CPA Exam – My thoughts and feelings

I have literally invested a full 7 months of my life in this.

I study at least 3 hours a day 6 days a week on average, which is extremely tiring. Aside from the 7 months, I had to go back to school and take 24 units of accounting classes to qualify to sit for the exam. So technically 2 years.

Overall, I am ready to be done with this part of my life.

I have quite a few other items on my list that I would like to work on, but because of the sheer amounts of time and energy this takes, it has been quite difficult to start anything new.

That all will change on the 29th of November. I should be done with all of the tests. It will be my second time around taking the tests, and because of my close scores from the previous round, I am assuming (read: praying) that I will be done.

Some of the items lined up for the future:

• Writing a Book – Fiction or CPA exam review – Either one, it will take a lot of work, and a lot of research and reading how-to books.
• Programming in C++ and/or other languages – Without a doubt, this will be tough, but I think if I spend a couple hours a day working on this, I will be ahead of the average programmer in a year or two.
• Building my business (empire… haha) – This is something that I just have not had the energy to do, I maintain it well while I am working on the CPA exam, but I need to focus on it, and build it up. There are many things that I can do to really get it going. I should write a whole post on it, but a few being offering some services for free to get some
• DIY – I used to love working on stuff with my hands, that all fell apart when I left college, I want to get back into – maybe starting with a backyard Rocket Mass Heater will be a good one.
• Music – I really want to start working on guitar and piano again, I would love to get a good understanding of music theory. I stopped working on this stuff because of my huge limitation with understanding notes, and theory, maybe if I get a better understanding of it, I may work on it more.
• Law School – This one is iffy – I’m not 100% sold on the school itself. It was attractive because the school is online and allows you to self pace. It is also only $300 per month to go to. The return on investment makes sense, and since I already have a really good understanding of tax law from work and the CPA exam, it may make sense to breeze through. Worst case scenario, I stop after taking the baby bar and leave with a Masters in Law.

Although all of these items seem like a lot, they are all accomplishable within 3-5 years. That is what I have learned from this CPA exam, I had absolutely no accounting background and I managed to get this far after 2 total years and 7 months of study. Yes this last paragraph was specifically designed to boost my ego, sometimes I need that.

CPA Exam

I just finished taking the financial reporting exam for the second time. Pretty difficult test. I felt like I completely nailed the multiple choice, but did really poor on the simulations. I didnt know how to adjust from Cash to Accrual accounting properly and I completely missed a bank reconciliation. Cash to accrual was mostly not in the materials, and I just failed to study bank reconciliations.

Its been a very frustrating process. I feel I have been studying tremendously, and know the material, but the odd curve-balls that they throw at you on the test really screwed me over. I can understand, they want to keep the pass rates low, and its a difficult test to begin with.

I have so many notes, flash cards, and I felt the study material could have improved greatly, makes me want to write my own exam course and materials…. hmmm…. well I need to pass this damn test first.

Next test is audit in two weeks.