How do I understand vs. just memorizing?

You're about to get a bunch of people spamming their shitty ai study tools in this thread, but try to practice your delivery of questions because thats half the battle. Also try doing it without a calculator and then eventually without paper and pen 

Uh, I mean, stop looking at it like abstract numbers on a page, and start by looking at it as an actual business. Why do you buy a business? Because you want money from it. When you buy that business, what do you care about? Making sure you're buying at the right value. Overpay, you could end up costing yourself more in capital costs/lost earnings potential. 

If you buy a business with a P/E ratio of 10, it means if that business doesn't grow at all, after 10 years it will have earned enough money to fully pay you back. 

When you start thinking about it from this perspective, of "How long does it take for this business to make me a profit" that's when valuation makes sense. 

A good trick I found was to listen to DCF podcasts during my sleep (put on loop), especially to really grasp the FCF concepts

If you can explain the concept to a 5 year old, you have a solid enough understanding.

mentally toggle different variables to see if you can predict how that changes a result.

for example, think about the different levers you have to modify the returns of an lbo model. which would have the biggest per dollar impact on IRR and why? 

also see if you can explain fairly complex concepts to a reasonably smart person with zero background in finance

I feel like this has to be a fake question. What do you mean how do you go from memorizing to understanding? Did you not graduate from high school? Are you not studying right now to get a college degree?

How do you already learn completely new information in the 3-6 months before finals well enough that you can pass the course today? Okay, this is literally NO different than that muscle. What are we even talking about here..

You’re either trying lob another shitty AI scam prep tool or you’re genuinely Ngmi.

Don’t agree with some of the above. The answer is actually modeling yourself. Start with basic templates online or from upperclassmen and start to model real companies. They’re asking you questions to see if you know how the job works…why not just learn to execute the job’s everyday tasks. This worked for me at least, and went from state school to an EB.

When I was interviewing for certain internships / FT positions, I was already a decent modeller and had a good idea of corp fin fundamentals.

In the beginning I didn’t study the basic Qs and thought I knew the answers based on my knowledge. Unfortunately in an interview for that level, they expect a certain finesse / preparation of answer so even if you get the concept very well, you need to know how to answer the Q in an interview. Believe it or not, doing 50 LBOs or DCFs doesn’t help you answer the question “walk me through a LBO / DCF” in the way they want lol.

Eventually I had both up my sleeve so it was easier, but don’t underestimate the value of just studying the questions and answers and follow up Q&A too

These are my 2 cents:

First priority I think should be reading Investment Banking by Joshua Rosenbaum + Pearl - super helpful + explains every concept you will need to know

I read it over and over and that was honestly the most helpful prep & landed me a BB.

This will also make doing the 400 BIWS much more digestible and you should be able to answer most (maybe except accounting) questions from the guides on your own.

For models I’d pull ones from your student investment clubs / the practice ones from WSP or peakframe works or smt and then chunk them into larger pieces - break down each large piece into smaller steps and understand mechanics of what each part / line is doing and why. And then try to recreate the model from memory; and / or write the models on paper. I’m a big paper / pen person and this helped me understand how models flow.

Overall though, I think reps are your best friend. Keep going over Rosenbaum and pearl, keep doing the guides, build a basic DCF or LBO model for a company every 1-2 weeks, etc. the more repetitions you get, the more concepts will start to make sense and you will also see how they weave together and build on each other. It will get easier every time you do it. Good luck!

i always found a good way to practice stuff like this was to teach one of your non finance friends / younger brother / junior on club a concept that you learned