标题: Study Schedule for a non Finance Degree [打印本页] 作者: prav_Cfa7 时间: 2011-7-11 17:47 标题: Study Schedule for a non Finance Degree
I have been in banking origination for the past 6 years and want to get my CFA. I have the 2009 books and have been reading hoping to take the exam in Dec '10 or June '11. But I honestly feel lost and don't know where to begin there is so much material and I don't have a finance degree (I have a Master's in Linguistics).
Any suggesstions or can anyone share their study schedule?
Thanks in advance
Aaron作者: Mechanic 时间: 2011-7-11 17:47
I found it difficult in spite of having a degree (albeit somewhat seasoned) in "business administration and economics". I believe I put down something like 333 hours for the Level I exam (and passed).
I'm a fan of Schweser's material. Someone said the study notes are a bit like attending lectures compared to sitting all by yourself studying from the textbooks without any guidance.
That said, I found their study notes very helpful, and I also followed the 16-week program. For Level I, I also found the mp3 files helpful, not because they're thrilling material but they help to focus on, and especially reinforce, the textbooks. I also used the QBank & on-line practice tests. The database with questions helped to train the special skill set to quickly select the right answer among almost similar options (you've got 90 seconds to come up with the entire calculation and make a choice!).
If you have a linguistics degree, you might want to do some preparatory work on math and accounting. The program sort of revolves around the time value of money and calculation of cash flows (after adjusting for things like depreciation) so those two topics will certainly help you if you feel in the least weak in those areas. If you know what a T account is, and if you're familiar with expressions such as y/(1+r)^3 or ln(b/a) then it's not an issue. If you don't recognize those for what they are right away, you might want to check out ways to read up on those topics. There are plenty of algebra & accounting books "... for dummies" to choose from, and many others.
For this year I've attended the (online) lectures held by Ms Susan Lakatos, CFA, CPA. I understand she also teaches Level I. If you are able to find her classes (on Schweser's site) it is in my opinion worth considering, even if you're by any chance would be in the wrong time zone and would have to watch them from the archives. She's very good at her job. A lot of people talk about someone at Stalla called Olinto in the same way, although it was not an option for me (I'm on the wrong continent). There were no technical problems in receiving Schweser's live broadcast from the other side of the planet, I had no difficulties with it.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at Tuesday, May 18, 2010 at 12:25PM by MehdiOchre.作者: Wasteoftime 时间: 2011-7-11 17:47
I just graduated with a degree in finance 2 weeks ago, and I don't think it really helped me all that much. The only areas where it really helped me are areas that are really easy anyway like NPV, CAPM, stuff like that (maybe quant a little bit which was probably the only useful part).
