How to survive a MBA and CFA II

I am doing my MBA while pursuing a CFA II. I thought they would complement each other. But I found the school is more consuming than work when I did my L1. Any suggestions from all the wise guys outthere?

I found myself in a similar situation. Doing grad work in finance, working full time, and studying for Lvl 1 - hoping they would complement, only to find myself always short on time and stressed out. Group project or Pension accounting - dilemmas all the time. Under this scenario, burn-out is inevitable and will come much sooner in your CFA studying. Though I got through it, I knew this wouldn’t work at lvl 2 which obviously requires more time. I decided to put the grad school on hold. Colleagues of mine who have done it sucesfully, have scaled back to one class in the spring semester. The bottom line: Grad school is often only as valuable as what you put into it. Sure, you can scrape by with minimal effort and pass, but at that point you’re really only paying for the piece of paper at the end. Focus on doing one thing well, rather than scraping by and getting pulled in too many different directions.

It’s all about time management… what you could do is book off couple of days a week to focus on exclusively on CFA and commit to it.

yeah same here, holy crap CFA II is burning me out

bystander Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I am doing my MBA while pursuing a CFA II. I > thought they would complement each other. But I > found the school is more consuming than work when > I did my L1. Any suggestions from all the wise > guys outthere? Here’s a wise guy suggestion: Graduate and get a real job and your days doing an MBA and CFA at the same time will seem like fond reminiscences. :slight_smile:

did my last year of mba while doing level 1…it was tough. i’m now onto a CA, which is even tougher, but take it from me, it’s necessary to manage time effectively, if not, it’s understandably harder than simply tackling the CFA exams while working or nothing else.

For some genius reason, I decided last year while working full time in portfolio management to NOT ONLY pursue my MBA in the evening at Wake Forest, but also to take Level I. Somehow I passed, and then (and I still can’t tell you why) I decided to go ahead and take Level II

It’s real fun to work under pressure. I am an IT developer, doing MBA Finance and cleared Level1 in Dec. It’s a challenge to get a couple of levels in CFA and get MBA from one of the top 25 schools :slight_smile:

ramanaCFA Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > It’s real fun to work under pressure. I am an IT > developer, doing MBA Finance and cleared Level1 in > Dec. It’s a challenge to get a couple of levels in > CFA and get MBA from one of the top 25 schools :slight_smile: Whats a comment…dork!

Yeah, I’m running into issues with time management. Like others, school is taking up more time than I expected. I’m contemplating just ditching the fun extracurric stuff and studying my ass off - but then again, we are only in bschool once in our life! Is it worth it?

MBA, full time work, and CFA? u people are crazy!!! i work full time, doing level 2 and i still think there arn’t enough hours in the day

seems to me lke ramanaCFA is an over worked, abused and used computer engineer

lol

Judging by Ramana’s English skills, it’s good that he’s sharpening his Financial acumen since his job as tech support is obviously in peril. :slight_smile:

ramanaCFA Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > It’s real fun to work under pressure. I am an IT > developer, doing MBA Finance and cleared Level1 in > Dec. It’s a challenge to get a couple of levels in > CFA and get MBA from one of the top 25 schools :slight_smile: Please share. What school…? I hope you mean top 25 schools in the US… (not India)

If you’re trying to do these while working (like me) I can recommend my solution which was to start the CFA program immediately after completion of an MBA. The focus and depth of material is very different but there is also helpful overlap as well. Best of luck either way. Cheers!