How to *really* learn technicals?
Currently studying for SA 2025 recruiting season. I’ve started reading the BIWS guides and 400Qs but I feel that they aren’t very intuitive and often don’t cover the fundamental concepts well enough to provide a sufficient foundation for actually internalizing the material.
For those who have gone through this before, what would you say is the best way to actually learn these concepts properly, from the bottom up? I don’t want to just memorize answers, but rather understand the “why” behind things. For what it’s worth, interviews will probably begin in a month or two…
Appreciate all advice, thanks
Just my experience…I honestly am not the smartest at intuitively learning stuff. But I would just do quizlet flashcards of the 400 guide / past interview questions that I didn’t know and drill them into my brain memorization-style. Eventually, things started clicking and I started making connections as I read other stuff.
Obviously this is just for me and some other people can read a book and kind of just get it right away but idk
Like you said, that was my experience as well - going through the guide and not really knowing what some things actually meant.
Some concepts only clicked as I took some classes (like M&A) and after actually making a couple of 3-statement models. So my recommendation is to learn by doing.
For accounting questions, a lot of it is just learning the rules of accounting. And for most other topics, find lecture notes and cases that you can go through to understand the concepts and model away to practice.
As you learn this way and come back to the guide, a lot of the things become very easy. And you can tackle a lot of different variations of similar questions.
Also prioritize accouting, valuation, and DCF first. Then as you learn more dive deeper in to merger models and LBOs.
Check out IB Vine, specifically the “outside of the guide questions”. Once you can get a handle of those, it seems like you are in a spot where you’re applying the concepts rather than simply memorizing them
A huge help for me was taking a financial modeling course. Doesn’t matter which one; WSO, Wall Street Prep, and Adventis are all great. Adventis is fantastic if you’re on a constrained budget. If you’re a more “hands on” learner, I think you’d get a lot of value from any of these.
Not only are you learning some basic excel skills, you actually see how a model is put together i.e how the statements “talk” to each other, and how we use those statements to arrive at a valuation. It allowed me to get out of regurgitating guide questions and have a better understanding of what I was talking about.
Recommend the WSO courses: Excel Modeling & Financial Statement Modeling. Didn’t like the LBO/DCF courses on here tho the guy that does it makes me want to fall asleep. Recommend YouTubers for DCF/LBO.
These will get you familiar with the concepts but the most you will learn is when you’re actually on a real one
Build models from scratch urself a few times really helps
I just read Rosenbaum and Pearl and the WSP Red Book. For me, reading it in a more textbook style format helped me supplement the M&I 400.
The technicals clicked for me when I understood how they fit into investing in real life. Listening to podcasts (Invest Like The Best, Capital Allocators) and YouTube Interviews with prominent investors really helped. It also helped when I started following public stocks and doing my own analysis.
Rather than memorize breaking into Wall Street, or learning to sing a DCF like it’s a song understand why you’re doing each step. Why are you on levering and revering beta? Why are you using wacc instead of cost of capital? Why don’t you deduct interest expense when getting down to unlevered free cash flows. These are just a few examples.
When you get to the job, you want to intuitively understand each step. If you’ve memorize your way into the job, you’re going to struggle. You wanna understand the meaning behind each step and this can be done through practising financial models. Build out some DCF but in addition to that build out the three statements, so you at least know where everything is. You have a solid understanding of everything.
To truly understand technical concepts, start by focusing on the fundamentals. While resources like BIWS guides and 400Qs are helpful, they may not always explain things clearly. Instead of just memorizing answers, dig deeper into the "why" behind each concept. Try breaking down complex ideas into simpler parts and relate them to real-world examples. Practice solving problems step by step, and don't hesitate to ask questions or seek clarification when needed. Building a strong foundation takes time, so be patient and consistent in your efforts. Good luck with your SA 2025 recruiting season!
Personally, I didn’t use the guides that much. I took modeling courses and just practiced building models and spent a lot of time building the intuition and understanding of why the models were built that way.
I used the guides for last minute drills before interviews. This is perhaps my way of learning but just reading Q&As is useless for me and I think actually understanding is 100x better than memorizing.
My advice is to start from scratch and actually learn from the bottom up. The problem with most guides is, as you said, you'll be memorising things rather than understanding them. They may, for example, tell you what to subtract from Enterprise Value to get to Equity Value, but do you know why these items specifically? Also, a LOT of DCF valuations you see online (even those posted as 'model' DCFs) are blatantly flawed, but unless you know the basics, you wouldn't even know how to sense-check them. For an example of a poor DCF, see https://mergersandinquisitions.com/dcf-model/, which is one of the top results on Google. The Walmart DCF has FCFF higher than EBIT(1-t), implying that the company is actively selling assets to generate free cash flows. This cannot be the case in any medium-term, let alone in perpetuity (purely logically, eventually you'll have no more assets to sell!). You do not need to be a genius to spot this, but at the same time if you don't know the principles, you wouldn't even know this is a problem.
The WSO courses are good, but they are more instructive than intuitive. Will you be able to build 'a' DCF? Yes, but again, you won't understand what is happening and why.
To really maximise what you're learning, highly recommend signing up for an accounting course. As much as we may not be fond of accountants, we must know how to understand the information they're presenting. I'd also recommend a Corporate Finance course - right from basics and get a book for reference (Principles of Corporate Finance is a good one).
Only when you've gone ahead with those would I return to the BIWS to 'sense-check' your knowledge. Don't bother memorising them unless you have to cram them for an interview.
ChatGPT is honestly great to use as a personal tutor. Can ask it very nuanced questions about topics that aren't quite clicking. The algorithm is already very good for this, and it's only going to get better
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