In desperate of your advise

Hello Monkeys,

I've been following this website for couple of months and let me tell you it is very informative comparing to any other things i've seen.I guess reason I am writing on this forum is that I need your advise. Here's a quick summary of my life,

I am from one of many countries in Asia and came to Canada at the age of 16 and went to one of top b-school in Canada. Not knowing exactly what I want and just the fact that I hated Chemistry and Physics, I've decided to go to B-school. Yes it is one of those b-school, target school well known and expected to land on IB, Consulting companies once you graduated.

However, it did not happen to me. guess i've had a bit of personal issues and just screwing around here and there not focusing on the school. Plus, well I shouldn't blame on economic meltdown too i guess it was a year before my Senior year. I've worked as an intern at one of Asset Management in Asia after my Junior year but I was not able to take advantage of the last chance i've had. Few months before graduations, I had my knee surgery (ACL) and then everything started to go down.

As most of you know, the best scenario for undergrads is 1. Get a good GPA 2. Land on kick aXX internship 3. SCORE full-time before graduation

I have not achieved any of those at this point and I do understand it is not the end of world however the problem is that I call those 3 steps are best scenario because it is well outlined and guarantee the result (more or less) So, I was sorta middle of nowhere at the moment. Upon the graduation, I decided to take a year off to live in France and just to travel and to practice French. Then I heard about this CFA exam through one of my classmates who landed on Top IB. As part of my elective courses at my university, I did not take any of finance courses, therefore CFA level 1 first trial ended brutally as I did not understand pretty much any of materials on Schweser

Came back to Canada and thankfully I got Admin Assistant position in Government (Housing/Non-profit related), expected to move up and secure permanent position, I worked my tail off and meanwhile I resigned up for CFA level 1. As I went through the materials with various research to understand the concept of some of basic financial products and those DCF, CAPM things. I pulled more than 400 hours to prepare for the exam in 2011 but failed again. Well that's how the life works, so I restarted from scratch. I've taken easy certificate courses to broaden my understanding of Finance and start reading lots of materials to gain more fundamentals of finance.

I applied couple of positions internally at work but they all decided to hire those ppl who've been with the organization more than 10 years (its very political in government) and then Government of Canada announced big budget cut. well then temporary employee like me had to leave the company. So yeah.. it only took me just over 1 year to be jobless. However, I continued study CFA 1 (YES again.. for December 2011) I took my time, went through 5 sets of previous year exams.

Yes I have passion in Finance. I just love where, how the numbers interact each others and just the concept and ideas of valuation. I failed CFA L1 twice and yet I just didn't want to give up. I am too young (27 right now) to give up (although many of IBankers start their career every early). I've always wanted to work so hard that I dont need to do anything but just focus on career. Endless challenge and difficulties. that's all I wanted.

Anyway, I passed L1 finally but unemployed for over 6 months. Realized that with just CFA or any certificates, it does't get too far. I really needed experiences, sending resumes from boutiques asset management to alumni network. Over 200 resumes sent, I have not even got to the first around of interview. I was thinking about going back to school but I just cannot afford the tuition fee anymore and next best alternative was CFA L2.

After CFA level 2 exam, I got a call from one of Fund account positions I applied. I went in and landed on the position. It is one of those BO positions. Transactions entries, Cash/Position rec, NAV calculation those stuff that aren't anything demanding.

So this is a summary of my life in nutshell, I did not intend to write this long but I thought it would be good to share with you guys. What I would like to ask is that I would like to hear your advise for possible exit strategy from Fund Accounting position. I cherish and appreciate the opportunity given to me during this economy, however, I would like to face more challenges and advance my career so I can actually utilize some of materials I learned.

I personally would LOVE to go boutique, asset management, P/E or anything at the moment I die for more experiences and pain (don't get me wrong) going small would definitely maximize my learning experience.

Anyway, my apology for writing style and thank you for your time invested to read my post. Have a great day