[Anonymous]

So, I have not posted on here hardly at all for quite awhile now, intentionally. Probably because my mind has not been on the CPA exam at all.

REG is my last one to take – until I’ve taken them all. I started studying REG a week or two ago and I don’t quite know why, maybe because it’s tax season or whatever but I just can’t get into it. I have to re-take all three of the other ones. I was thinking of just starting over on FAR, which I have not even thought about in 14 months since I took it. I still have 4 months left on Roger, which I don’t think I will be using. I will probably do the new monthly Ninja deal.
I don’t know if there’s a “best one to start with if you have to re-take them all”?

[Anonymous]

@loveandbeloved – just for everyone else's benefit, YES, I would say that anyone taking the CPA exams should not be seeking out a bookkeeping-type career. We're better than that.
We can do more. Just the fact that we have gotten this far is a testament to it. I know plenty of bookkeepers who are very fine accountants for small businesses. I know one
lady who has a husband and 2 teenaged daughters who is about 50 years old and she has so many clients that she can barely keep up with them all. Could she have been a CPA?
Yes, if she'd gone to school and done it all when she was younger. She's smart enough to. But, anyone who has gotten a BS degree or higher in Accounting/Business Admin/etc. should have their sights set on something better; she doesn't have a degree, although she's Quickbooks Certified. I'll admit, when I first took Accounting 1 in 2010, many moons ago, I didn't know what I wanted. It wasn't until I took my first non-accounting course (the next semester), which was Business Law, that I really started to see the big picture. And, I had (and still have) a very good friend who is a CPA – licensed in 2004 (took exam on paper right before it went to Prometric computers) who has helped me along the way as far as what to do and what not to do. Although, he recommended Becker for my review course and I did not heed that advice. It was beyond my budget and I don't encounter a lot of people who use it anymore other than B4 employees. So, you will eventually be doing the accounting you want to do. It may take having your CPA license before it happens, depending on where you live and what the job market is. But you are at a very good age to do all this; 29-30 is I think when most people get a CPA license. Or, “early 30s”.

Anyway, thank you again! Now I just need to get back to studying again, as it's been 6 months since I cracked a book (although not due to laziness, mind you.)

[loveandbeloved]

@crazyleon – THANK YOU! I needed to hear that! Especially since I haven't worked in environments where anyone else was studying for this exam. It made me feel very alone and I longed to be around people who were studying for this exam and wanted better for themselves and their career! And I longed to be around people under 40 who didn't talk about their families and kids all day. lol. I still have that longing! But all I have is this website until I get out into the real world and start working again. lol. I'm not sure when I should start my job search cause I don't know if a public accounting firm will hire me until I passed the exam given my experience. =/

[Anonymous]

More advice from Leon the Advice Counselor… Get back to work as soon as you can. Not working is ONLY acceptable if you have a really good reason for not working. If you're fresh out of school and take 6 months to sit for and pass the CPA exams, that's a good excuse. If you fell ill with mono or something, that's not even a good excuse…your employer has to take you back after you get well again. In this day and age, gaps in employment are not, Not, NOT liked by employers. Some employers will even state in job ads “Don't apply if you're unemployed or haven't had steady, long-term employment for the past 3 years” So, get back working as soon as you can. Surely you can work a few hours a day in addition to studying? The most I could ever study was 4 hours at a time every day. I did have a period of about 2 months in 2016 where I was between jobs and made the most of it. I really hit it hard for those months, but the only time I did 9-10 hours a day was on weekends.

You mentioned wanting to be around people who were studying for the exam…apply at Big 4 or public and you'll be with those people 40+ hours a week. Although, there is a dark side to that – the ones who pass often taunt the ones who fail, or make a point of being nosey (“oooh, you have to re-take FAR right? When's that happening?” “Wow, you flunked it again? And that was, what, your second try on FAR right?”) Thank God, my workplace isn't that way. I work at a large publicly-traded company. We have 4 CPAs in the office. We have about 40 accountants – half are AR and AP folks, the other half of us are corporate. We're mostly older folks, and none of us are taking the CPA exams other than me…or if they are, I'm unaware of it. You mentioned people who yap about family all day long… I sit right across from four gals who are in charge of “Other Income”. They aren't really accountants, they're more like bookkeepers. They talk all day long about their personal lives. The most entertaining is Kristin aka “Date Girl” – she's 32, divorced, has a son from failed marriage, lives at home with parents again. Goes on many dates, and I hear about all of them – well, forced to, I am never part of the conversation. Looks like she finally may have snagged a winner and will soon be engaged I think, but sheesh, it's annoying, hearing about her second go-around with the marriage game!! 🙂

