CFA - one of the toughest experiences ever

It's finally over! The exam ended at 6pm after a 12 hour long day. It was really tricky, and had two 3 hour sessions. Everyone was expecting the afternoon paper to be easy, but they made the afternoon paper super difficult!

Honestly, however, for me I felt it was the opposite. That I did better in the afternoon paper compared to the morning paper.

My feeling about the morning paper was that it was pretty straightforward, but I did make quite a few careless mistakes when I could have done better. The afternoon paper, I felt, was quite straightforward! But maybe that is just me, maybe I was lucky to get the questions that I did know the answer to. I remember, at one point during the afternoon paper, I was on a roll - I had managed to do almost 30 questions without hesitating because I guess I knew the answer! I did not have such confidence during the morning paper.

But it's all finally over, after a few months of actually studying for this. Throughout uni period, however, there were multiple times when I just had to leave CFA behind and focus on my own uni subjects because I placed more importance on them. After all I have gone through, I have to give God the honour for guiding me through this. I am immensely happy that I have 'freedom' now to do whatever I want! Hopefully I will spend this holidays constructively besides working, maybe building a few relationships with friends and making new friends.

I am glad that I sat for the CFA Level 1 paper, and I know that, even now I am uncertain about whether I am going to pass, I know that it has been a good experience. From meeting Daniel, Catherine and Andrea during exam day and hanging out, to learning so much about financial markets from the CFA, I know that the pass/fail decision would not mean as much as what I have learnt so far. At the moment, I am feeling that my result is about 73%, and hopefully that is enough to pass! I will know by late January, so it's all in God's hands.

I totally recommend anyone thinking of doing CFA to do it! It will be one of the hardest but most rewarding exams you will ever take in your life. It truly is the gold standard in the finance industry.