Getting the CFA?
Hi all,
I am going into my Junior year of college at a large state school and am planning to get into a F100 FLDP program when I graduate. I plan to finish taking the CPA exams during the summer right after I graduate. I do plan on doing a part-time MBA program a few years into my career.
I have recently heard about the CFA. Would be worth it to add the CFA to my current plans, would it be better to complete that instead of the CPA, or do I not necessarily need it at all?
Do you have enough hours to sit for the CPA? I think you need 150 college credit hours to sit for the exam.
If you are doing a finance related role that I think a CFA would be better suited but I'm not sure CFA/CPA is going to really be that helpful. MBA is much better.
My major is accounting and I have organized my classes so that I will have 150 credits by the end of my senior year.
What exactly do you want to do? Not what is most convenient or what helps you climb to up the ladder? But what do you want to do? If that involves financial analysis, trading, investment management, or anything to do in HF then go CFA.
If you want to be a finance guy at an F100 then maybe the CPA is the way to go.
It all depends on what you want to do!
I want to work as a financial analyst at a company and I am thinking about treasury or FP&A, but I would have a much better idea when I do the rotational program.
I would probably stick with the CPA, especially if you are an accounting major AND are solely interested in in being with a company.
You may even want to learn SAP, if the company you work for uses it.
CFA - How to get a CFA? (Originally Posted: 05/25/2007)
Does anybody know how hard it is to get a CFA? My brother said it's not much work, however, he did it during his Masters and was unemployed (year out) for one year. Is it too much work to juggle with a 80+ hour a week job or otherwise? Thanks.
I work at a F100 company and majority of our FLDP & FP&A team are CPA's/Accountants and only a small few are CFA/Finance.
CFA exams take between 150 to 400 hours of study depending on your education (mainly expertise in finance/accounting). I'm sitting for level 3 in 8 days....
Accounting is roughly 25% of the exam, finance is about 50%, and the remainder is divided between ethics/statistics/economics.
Not to mention that you need to complete all 3 levels (held annually except level I, which are held twice a year) and with 4 years of work experience to get chartered status.
Level 1 isn't that bad, but levels 2 and 3 can be serious bitches if you're also trying to juggle your regular work and any last pathetic vestiges of a social life to preserve sanity.
Good luck sternfox.
Is it possible to take a Level 1 first and then take Level 2 and 3 later on (to spread out the work)?
thats how it is.Level 1 can be taken in dec/june and level 2 will be in the following june and lev el 3 in the june after that (assuming you clear everything in the 1st attempt)
Level 1 is offered twice a year; june/december and level 2 is offered once a year every June.
I took level 1 dec. of my senior year and cleared level 2 six monthes later in june.
sternfox, I thought you were still in school, no? The reason I asked was I thought you needed 4 years of work experience or something close to it to take the exam. Also, can someone clear up the part about having a sponser please. An MD told me he would sponser me for it after talking with him a few times but I wasn't exactly sure what that means. Thanks.
You need a degree in order to start the program. You don't need any experience in order to write the tests, but to get your charter at the end you need four years of work experience. Typically, you also need two sponsors to get your charter.
What kind of work experience in particular, what about 4 years of Big 4 experience. Can you get CPA and a CFA???
You need to have completed undergrad or gotten a letter stating that you'll get your diploma before the exam to register for CFA level 2.
I'm not sure that's true, I work with someone who completed Level 1 while at university.
The experience requirement is pretty subjective from what I understand. Here is the CFA Institute's description of relevant experience: evaluating or applying financial, economic, and/or statistical data as part of the investment decision-making process involving securities or similar investments, which includes, but is not limited to, publicly traded and privately placed stocks, bonds, and mortgages and their derivatives; commodity-based derivatives and mutual funds; and other investment assets, such as real estate and commodities, if these other investment assets are held as part of a diversified, securities-oriented investment portfolio.
I don't think auditing would qualify, but transaction advisory probably would.
Do you think a Controllers Analyst who performs pricing and valuations for GS hedge funds would qualify?
http://www.cfainstitute.org/
To prevent any further misinformation
I think you can do Level I with a letter from your college stating you're graduating in the near future.
"We are lawyers! We sue people! Occasionally, we get aggressive and garnish wages, but WE DO NOT ABDUCT!" -Boston Legal-
You have to be in your senior year, no need to actually have graduated.
I would stick it out with the CPA, but don't waste time with the exams. The best way would be to crank out all four exams every 1-1.5 months before you start any full time position.
get a cfa (Originally Posted: 03/08/2014)
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bump
CFA is definitely helpful for AM, but it is not a golden ticket.
Have you done any networking?
You will most likely need to go back to school. CFA does not work in all cases for a career change. Odds are if you're not getting any interviews/interest right now, a CFA L1 or even passing all 3 exams will do very little to increase your chances.
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