[loveandbeloved]

@crazyleon aka “Advice Counselor” – Oh dang! Well, I do have to move out by the summertime so…. hopefully I'll have passed at least 3 out of 4 sections by then, if not all of them if I find out I passed FAR! It's just making me a bit nervous since I do want to work at one of the Big 4's and in public accounting, and my experience makes me a bit insecure as I'm going from night to day! LOL. One of the many reasons I want to pass before working in public is so that I don't have to deal with all that taunting. LOL! And I just feel I have a better chance of passing not working, especially at a Big 4 firm. LORD JESUS! I don't know if the summer is a good hiring time for Big 4's or public accounting firms though. I would think it would be the best time, but I don't know. I definitely need to start doing the research as summer is only a few months away. My college friend who is a CPA said that if my reason for the gap in employment is to study for the exams, then CPA firms won't care, especially if I pass. ??? =/ You're right, I definitely don't spend all day studying. I managed to pass BEC working full-time living on my own, and I passed AUD when my boss let me convert to part-time in my current living situation. So it's possible. I've thought about working at Starbucks or something just to maintain cashflow, but that isn't relevant work experience, and money isn't an issue for me. (Well, at least right now it's not! HA!) I don't think it would look good either to take a part-time bookkeeping position (that I would hate) learning all about a company just to quit a few months later. That wouldn't land me a good reference. I also don't wanna risk getting sucked into a long-term position and have sections expire and this cycle of not passing continue. If I find a firm willing to hire me in July/August, then that would be amazing! I gotta work on my resume tomorrow since it's been a couple years since I've worked on it. Hopefully I'll have a rough draft of it in a couple days.

LMBOOOOOOO!!! Omg! Hearing about people's personal lives at work all day long bothered me so much! LOL. It was super annoying! Especially since I didn't have much of a personal life myself. Maybe I was jealous a little, but geez, get to work! Here I am working my butt off being quiet all day, and then there's people who are yapping not even doing much, who are distracting me as I try to focus AND are getting paid more than me! GOH! I rarely worked with men either, which also bothered me cause women were always the one's talking all day doing nothing. And these women always had man problems *rolls eyes*. No wonder they never wanted to hire a man. SMH.

[Kev]

I would start with AUD. I found that to be the “easiest” one of the 3 I've studied for since it had minimal math it was not much to memorize in terms of formulas etc…

[Ashley]

When I started this process, the way I picked which exam to take first was very much dependent on the “New format” of April last year. I started studying in Sept 2016. I wanted to get 2 passed before the new format started, so I decided to sit for BEC first and then go for AUD because those were the two sections that seemed to be changing the most. Once I got those two finished, I sat for REG and FAR. I used Gleim, have a husband, a toddler, and a full time job.

All of that to say, I know with me (and it seemed the same way for the other people I knew going through this process) that you get VERY burnt out by the last test. It took me 3 tries to beat FAR and I am an assistant controller so theoretically that should have been the one that I was most comfortable with. My friend is in Auditing and it took her 3 tries to pass AUD (which she left for last). I think you are so tired by the end that no matter which topic it is, chances are it will feel like a beast. I dont know if there is a magic order, but the fact that I took them as BARF and passed in that order is at least kinda funny. You have looked over all of the materials at one point or another, so just go with your gut and in my opinion, go from what feels like will be hardest to easiest because the clock wont start until after you get your hardest one finished.

You CAN do this. I know it sucks the life out of you and feels like something you will never get done, but YOU WILL.

[fwesley]

I’d do BEC first. Then REG. Then AUD. Then FAR.

I think getting the hardest out of the way is good IF you can pass. I couldn’t and it was so discouraging. I passed BEC. And then AUD. And it’s anazing how much motivation that gave me to do REG and FAR.

I’d try and do REG before 7/01. If they change the test for the new tax law it’s pretth significant. So get it done sooner rather than later.

FAR: 65 (still drying my tears) 2nd attempt: 7/2016
BEC: 81 5/2016 (WOO FIRST PASS!)
REG: 5/2016
AUD: 8/2016

[Go.For.Broke]

@crazyleon I started with FAR and would recommend starting with FAR or REG. Since you're already studying REG, stick with that. Just put your elbows down on that book and focus. You can do it! I'd recommend you take REG first (for the reason I mentioned), FAR, AUD, BEC. You may move BEC up earlier than one of the others, if it's truly “hard” with the new format. I took it before the April 2017 changes.

