depth > and > > some VBA. If not, I’d say the program’s > academics > > are pretty worthless. > > > I am beginning to think that kkent is an amiable > guy, except when threads on anything right-wing > appear on AF. > > Were you the Chairman of the Christian Union in > the State University you attended? I’ll take the compliment, even if back-handed. 
I was more like the chairman of the sleeps-through-class union, the graduates who barely graduated union, and the luckiest-SOBs-who-got-an-incredible-job-despite-their-utter-incompetency-union. And a pretty crappy fraternity.
arbitageur Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Did you guys learning anything in college? I may > be graduating at the end of the year. Seems I only > know the basic stuff like CAPM, WACC, DCF etc. > When did you guys learn about modelling and > analysing companies? > What’s the difference between MBA and masters? > Do you think i’ll be ready to do CFA next year and > pass? > Thanks for any input. You know more than most…you’re fine. I was the same way when I graduated…nervous that I didn’t retain enough…
leaving college and a finance major, i thought i knew a lot about business and finance. i was so wrong. there are some things that i learned in school that were good - and necessary for any business position. however, they didn’t help me enough to learn the critical tools needed to excel in an entry level position. if i could have taken a financial modeling course, i would have been much more prepared.
dspapo Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > leaving college and a finance major, i thought i > knew a lot about business and finance. i was so > wrong. One of the things I like most about finance is no one really knows everything and everyone is always learning.
I dunno, this may sound a little stupid, but I think the most important things I’ve learned about finance since entering the work world are in operations. At the end of the day, most specific financial jobs are not THAT complicated, but running a financial organization from the audit/control, management, strategic, legal and administrative side is so incredibly complicated. I have a front office job with some back office duties (thanks to SOX and the recent meltdown of the industry). The “front office” duties are interesting and somewhat challenging, but I’ve found that the management of these giant financial institutions are far more challenging. It seems to me that–at least in my organization–there is sort of a curve: you start doing front and back office duties, you move up to mostly only front office duties, and as you are promoted ahead you start doing more “managment” or “administration” or audit as well as front office things. Finally, as you move up, you lose all touch with how the deals work on the ground level. In fact, I’ve noticed that some of the big guys in my department don’t even know how to use our basic software platform that is used for the deals. Basically, my organization is so complicated that most of its top guys have been with the company for 15+ years.