8 year old son: Mom, you’ve taken a lot of tests during your life, right? Wife: I have. California Bar. Washington State Bar Son: How did you do? Wife: I was fortunate to pass both on my first try? Son (referring to Dad who has already failed level 2 and is going again): Then why don’t YOU take Dad’s test?
you guys take offense because people don’t intuitively grasp how difficult the exam is? grow some thicker skin people. how the crap should they know how hard it is? Anyway, anytime somebody shows an interest in how hard the CFA exam is, here’s what I say: (1) Everyone taking level 3 is both smart enough and dedicated enough to pass the first two exams, probably having spent hundreds of hours on material in the curriculum. They all make a living based on their knowledge of some aspect of the capital markets. Almost all of them will spend over 100 hours studying over 1000 pages of material for the exam. Most of those people will fail the exam. (2) If you assume 30% pass level 1 on their first try, 40% level two, and 50% level 3, that means only about 6% of the people that sign up for L1 pass all three exams on their first try.
How long have you been withdrawing? Some people go a little over the top with these exams. I mean, did you say you couldn’t have dinner with them in January? If so, you may need to loosen up. If they really don’t have any respect for you and the time commitment, then I sympathize. My mother-in-law decided to spend the night at our place the night before the exam. I was not pleased and I was too nice to say no. I think she even referred to it as “that test” of mine. Of course, she ended up saving me when she noticed at 8:30am on test day that I had left my exam ticket on the kitchen counter - close call.
Seriously, there is no way the exams should take over your life. If you study for 8-10 hours on Saturday, why not go out for a few pops with your friends Saturday night? After studying for 5 hours Sunday morning, I went golfing in the aft and reviewed a bit more that night…didn’t even talk about the exam while on the course… Granted, I’ll probably fail and blame it all on that round…
cfa2grunt Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > How long have you been withdrawing? Some people > go a little over the top with these exams. I > mean, did you say you couldn’t have dinner with > them in January? If so, you may need to loosen > up. If they really don’t have any respect for you > and the time commitment, then I sympathize. > > My mother-in-law decided to spend the night at our > place the night before the exam. I was not > pleased and I was too nice to say no. I think she > even referred to it as “that test” of mine. Of > course, she ended up saving me when she noticed at > 8:30am on test day that I had left my exam ticket > on the kitchen counter - close call. Karma…
Everything depends on the priorities. For me CFA is just a designation + helpful knowledge, family is way more important.
Turkish Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Seriously, there is no way the exams should take > over your life. If you study for 8-10 hours on > Saturday, why not go out for a few pops with your > friends Saturday night? > Because a few pops become a dozen pops, and next thing I know it’s 4am and I end up waking up at 1 PM the next day, basically wasting half the day. it’s the second round effects (the next day) that hurts the most time wise, not the original day.
A dozen pops are awesome…I agree.
I was a college tennis player/part-time juniors tennis coach with a full course load during undergrad and wanted to get a 4.0 to assist in my mba endeavours, so I was naturally a keener. My old friends saw my stack of schweser/cfa curric. and knew that I was back to my old keener ways…Its the post undergrad buddies that don’t get it. I told one of them that I have a month left and I’m stressed. He said, “Dude, I’m a last minute kinda guy. I’d probably take the last week off from work and go hard and pass with flying colours” I wanted to slap the guy!
those comments are probably just off-the-cuff remarks. no need to take it personally. anyway, you can always make it up to them after the exams… no offense but i really don’t see what all this fuss is about.
maratikus Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Everything depends on the priorities. For me CFA > is just a designation + helpful knowledge, family > is way more important. I can’t beleive the discipline of people who can get up at like 7 or 8 and start studying in the mornings on weekend. I’m a noon hour starter, I like sleep and making a nice breakfast on weekends.
I know what you mean. I love answering the question “what is that?” or when people ask me if it stands for certified financial advisor. I have heard these multiple times and heard them both from the same person at an event recently for high school students in my area who had been accepted to my alma mater. (a father whose son had been accepted but remained undecided on matriculation) These questions followed the question on whether or not I planned to go to graduate school. I’m sure I projected a slacker image of my university to him.
my 5 yr old daughter at a party when someone asked her what her parents jobs are: mommy works at XYZ and daddy is a ‘studier’ they couldn’t stop laughing for 5 mins, it was so embarrassing
Just answer with “do I come to your work and kick the sqeegee out of your hand?” They normally will leave you alone after that.
the whole reason i gave up the pursuit of the cfa charter was because i got tired of having to explain to everyone what a certified financial advisor was
i have never been asked, “what’s the CFA?” then again, i live in Toronto…my friend’s grandmother is a charterholder.
numi Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > the whole reason i gave up the pursuit of the cfa > charter was because i got tired of having to > explain to everyone what a certified financial > advisor was and because you’re in private equity…a!@#$QSDFsdf, which is pretty much the end goal for a decent portion of the ppl on this board.
I had an ex-girlfriend come in last weekend. Now I want to break up with my current girlfriend. But I am going to wait until after the darn test so that I can keep my emotions at bay. This test is killing me. I hope my current girl doesn’t read this forum.
Hm, Me: I can’t, I have to study for the CFA Friend: Man, you study 2 much. It’s just an exam (compares it to his undergrat exams) It’s surprising how ppl quickly change their minds when they experience things instead of observing them. Most of my friends have never heard of cfa and think that finance is like studying philosophy - reading books about money etc.
As for people getting upset over thinking that the CFA stands for *certified* financial analyst vs. chartered financial analyst, I don’t think that’s such a big deal. After all, a UK chartered accountant is basically the equivalent to a certified public accountant in the US. It seems like a reasonable mistake to make for people who aren’t in the field. But what gets my goat is when people think “oh, so you’re trying to be a stock broker?” Er… right industry, wrong job…