Good luck!

[Anonymous]

Thank you all for the advice/comments. After 7 months of no studying, I will admit, I am still burned out after the 13 months that I did spend studying (and the 12 months before that, which I studied with no review course.) Ighhhh…. I think I will probably do FAR as my first re-take. Probably a good place to start, because that was the first one I took originally.

[Adam]

FAR is the hardest section…FAR will be used with every other section…Do FAR First

Understand FAR well and you will understand the entire exam better.

Plus your clock doesnt start ticking til you pass..so if you take the easiest section first and pass all 3..then to be stuck with FAR where you need atleast 3 months to study..you will be stuck in a vicious cycle of losing sections if you cant pass FAR

[Anonymous]

@Adam yeah I know, doing BEC or AUD first is not advisable. I've read from people on here who did that and they later regretted it. More than one had FAR as their last test, which they could not pass, and the credits dropped away from them and they had to begin all over again. I used to know this guy who worked as a bank teller at my bank – he and I went to the same school. He passed a few sections but started losing credit for them because he kept getting so busy at work, and eventually got promoted to an executive position. I ran into him at the supermarket 6-7 months ago. I asked him how he was doing on his CPA journey, which he started in like 2011. He said “I'm on my third test now.” Judging from the amount of time that has gone by, and the number of years I've known him, I'm sure this is at *least* his third round of sittings. It sucks to be him in CPA land, despite the fact that he's prolly making outstanding money as a bank exec.

[Kev]

@crazyleon I am interested in knowing why you took such a long time off from studying (7 months)?. It is really hard to get back into anything with such a break. That is why i think you may want to start with one of the “easier” ones so that you can get the confidence of a pass. You would be surprised how much motivation that can give you.

[Anonymous]

@Kev – Yah, I know, a 75 is all it takes to prove to yourself that you can do it. Why did I take 7 months off? I was too burned out. By that point (last August) I'd effectively studied for 2 years. 1 year without a review course (used many different materials) and then 1 year with a review course. With no results to show for it. It's not like me to underachieve so badly. I just said to myself, “I need to take at least 6 months off and just clear my brain of this rotten experience.” Which, I have pretty much done. I'm not 24 years old. I'm not doing this as a way to move up in public accounting. I don't work in public accounting. It will eventually, I hope, be a way to move up in the company I work for, but I'm not competing against a pack of roving, cocky, cutthroat millenials to do it. Having said that, I'm pretty much ready to get going on it all again! It's just a question of where to start. Since at least half of people start (or re-start?) with FAR, so that seems a good place to start. On the other hand, sure, BEC and AUD are easier, this is true. I've said this before and i will say it again – “EVERYONE does the CPA journey in a different way.” Virtually every time I've run across two people who tried to do it the same – sharing a review course, sharing review materials, studying in the same way (or trying to), one person finds that it doesn't work for them. You just have to make it your own. I don't know why the CPA exam is that way. Then again, there's a lot I don't understand about it (the prestige of the credential, for one thing….but I won't go off on that, that's a different rant for a different thread.) Anyhoo.

[tygolfer]

I have one piece of advice…and don't take this the wrong way…but once you decide to dive back in I would try and use the forum as limited as possible. There are definitely good uses for this form (asking for help to explain a topic/answer to certain question, getting advice, and study groups) but I personally found that early on I was wasting a lot of my time that I should have been productively studying, by spending it on the forum. Good luck!

[Adam]

ITs easy to take 7 months off..I'm all for it..clear your head get re motivated and go back at it..Im also a fan of taking as many breaks as possible during the test.

5 minutes here or there to clear your head will not make or break your results..you should not run out of time.

I knew a guy that was fairly smart but had been doing the test for 3 years..since he kept losing sections..lol I took FAR and BEC in the same window..

Failed with 71's on both.

No time clicking though…Next window took them again..passed with BEC at 75 and FAR with 84

Took Reg after tax season I work in public..passed that on 1 hr sleep with an 89.

Then Aud was final and pretty easy imo..passed that with like an 80 or whatever,

Point is everyone has there own style, you just have to figure out what works for you. I'm sure you'll figure it out..This board is good to vent from time to time..but for actual advice you usally have to figure things out for yourself.

[Author]

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