Ready for June?

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GFY96Taco

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I am 2 years out of my undergrad, and in those 2 years, I have been working in an unrelated field (i.e. not applying anything I learned in my finance courses).

I have started studying basically this weekend for L1, and have until Wednesday (March 15) to make a decision as to whether I will register for the June exam or not. I have the 2005 Schweser notes.

This is obviously a question that nobody can truly answer, but is it reasonable to think that I can prepare for and pass the L1 exam in June?

I don't want to enroll for an exam that I have no chance of passing, nor do I want to spend $670 USD on it either. My motivation for possibly attempting it, rather than waiting until June, is so I can have that L1 on my resume sooner, rather than later (I am looking to move out of the industry I'm in and into Finance. I would think I'd be set back 6 months if I waited until Dec. to write the exam).

Like I said...I guess it's an impossible to answer question, but comments of any sort would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.
 
It all depends on a number of factors. Here are just a few: how smart are you, how much self disipline do you have, do you have the time to commit, do you have the actual candidate readings from which the test questions are derived, do you have a needy spouse which would distract you from your studying, how risky are you.......all of these things and a bunch more which i left out need to be taken into consideration
 
*The needy spouse factor should be weighted heavily. I know some young guys who are debating breaking up with their GF's to increase their chances of passing.

My reccomendation to you would be to wait till december.

Im graduated 9 months ago, In a(slightly) unrelated field also, began studying in January and I'm not sure about June, so taking in december to solidify my chances of passing. I will have covered all the material by june, but i'll use the following months to do as many problems as possible, and get this information to stick.
 
i started three weeks ago, so i'm not that much better off than you (have completed three sessions - jumping around...) but i will offer these thoughts:

- no-one has exactly the same amount of background knowledge, so anyone else's estimate of how much time you need to study can be dangerously misleading for you. a lot of people taking this exam, and esp. on this board, have very strong backgrounds in finance/econ plus relevant working experience, which they take for granted.

-the sections in schweser are highly variable in their degree of difficulty. i started with econ 1, and did it in a day and a half, and thought it was going to be cake. then i did session 7 (fsa 1) next and it took me 2 1/2 weeks and i was convinced i was going to fail. this weekend i finished session 8 and that took me three days so i'm more optimistic. so while you're doing the diff. sessions, its hard to get a feel for how much progress you're really making. doing 6/18 sessions does not equal getting through 1/3 of the curriculum, it depends on which sessions you started with. the consensus seems to be that fsa is the most difficult so you might want to start there to get a conservative est of difficulty.
 
I started studying in January and have managed to complete only 3 sessions yet. Although all 3 of them are FSA (yaaaay!!). Anyways, although I have just 2 months of experience with the CFA studying.....I can confidently say that its all about TIME.... and the committment to give TIME. Contrary to popular belief...the CFA is NOT rocket science. I have no background in finance ( I am an engineering major) and yet i feel like if i put in a good amount of time to do things, its a cakewalk.
As far as I am concerned, i have 15 sessions, a second reading and one last month of review(practice tests) to do.....and I am still confident about taking the exam in June!!
 
Go for December. I know you're anxious to get it done, but 6 months won't kill your career. And it won't slow you down any for level 2.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at Friday, March 17, 2006 at 05:39PM by DrToast.
 
Made my decision to write in December. Looking forward a to a more sensible pace of study between now and then. Thanks to all of you,
 
Learning all of the material is relatively easy to do in just a couple months. The hard part is being able to answer every question within 90 seconds and maintaining a focus throughout the entire exam. I would take it in June so you know exactly what to expect with regards to format/ questions/ timing etc., and if you fail, then you will be more prepared in December. If you put in the time you'll be alright. But we all want to be taking Level 2 in June 2007, so why not give yourself 2 shots at that instead of just 1?
 
Too late now. I thought it out and made my decision. The deadline is passed. No looking back!
 
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