Maybe that comes to say that CFA is much more difficult than CIMA… I was pretty shocked when everybody I know doing CIMA passed all exams at first attempt…
well CFA being more difficult than CIMA could be true in terms of the way it is examined,application wise etc…but even i have been shocked by people who struggled there way through CIMA and then BAM!..cleared CFA first attempt…at the end of the day…you realise your past background really doesnt guarantee a pass in CFA…
You know what I hate? People who have no clue what they’re saying, but keep spewing out the bulls**t. I’m much farther than you in the program, and have not “dropped out”. I’m talking from being in the industry and this forum for years and seeing what a lot of people go through. Remember that the vast majority of people don’t finish the program. I never said “give up now”, all I’m saying is: seriously evaluate your options and understand that the road only gets much harder. There are MANY things you can do for your career besides the CFA program
Ok, I’m gonna have to side with iteracom on this one. I’ve taken all three exams. The amount it takes out of your life (assuming you’re not some nut with a PhD in the field) is staggering. I would, as iteracom has done, encourage anyone at any stage in this program to realistically consider long and hard what their true goals are, their chance of success and the value of their time in relation before blindly chugging along through this grueling track. You can never get that time back. Also, the CFA is not valued nearly so highly as most L1 candidates (including myself at one point) think it is in the business world. Once I got through and looked back, I stopped thinking of it as much of a big deal myself. That being said, if you fail, yes, you should stop and reconsider whether this is for you. Not doing so would reflect poorly on your analytic mindset if you’re just blindly ignoring information as you go along. Most times the “Rah rah” cheering mindset comes from those too early in the program or their careers to understand what they’re talking about. This isn’t college anymore. Iteracom’s feedback was in fact much more constructive than most. It’s also the sort of feedback you can expect in the real financial world. If you can’t deal with that relatively benign and constructive feedback, you are clearly not ready for banking / FO based on some of the absolute screaming f’ bomb laced tirades I’ve witnessed young analysts exposed to. A friend of mine got an internship at a PE shop working under a former Goldman banker and on the first day when he left “iterations” on in excel and did not bang out the model quickly enough, the guy literally stormed into his cube, pulled him out of the chair, looked at the model, started a screaming fit where every other word was the f’bomb, flipped the keyboard off the desk, walked back into another MD’s office and screamed at about the new intern and walked out. That story was extremely rare, but in the end that intern went on to get an analyst offer at the same firm. Helps to have thick skin. More specifically, as iteracom has stated, L2 and L3 are orders of magnitude harder than L1, L1 is definitely a cakewalk in comparison. So it would be helpful to look ahead, consider your result and think before sinking more time into it. I’m not saying quit, just think about your performance, and if you think there’s definitely adjustments you can make going forward or the result is not reflective of your preparation and practice exam scores, then yeah, definitely continue. But if you failed and think that honestly reflects your best effort, then I’d really contemplate the time expenditure before continuing.
+1000 Anyone who’s been around this forum long enough has seen this countless times. No one is denying passing these tests is better than failing, but is the opportunity cost worth it?
CIMA has got nothing on the CFA Program. I wrote Topcima in November, and then the CFA level 1 in December. By his grace, I passed them both. I only put 10 hours for CIMA including the exam time compared to the marathon of hours I put in for the CFA.
Black Swan and iteracom, I really appreciate your honest advice. I’m a bit embarrassed to say that I spent most the free time for the last six months studying the exam material w/out thinking about WHY I was taking the exam in the first place or what it would get me. I saw other smart grad students interested in finance taking it, and I figured, jeez, I better do this too. Monkey see monkey do I guess. On Tuesday I was ready to sign up for L2, but now that I’ve done a lot of reading in the past two days, and realize it’s not the golden ticket to goldman I hoped for, I’m revaluating L2. Hell, as one person pointed out, with 350 hours of studying I could become proficient in a new language, rather than attempting to take the next level.
Yeah, I mean, I don’t want to talk you out of it. In the end I’m glad I finished the program. But I went 3 for 3 and spent much less time on L1 and L3 than most people and I still feel it barely works out to be a net positive. When I started, I felt finishing would be elation and the best thing ever, now I’d say it’s a much closer call than I envisioned. It’s definitely not a ticket into Goldman, that’s for sure. I’d definitely make sure this is something you want to do (fits your career goals) before continuing. At the very least, having taken LI is not a loss. You passed and got through it (good feeling) and I think there’s a huge amount of value gained for getting the high level understanding from L1, no matter what you do in life.
Well, I don’t regret taking L1, because I come from a non-traditional background and want to show that I have a genuine in finance (and I have learned a lot about finance along the way, which is great). However, I know for sure I don’t want to do portfolio management, and even equity research doesn’t sound too exciting to me, and those seem to be the only two areas where further CFA progress might interest employers. Another issue is that, coming from a science background (and being a fan of Taleb), I’m somewhat stunned and skeptical of the models and practices that the CFAI teaches. Black swan, having seen way more of the curriculum than me, and given your moniker, what are your thoughts on this?
Do you know what it is you want to do? You say you want to ‘show a genuine interest in finance’, but for what purpose? For banking or PE, a top-tier MBA is the way to go, and the time spent on taking these tests can be far better served preparing for a high GMAT score and admissions. The key is to have a plan, figure out where you want to go. Far too many people do this: Mr.A went to a mediocre school with mediocre grades. Nothing special on resume and no related experience. Decides to do something in finance, because they heard that there is big money to be made. Decides to go through CFA program thinking it will automatically open doors to an awesome job. Goes to regular day job during the day, studies all night, passes L1 L2 and L3. Generically applies to every finance job they see under the sun and gets nothing. Gets pissed off they wasted years of their life and got nowhere.
