[Son]

Guys,

This post is meant, first of all, as a big thank you to all those amazing people on this forum who have encouraged and supported me through this exam. But I also wanted to share my story as I’ve always being inspired by stories of people in situations similar to mine when studying for my exams.

A bit of background: I am a foreign national who has been living in the U.S. for the past few years. English is not my native language; I have not taken any accounting classes in school (but I did take a few on U.S. federal tax). I got my bachelor’s in my home country and my master’s in the U.S. During my prep for the CPA exam I was working full time with one of the Big4s. I have completed all 4 sections within 11 month (took a break during the summer when I was really busy with work). I have passed all sections on the first try, although my grades are nothing to brag about:) I’ve got mid-80s on all my exams except for AUD (was my first section, I was freaking out and overstudied to pull a 93).

Given my background, I had one big question before starting this journey: can I actually do it? There were so many factors that indicated this would be an impossible challenge. But if you’re in a similar situation, I want you to know something I desperately wanted to hear 11 month ago: you can do it!

I’m hoping the following tips will be helpful for those of you in a similar situation:

1. Study every day of the week. Studying should become a systematic exercise. It will be easy to find excuses, especially if you work full time and have a family, but you have to promise yourself to get at least an hour in every day no matter what.

2. Try to use every opportunity to squeeze more study time in your day: on your way to and from work, during lunch at work, and even during downtime – talk to your boss about studying at work when your workload is light.

3. Don’t drag the preparation for too long (2 month/section was my optimal timeframe). You start forgetting what you’ve learned in the first module and will need to relearn the information.

4. Give yourself a mental permission to have one day off a week when it’s really necessary. On the other scale of people who are lazy are people who overwork themselves. There were days when I would get back home at midnight with a headache and studying seemed like a torture. It helped a lot that I’ve promised myself not to feel guilty if once a week I skipped studying – for a good reason.

5. If you’re not a native speaker, yet alone not an accounting major and don’t know the terminology, it will take you a lot more time to get through lectures and especially the textbook. If you’re using Becker, be mindful that 13-15 hours they allocate to each lecture are far from reality. There were parts that I’ve finished in 5 hours, but then there were B2 and B3 that took me over 25 hours each. So, don’t panic if you don’t move as fast as you’d like, ask people what parts will be more time-consuming and focus on retaining material rather than speed.

6. If you’re using Becker, don’t cut any corners (and I imagine this applies to Ninja and any other review course). Listen to all lectures, read the whole textbook, do all MCQs and SIMs, do progress tests. That’s the only way to master the material, and there’s no guessing on the exam, so don’t skip topics.

7. there are no “easy” parts on the CPA exam. I’ve heard stories about BEC being the easier section – I ended up hating it the most, and got the lowest grade of all 4. All of the parts require a lot of time and effort.

8. Learn to use authoritative literature. I had SIMs on AUD and FAR that I was able to match with almost identical examples in the AL. For REG you can use the Code to check your answers as well.

9. Review is the most important part of your studying. That’s when everything will come together even if it didn’t make sense before. If possible, take some time off before sitting for each section and dedicate it to review.

10. You won’t always get it right the first time, but everything up to the time you open your test on the Prometic’s computer is study time. It doesn’t matter if you’ve got that MCQ wrong; just make sure you’ve learn from your mistake.

And lastly: CPA journey can be a humbling experience; but looking back, I wish someone told me it’s not nearly as impossible as many people make it sounds. It is time consuming; it is challenging. But at the end of the day it’s just an exam designed by people for other people to take and pass. So, save yourself some nerves – it’s a doable undertaking, and if you make up your mind about it, you will certainly succeed!

AUD - passed
REG - passed
BEC - passed
FAR - passed