I know several of us (including me) were big talkers about starting early… but my question is, has anyone actually started a regular study schedule? I know I haven’t. If you’re like me… when do you think you’ll get cracking? I kinda want to keep pace with most of you, so starting around the same time might be a good idea.
I’m starting in January. There are probably limited returns to starting before that.
I’ve been pretty realistic from the start. I still intend to start in Dec., but if it’s pushed to Jan. then so be it.
I’ve started softly, don’t have a tight study schedule that I am following or anything just trying to put in a 3-5 hours a week when I have free time. I’ve also had a fair amount of bus travel recently so have made good use of that airport/airplane time.
CF_AHHHHHHHHH Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I kinda want to keep pace with most of you Most candidates don’t pass the exam. Do what YOU need to do to be in the minority.
i’m thinking of starting december/january. for L2, I started late feb and it was a little intense at the end.
I started this week, and completed Study Session 3 from CFAI. Due to personal reasons I’ll be taking a break in Jan & Feb. So I will have to start early to avoid a panic situation in March. If everything goes as per plan, I will finish all the readings from CFAI and some of the EOC questions by December end. Level 2 in 4 months was very intense. This time I would like maintain better work + life + studies balance.
charu_mulye Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I started this week, and completed Study Session 3 > from CFAI. Due to personal reasons I’ll be taking > a break in Jan & Feb. So I will have to start > early to avoid a panic situation in March. > If everything goes as per plan, I will finish all > the readings from CFAI and some of the EOC > questions by December end. > > Level 2 in 4 months was very intense. This time I > would like maintain better work + life + studies > balance. yeah, I really felt like I almost knocked myself out doing L2 in only 4 months. It just wasn’t something I wanted to do again. Those last 6 weeks in particular…just horrible. I’m also planning to work harder for L3 than I have for the others - I refuse to get this far and fall at the final hurdle. So I aim to start the beginning of next week, which gives me 8 months though most of Dec will be a write off. Slow and steady wins the race though, so max 5 hours a week until March will be all I’m aiming for. An hour or so each weeknight, plus a couple hours over the weekend at most.
^ This is similar to my strategy. I think L3 will require more repetition at a slower, steadier pace. Given some of the comments made about this year’s exam, it seems like L3 is not the test to cram for.
I have read about 90 pages starting on SS3, but retention is really poor due to the slow pace. I’m wondering whether to be more realistic about this and just wait until Dec to start with a study schedule.
Billy Collins Jr. Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I have read about 90 pages starting on SS3, but > retention is really poor due to the slow pace. I’m > wondering whether to be more realistic about this > and just wait until Dec to start with a study > schedule. I wouldn’t worry about retention. All that matters is that you’ve covered the material - when you get back to it in March/April it won’t be the first time you’ve looked at it, that’s the key. My experience fwiw is that retention only makes an appearance with about 6 weeks to go - up until then I always felt that nothing was sticking.
^ Yeah I agree. They way I look at it/explain it to others is that I’m “preparing to study” for the first few months. I cover all the material and do my best to sift through the crap. Then when its crunch time, I study my notes, note-cards, and highlighted material for retention. Its worked for 1 & 2 hopefully it does for 3!
I checked in with AF this morning with exactly this post in mind… thanks CFA-AAHHHHHH. Failed L3 this year, so I swore up and down that I’d get a huge head start. Read individual IPS, now I’m reading institutional investors. Going slower than I thought but I guess that’s to be expected when you don’t feel quite under the gun - which I will in January. Now that I’m going through the motions, I see what the ^ are saying has truth to it - repetition is great but retention is key. I’m just going to keep reading when I can (fairly long train commute each day is helpful) and keep the big topics fresh until January when “go time” officially begins.
on a slightly related note… has NVD’s email list gone out to everyone yet? or are we still waiting for it?
Couldn’t agree more with newsuper…those that focus on “retention” tend to start late and cram. While that may work for them, my goal is to slowly read through the curriculum between Oct 1 and March 31st. At that point, I will spend two months reviewing and doing questions/exams. That has worked for me on LI and LII with success, but clearly this is a different beast. Here’s to hoping the same works for LIII!!
i have to read a lot of crap to steepen the learning curve for a corporate finance gig i just started. hopefully i will be starting L3 readings around december-january.
I’m starting when I get the schweser stuff
I started September 1st. - about 10 hours a week, slow reading CFAI and doing end of chapter problems. As someone here said: slow and steady wins the race.
ahah I after passing level l2 I received my books in September, didn’t start studying until end of Jan. Fair disclosure I was studying for GMAT/ applying to Bschool at the same time. Not a fun 2.5 years.
Yes studying GMAT myself at the moment… Will probably not kick it into gear until and starting reading the Schweser notes until Jan / Feb.