Anyone here not from a finance background and did level 1? I am a engineering undergrad and i'm contemplating studying for CFA during my attachment..
I think you need to be in your final year before you are allowed to take the CFA.
Anyone here not from a finance background and did level 1? I am a engineering undergrad and i'm contemplating studying for CFA during my attachment..
I think you need to be in your final year before you are allowed to take the CFA.
I think you need to be in your final year before you are allowed to take the CFA.
did you have any finance background? cuz i don't. i don't know if it's better to listen to lectures in kaplan or watch vcd lectures from schweser. at least i can playback. kaplan no playback
Can i just purchase the schweser premiumplus package and self study. After all it has video lectures and i can pause and rewind. It also has the mock exam.
If i were to go to kaplan, there would be so many students. I might not even focus during class and might not get the chance to consult the lecturer.
Thus, for a person with non finance background, do u think video lectures, mock exams and schweser books are enough. after all they still provide lectures. It's about 1.5k cheaper too now that funding is at 70%
Hi Everyone
I attended Kaplan CFA Prep class Level 1 betw June-Nov 2010 ($6,600++ and 90% FICS) and lecturer is Esther Thng. She is not too-bad I gotta say, she knows her stuff although certain topics she couldn;t explain well, e.g. Quan&Accounting. But she is good with the rest like Bonds, Econs, corp fin etc.
Btw I passed my CFA L1 Dec and this year pass rate is 36%.
BUT Kaplan CFA course didn't help me much though. I passed because I spent lotsa time studying
Kaplan is not that great I have to say. Can u imagine there are 70 students in a class? Weekend class even worse - a whopping 150 students.
They went through every chapter very quickly and you can only have the chance of asking question during the 10 mins break.
No exercise, no homework, certain parts of the topics in the CFA curriculum not covered.
Another point is that, you will face the same lecturer throughout the course. (for my weekday class I face Esther for all different subjects, other class I dunno) So it's really pot luck whether u can get good lec, u get a lousy one, good luck!!
So if you really wanna sign up - I will recommend CFA Singapore, they hire diff lecturer for diff topics, more specialized I guess ( This should be the way isnt it?)
Also, Kaplan staff all very unfriendly - be it the counter staff, the photo-taking part-time school girl, the sales staff, the library staff. You face very bad service there. the counter Aunties are quite ya-ya ...because they are like top player in the oligopoly market and they don't train their staff. After paying $6,600++ they still ask u to pay a $10 for the "Student Card" WTF....
How to pass?
My suggestions is:
1) Get a copy of schweser notes and the "Secret Sauce" and go through everything before u embark on the CFA Institute notes which are very very dry to read.
2) Do all the end of chapter exercises.
3) Do 30 sets of 120 ques mock questions before u go for the exam.
4) DO NOT GIVE UP, it's tiring I KNOW. Many of my friends sign up and gave up!
Cheers
Thanks for the advice. After hearing so many advice, i thought about it too. Going for lectures is simply not worth it. You pay so much money and after subsidies you'll pay around 2k+. During lecture, you might not focus 100% of the time. Face it at times our mind starts to wonder, at times we don't understand what the lecturer says and we're stuck.
The better option is to get the schweser package with their secret sauce, online lectures and their mock exam. This way, you could study at your own pace (Don't take your own sweet time of course), and replay the video if you don't understand. This way you won't miss out and you be able to go through every single little point. Furthermore if you don't understand something and you find it yourself you may tend to remember better. Thus schweser's package sound good.
Well have signed up for the June exam and will be mugging hard. Good luck to everyone out there!
if someone got zero background and interested for level 1
self study with discipline is it good enough?