[SammyJ]

Hiyall.

I just found out last night at 8:30 PM that I got a 81 in BEC and have passed all 4 exams!! I’m only 22 years old, just graduated and have no work experience, so I still need that 1 year of work under a CPA! But its an indescribable feeling. I’ve spent the last 14 hours looking back at my CPA journey. I recall going to Becker classes on Saturdays from 8am-5pm(brutal I know). And I recall working out in my garage during summer every morning before studying. I recall watching all 9 seasons of Everybody Loves Raymond because I needed a laugh. I recall going to jury duty in August. My Dad’s surgery. The A’s winning game 4 of the ALCS in October. Halloween. Thanksgiving. Christmas. New Years. This all seem like history to me as this journey has taken me 8 full months to complete.

And the one biggest thing I recall is a letter I wrote myself over three months ago after I found out I failed Auditing. Coming fresh out of college, I was trained to always suceed. When I get a test back in college, atleast I get a grade. If you fail a CPA exam, a 74=0. I felt like I had just wasted 1.5 months and now I gotta reinvest another month to restudy. It was just so painful and it didn’t help that I was going through a lot of personal matters at the time and Christmas was approaching. So that night I wrote myself a letter and saved it on my computer. I have not read it again until today. Here’s what it said word-for-word:

“12/8/12

I am writing this within 3 hours of realizing that I have failed the Auditing exam. It is an extremely painful feeling especially when I had believed I had done so well on it. My only other feeling is the sense of humbleness. I guess I underestimated the juggernaut I was facing. I had a dream last night where I had rushed through an exam and minutes later I realized that I sped through it so fast that I couldn’t even remember a single question that was on it. And then I feared perhaps I might have even skipped a few questions. It was only a dream however, and my biggest fear was realized when my fantasy became something real tonight. My deepest regret was not spending more time on the multiple choice questions. I have ample time to review my answers, but lazyness and fatigue did me in. Perhaps I had set the bar too low after gaining confidence from passing the Financial exam. All these things coupled led to my downfall.

The biggest pain realized tonight is facing the truth that this will set me back another full month. My sorrow and depression have been hidden for over five months and continues to grow. It is a pain so deep because I have no one to express my feelings to. Tonight was a stab in the heart. However, I must summon the biggest courage and grit I have ever mustered. REG seem so far away and feeling this pain for another month and ten days will be excruciating, but I am hoping in the end it will build me stronger than ever mentally. I have to find a way to getting back to the books. Instead of laying down feeling sorry for myself, I need to make a stand. I can never forget this is my life.

I had only wished tonight wouldn’t have come, but it has. I am writing this with hopes of releasing some of the emotions that have been burdening me. Fruitless or not, I feel it is neccessary. Perhaps after I have successfully passed all four exams I will return to this document and smile knowing that I have overcome the hardship, the torturing break-up, the excrutiating pain and in the end realize that I am strong. I am brave. Future Sam, I hope you do read this and realize that we’re both the same man, but only in a different time and in a different light. “

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So the biggest challenge I faced during these CPA exams was not when I was inside a Prometric center staring at a computer screen. It was finding out that through and through that pass or fail, I am still the same person. So my lesson to those who have failed, remember that one day you will get the opportunity to look back. There will be an end. And that the hardest part never was remembering your mnemonics or the formula for distributable net income or the difference between the direct approach and the absorption appraoch. Rather it always have been being able to roll with the punches, getting back up and punching back. And that CPA exam doesn’t change you, only your AGI.

Thank you everyone!

FAR-81!!
AUD-69, Retake: 84!!
REG-86!!
BEC-81!!
Education- Done
Ethics- August 2013
Experience- 7 Months of CPA Experience and counting!