I have just signed up for the CFA Level 1 for for June 2013. I am a recent grad currently working a full time job that invovles a long commute like many of you guys.
My CFA books should arrive sometime this week and I wanted help from you guys in order to construct a study plan. I have 4 months to ready to ace this devil, my background is I am a graduate of Economics. I have basic knowledge of financial statements, statistics and other financial concepts like bond duration and convexity. I am at a bit of a disadvantage as I was not a finance major in college.
My plan is to read the cirriculum books that I will receive and then supplement them with schweser notes for each section that I read. While doing the end of chapter questions.
I want to finish this with about 3 weeks left before the exam. Which will leave me time for review and a few practice exams.
What do you guys think of this plan? I know its not very structured that is why I joined this forum in order to get some more advice and tips from you guys. Any help is appreciated, and thanks in advance.
I would chill out on the CFAI curriculum. At this point, you should be focusing on the notes, supplemented by the CFAI curriculum. This should not be a problem for you given your backround.
my advice: forget about the CFAI material. You don’t need it. Just read the Schweser notes, do QBank, and do Schweser practice exams. With your background, passing this exam should be pretty straightforward but you need to put in the time. Main advice though, throw away the CFAI material for L1. It’s a waste of time.
CFAI material will take up too much of your time! I refer to it for reference purposes only, like when I cant figure out a concept completely and want to go into depth. Thats what the CFAI books are best for. Other than that, the EOC’s are worthwhile and test what you learn in a exam style manner.
Thats good that you are making plan for your study, but you have to take an idea in your mind that you going to finish your syllabus one month prior to your exam… I have CFA exam planner if you wish i can send it to you …just share your e-mail-id …as no attachment option is given here so i can’t share it directly…
I would not recommend using 3rd party materials exclusively. I would recommend developing a study plan that you will use for every level of the exam and one that includes using the CFAI source material. Hopefully, this will steer in the right direction to develop true analyst skills instead of pure test taking skills. When was the last time you were allowed to use Schweser third party Annual Reports and financials to assist you in making stock recommendations?