Quant master’s - how much to skip? I am highly quantitative master’s program in finance / economics at an elite university. While I initially intended to read all the material provided to me by the CFA Institute, I had no idea how low the level or rigor was when I signed up, nor how absurdly meandering the provided texts were. Admittedly, I did so only because I had seen so many CFA preferred listings in the area I am certain I want to get into (asset and market fundamentals driven research), and it seemed like all my friends from college with math and engineering degrees at BB’s were already on board. At any rate, I am putting things off until December of 2008 as I have only been slowly working through FSA (my classes taking up most of my time). However, by December I will have had PhD / DBA level accounting, macroeconomics, microeconomics, statistics, corporate finance and derivatives / options / swaps et. al. Consequently, would it be absurd to just read the ethics literature and drill the financial accounting part (which is from a regulatory perspective way beyond what my own course covered), and otherwise skip everything else? I know this is kind of cheap, but I really don’t feel I learn anything new for instance by seeing every possible variation on a simple algebraic equation laid out in prose over 13 pages, when it can be summarized neatly into a paragraph.
I honestly wouldn’t know. but how about take the LOS from the CFAI and for each item in those areas, sit down and either think or write to yourself how you would go about answering general questions on them. And if think you know enough of it, find a practice exam to test yourself. CFAI provides one much later (assuming you’re talking about Dec). I assume you don’t want to invest to much into getting Schweser/Stalla material. So maybe do a few random questions from the CFAI material.
fyi, even masters students want cfa’s 1luv
I have taken practice tests in the areas I already feel I know and have gotten 70-80% right. I was just wondering if others jump over the Level I carricula in the same way. Also, are there forumla sheets on the exam? As you can see I am pretty damn unprepared as far as administrative matters go.
no formula sheet… everything either has to be understood as in you can derive it for yourself or memorize it. 70-80% is alright. (depending on the test that you took… where it’s from etc) you might be able to pass with that, safety margin on it is relatively comfortable, but since you have time, why not just brush up on your other stuff before you write?
The typical PhD finance curriculum makes the CFA curriculum much easier. But even with it, you still have to at least look at the curriculum to see where you’re lacking. There will be many topics that you’ll already know. But the PhD curriculum is heavily geared towards theory, while the CFA curriculum has much more institutional details and practice. Even folks who have taught finance for several years have been known to fail L1 if they don;t study. I’d try to get a hold of a previous year’s schweser/stalla material (much cheaper than the current set, and a lot of overlap). Try a good number of the end-of-chapter questions.problems to see how you match up. Then decide.
Yeah, yeah… Everyone thinks they’re too educated for this when they start. Start studying. You can get by level I pretty easily, but you’ll learn good stuff. Then you’ll change the attitude or fail L II.
As I understand it, level II and III diverge signficantly from what most people see in school. I heard that indeed you do have to read up to pass these sections.
Does anyone have a recommendation for buying CFA specific charts that cover the key ratios / formulas and that are not linked to larger study packages? Ideally, formulas only, with no unnecessary explanation beyond defining variables. I guess I could make one myself but it would be a pain to traverse all the texts.
Hi plewis, welcome to AF. Look forward to your contributions over the next several months until the December exam. Nice response on the hypothesis testing question BTW. Detailed explanations like that are really helpful.