Level 2 and your partner

I suppose it also depends on regular the encounters are, and how good looking they are. I think we need a hedonic calculus here. If CFA is worth say £5,000 pa, then over 30 years with a 5% discount rate, that’s a PV of £76,862. Marking a blow job to market, it costs from £5 (Buying a drink for a Tokyo Optician*), through £10,000 for an ex-supermodel** So, it depends on the girl. The CFA is worth about 8 nights with a Supermodel or over 15,000 Tokyo Optician versions. You’ll have to rate the girl appropriately. I assume that a similar calculation could be made for women CFA candidates, however a) the range would start at £0 and b) it would be highly unlikely to reach £100. So CFA definitely more useful for women. *http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Tokyo+Optician **http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/1811_anderton.shtml

If its important to you, your partner will understand the short term pains. My wife calls herself a “CFA widow” for six months of the year…but she knows how important it is going forward.

thepinkman Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Is this a same sex relationship? nooo)))

cfabermy Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > but she knows how important it is going > forward. you see, this is exactly the issue. To understand the value of CFA, you have to share the American dream attitude. My partner is coming from the background where ambition is being perceived somewhat sceptically and wanting more is nice, but secondary. But relationships come and go… I have made my choice…

Even better, I may even manage to get the best of both worlds. No 90 year old on his or her deathbed has ever said: “well, didn’t have too much of fun with the ladies but dude, DO I RULE WITH MY EDUCATION OR WHAT???” Best people in finance I know don’t have a CFA and don’t even want to try and get it. Never forget that, if you need the CFA to get into the business, you probably won’t get the big bucks anyway.

> Best people in finance I know don’t have a CFA and > don’t even want to try and get it. Never forget > that, if you need the CFA to get into the > business, you probably won’t get the big bucks > anyway. I agreed with some of what you’re saying but disagree with the peice above. You’ve obviously never tried applying for a front office position with a degree from a school not listed on the drop down menu. It’s easy for people that went ivy league or have similar backgrounds to say the educational background doesn’t matter, the same way that people with money tend to say money doesn’t matter. While I recognize many prestigious finance individuals don’t have the CFA they tend to either have had ivy league education or be from the time before CFA became the standard it is today. I would tend to think that you can be extremely intelligent having gone to a no name college, but obvioulsy the HR screeners disagree based on the fact that I didn’t even get a single interview straight out of college. Einstein got flat out rejected by universities both times he applied before giving up on getting into a university in europe. The difference was that he didn’t need large amounts of capital to manage to build practical experience. Not saying I’m Einstein or anything, just an illustration.

I’m going through this right now as well. My GF and I do not currently live together and only get time to see each other on the weekends. I really only began studying on the weekends three weeks ago. Everything was fine until the prior week when I said I wasn’t able to spend all my free time with her this past weekend. I offered up hanging out Saturday night and Sunday afternoon, but it wasn’t enough for her. She wanted to hang out Sat afternoon through Sun afternoon. I said it wasn’t possible because at this point I just need to put in hours. Well, she starts crying and freaking out saying I’m not treating her as a priority etc etc. Absolutely ridiculous. I have to prioritize and cannot commit to hanging out with her the bulk of the weekend. We’ve been togather for about a year now, so it hasn’t been ages, but more than enough time to know someone very well. What’s going to happen when I go to grad school? It’s going to be more of the same, and it’s leading me to think that I should break it off with her.

Is this exam really worth the hassle ?!?! I wouldnt bother doing it - am thinking about not doing it myself. If it started in anyway to affect my personal life I would stop studying - its really not worth it

To be honest, I think that one of the great attributes of the CFA is in deteriming who really wants it as in the opportunities associated with being a CFA. I’ve heard from others in the industry that if you have any qualms about sacraficing your personal life you won’t make it through you’re first three years in a front of house position at any major firm.

^Same thing happened to me. My GF would cry and then start arguments in order to get my attention from the books. I think that she felt that spending time arguing with me was better than spending no time at all. We talked and I communicated how important it was that I pass the exam. Things didn’t improve so I broke it off with her. There are lots of fish in the sea and now that I’ve passed all three exams I’m enjoying those other fish.

Black Swan Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > > Best people in finance I know don’t have a CFA > and > > don’t even want to try and get it. Never forget > > that, if you need the CFA to get into the > > business, you probably won’t get the big bucks > > anyway. > > I agreed with some of what you’re saying but > disagree with the peice above. You’ve obviously > never tried applying for a front office position > with a degree from a school not listed on the drop > down menu. Wrong. Don’t have a degree from the drop down menu, not even one of Appendix D of that very same menu. I’ve worked my way up, got in BO without any experience or knowledge whatsoever - was asked for Risk Management one year later and I’m asked for FO roles one every few months. I turn them down because I love my current role (and my boss equals the pay) but may make the switch some time in the future. FYI; didn’t start CFA until after being two years into Risk Management.

Hmmm…I know some pretty big bucks people with CFA charters. The two biggest buck people I know (Tudor, Tropin) don’t have degrees from big name schools or CFA charters (UVA, Goddard College).

Question is… do this big bucks people earn the bucks thanks to their CFA or would they be earning it anyways?

All I’m saying is the hiring markets most of those poeple came in under were not what we have today. Mcpass, that’s awesome you could do that, but it is not the typical story. I don’t think that anyone can argue that BO to FO happens anything but VERY rarely without external catalysts such as degrees or the CFA during that progression. Again, the hiring market is much more structured now than even 10 years ago, when you don’t get an interview, it’s hard to sell your case.

mcpass Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Question is… do this big bucks people earn the > bucks thanks to their CFA or would they be earning > it anyways? How do you answer that? These people who earn big bucks chose to do the CFA. Any inference you make from that is your own. I don’t see that having the CFA is either necessary or sufficient to earn big money in finance. But it can’t hurt. I spoke to a few charterholders about the CFA before I started on it - the thing that made most sense was that it means you know what everyone else knows. That doesn’t make you better than everyone else, it just means you aren’t at a disadvantage. Everything else is up to you…

Chrismaths… that’s exactly how it is. CFA will not help you become the star trader but it helps in that it gives you a solid finance background. I was a SocGen last week and was told that Jerome Kerviel was (is?) a Level 3 Candidate. Must have passed Ethics… TWICE!

Thus proving that bad people do bad things, even when they know (in fact especially when they know) it is illegal/immoral/unethical. More laws won’t change this fact…

I think the biggest problem there was that he knew exactly how things worked… that’s why he was so good at getting around them.