Yeah, I feel like I’m following the trajectory of Mr. A (while I didn’t go to a mediocre school or have mediocre grades) and don’t wanna end up like that. Maybe Mr. A could make it yesterday’s market, but with the finance industry contracting and thousands of people still passing CFA exams, this seems like a recipe for disaster. HF/PE/Banking is ideally what I want to do now (like most everyone else I guess), and it’s true MBA prep would be more useful in this regard. Gotta work on a better plan…
Well, I know where you’re coming from and I’m a big fan of Taleb myself. For me, I was able to step back and realize that the models in the CFA are often to some extent simplified versions of the much more complex ones used in the industry. The point is primarily to help candidates grasp the underlying theories in use. Because I work in the banking industry, I more or less had to reconcile the two by learning to recognize the weaknesses in the models / forecasts / historical data, etc and just learn to try to incorporate those known weaknesses into analysis. To this day I’m still very skeptical of all forecasts, economical or otherwise and don’t get too caught up in the daily or weekly news items. The point here is, even if you ultimately disagree, you need to understand the theories you’re disagreeing with. Additionally, while many of those flaws are widely agreed upon, Taleb doesn’t really offer an alternative. Sure, he advises funds that are almost entirely treasuries that use their interest to roll over deep OTM options, but this isn’t a viable strategy for most people, and anyhow, the payoffs are much to inconsistent for investors who want to generate returns on cash they may need to access in the short and mid term. I mean, if you strictly adheer to Taleb’s teachings you’d agree the finance industry is for the most part useless and 90% of front office jobs just need to go away. So basically what it comes down to is: I agree whole heartedly, but I also like being employed. So in the end I try to keep the flaws in mind as I analyze, maintain robust risk infrastructure to recognize the existence of massive events, and if I’m ever lucky enough to be king of my own funds, I’ll try to take things a step further. But in the end, you need to know the material just as you need to know your enemy. Oh, and in an interview, I think Taleb’s fun to read, but alpha exists and fund x that i’m interviewing for has a great strategy for capturing it (*wink wink). To sum it up, I’d love to keep my convictions, but until I’m a PM, they’re for sale.
You are very off base stating that portfolio mgmt and equity research is the only two streams. But it doesn’t surprise me given that you are not even from an investment background; trust me kid, there’s tons of other streams that require the CFA designations. Pension Consulting, Pension Investment on the DB side, DC platforms etc. That’s just to name a few.
No disrespect, dude. I just thought the way you approached the topic was, kind of, brash. I was never arguing against your point about the possibility of re-evaluating the future when you have flunked Level I twice. However, I still think you could have approached the subject politely. It had nothing to do with kind of jobs people hold and being out there, in the “real world.” I, for one, have mopped toilet floors, taken out people’s trash, and risen through the ranks through hard work, success, AND failure. And I’ll gladly do it again because nothing is below me. I was simply pointing out the fact that people who have just gone through a rough experience need to be approached accordingly. And please don’t give me the baloney about how this individual may get treated on Wall Street. To me, the original post (about failing Level I twice) was synonymous to the post you made in the Level III forums about how devastated you were when you found out you’d be repeating Level II. Ultimately, I can easily compare your post to Black Swan’s post, which was much more cordial in the way it talked about re-evaluating your plans in the face of failure. In the end, it is not my intent to make enemies out of you. It is only going to hurt me because I can definitely use your input for Level II and Level III. By the way, apologies for the Guido reference… I was on a Jersey Shore marathon after getting the official “you passed Level I” message from the CFA Institute, so just threw it out there. I guess it was wrong to presume that the crowd here follows Jersey Shore, even when people like Peter Olinto throw out “GTL” references in Stalla videos. All in all, I was just trying to look out for a fellow peer, who sadly had to go through the process of failing Level I twice. So hope there are no hard feelings here.
Apology accepted. I’m all for discussion on what’s the best course of action as long as the discussion remains civil. There’s just no need for name calling or attacks. But being brash is very much the norm. What I like about this forum is that people will tell you as it as, though it may be harsh, and it may make you feel down. But in one of the fiercest industries in the economy, where there is a ton of very talented smart hard-working people trying to beat all the other talented smart hard-working people, there’s a solid stream of talent to pick from. Those that can’t step up to the challence will get left behind. L1 is the foundation of the world of finance, the basics. I would not hire anyone who couldn’t even pass L1.
Hey black swan, thanks for your response, how to reconcile the two is something I’ve been thinking about for a while. I should prob keep my opinions to myself, as my friends do think I’m a hypocrite for trying to land a job in finance while at the same time saying that most of the FO folks are just monkeys at a typewriter. And of course, saying so is not gonna win me many friends my CFA society… I see you point about understanding your enemy, and perhaps trying to profit off the inefficiencies that bad theories and models give rise to. I’ve also a bit skeptical about the practicality of Taleb’s barbell investing strategy, even though I’m not a fan of MPT…
I see you point about understanding your enemy, and perhaps trying to profit off the inefficiencies that bad theories and models give rise to. I’ve also a bit skeptical about the practicality of Taleb’s barbell investing strategy, even though I’m not a fan of MPT…