CFA vs Phd

CFA General
#41

yeah, phd is more of a labor of love than it is to make more money just like people play video games, listen to music, play recreational sports, or engage in other activities for money (but because they enjoy it), people don’t pursue a phd in a field to roll in the cash

#42

…just like people DON’T play video…

#43

CFA is at PHD finance level (both take an average of 4 years to complete) - comparing CFA to MBA is so funny.

CFA is harder than a PHD (at least in PHD you dont feel the stress you live during your CFA studies and exam)

There is one and only one “sole” contributor to the CFA charter, however PHD is offered in almost 80% of the universities (and bull-shi**ing parties are selling PHD for $$). CFA can’t be faked

CFA is more profissional. PHD is more academic (even CFA holder should have more knowledge in financie than a “one topic” phd researcher.

Regards

#44

^ I don’t believe CFA comes close to the difficulty of a PHD in finance. I had semesters in undergrad that were much more difficult than even Level 2, which I did in even less time, with zero prior experience.

#45

Wow. Is that a 5-year old thread we just bumped?

#46

I’m a believer in threads being locked after a certain time. If someone wants to reference an old thread, he/she can start a new one and provide a link to the old one.

#47

hpracing007

I am not sure what kind of finance you were studying in the undergraduate that makes it harder than CFA level two!

But having you said that, I think your undergraduate school should be an outlier among the universities population

However, what i am sure of is that I can research for my PHD studies why sipping my coffee in any cafe which is not the case for CFA preparation where you need to get locked in your room with all of you focused on your studies

#48

The problem is that so many people have degrees these days that many are pretty worthless. If you find the CFA exams particularly dificult then I am afraid your undergrad degree is not that great.

#49

^I wonder how many CFA exams you’ve taken.

#50

3

#51

Nightmare55, I was Economics Pre-med taking 16-18 hours a semester. Got my butt kicked over and over, multiple semesters with GPA in the mid 2s, and even failed a class. Never took a finance class and only 1 accounting course in my life, passed level 2 in june (10/10) with only 5-6 months of study (since i passed level 1 in dec)

Ya’ll guys who took the right and relevent classes and got the higher gpas got me beat though.

#52

I think one of the major differences between the CFA program and most graduate level finance programs (MSc. or Ph.D.) is the quantitative skills required. Calculus, linear algebra, and even a statistics background is pretty valuable (and necessary) to have in graduate finance programs (you need to derive and prove things on exams), but lacking these skills wouldn’t hinder someone from completing the CFA program (sure helps to have it, though).

#53

Only 120,000 CFA charterholders worldwide for the last 40 years (compared with millions of PHD finance holders for the smae periods) with challenging passing rates and average of 4 years to earn the degree…wow looks like 90% of the univesities offer worthless undergraduate degrees!

#54

Talking about Phd and its research committment…you can read and learn about all what you need at home without any stress. You can easily consult with your professor regarding your hypothesis test and regression model and he will be more than happy to fix it for you with NO stress. But during the CFA exam day, you have only your pencil/pen and a little maching called calculator available for help!

#55

Edit: It would probably be helpful to have some people comment, given they have earned both a Ph.D. in Finance and have earned the CFA charter (with some information on their background)…

#56

With the CFA you just have to learn. With the Ph.D. you have to learn how to reason.

#57

With the CFA you extremely learn without research. With the Phd you research one topic with minimal learning.

#58

my opinion is that PhD and CFA are not comparable in any way. PhD is not about studying but about scientific work. Of course you need to read extensively and PROFOUNDLY about the specific thesis you work on, quite contrary of CFA where you will have to master already prepared material which is just about everything but on a practical level. So being PhD and CFA does not surprise me at all !

#59

Why 2009 thread is still alive?

#60

^ Read message #46 of this thread. There is a solution to this madness.