And finally I did it…no no no wait!!! I am not talking about record breaking or anything in general, I just got myself registered for the CFA level 1 exam…now u must be wondering what’s so special to brag about registering for an exam..but that’s not the point I want to make here. In a moment I will explain that, but first of all, just for those who don’t know what CFA is, so here’s the information.
CFA stands for chartered financial analyst; it’s a 3 level self study program conducted by cfainstitute in US. The exam covers all possible topics one can learn during his MBA finance degree…in general if you prepare for CFA level-1, its equivalent to covering around 80% of your MBA finance curriculum… Some of the topics for instance covered in the exam are business ethics, financial reporting analysis, derivatives, quantitative methods, portfolio management etc. After passing all the 3 levels, one is eligible to become a charter holder. Although there are a few requirements prior to becoming a CFA charter like having a 4 year work experience in any financial industry and holding a suitable position related to finance etc.
Now the reason why I am talking about this is that the decision to register for CFA was very hard for me (at least initially), one of the reasons is that the exam fee itself is huge. I paid 990 USD as the exam registration fee and that makes close to 53,000 INR. Not just that, the exam is not even conducted in India, all the candidates in India who write the exam prefer either of Nepal, Colombo, Singapore as their exam centers. In my case I registered my exam centre at Manila, Philippines. The reason I will explain a bit later.
Okay so coming straight to the point, I am soon planning to do an MBA from abroad. Got an admit from a good university. Even that doesn’t explain the need for the CFA exam either as I can study all the subjects covered under CFA during my MBA, so here’s the story. The institute I am admitted is known for its finance program, in my case it just happened that I had always been more inclined to finance field and this one luckily came out to be among the bests in the world. The problem now is, around 70 percent of the admits to this institute’s MBA program opt for finance major which if you look from the institute point of view, it’s not possible. The program has limited seats for every specialization be it finance, marketing or consulting etc. So in order to avoid excess candidates, the institute has laid a few conditions before one opts for a finance major and one among them is clearing CFA level 1 exam before the first term (as specialization starts from the second year). Now being a little smart, I myself thought to clear this hurdle in the beginning itself just after a couple of months of joining the program. This way I will not only be able to alleviate some pressure due to mba studies, but it will also help me with my core subjects. I will be able to choose some good subjects (subjects that I think are easy to clear :D ).
Anyways the tough journey for me seems to have started although I am still talking baby steps towards the goal..the good thing this time is, I know where I am headed.
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