Today marks the beginning of my official preparation for the CPA exam. I ordered and received my review materials from Gleim. Being a pilot, I just couldn’t go any other way. Gleim is so familiar!
From this vantage point (day #1), the road looks so damn long. One step at a time will keep it confrontable.
I spent some time planning and setting up guideposts to mark my progress. My hope is to take the 4 parts of the exam in this order on these dates:
Regulation: 7/6
Auditing: 8/10
FAR: 10/12
BEC: 11/23
All of these dates are Mondays. I figure I’ll be maximally rested from the weekend and will have had some uninterrupted review time leading into the exams.
This gives me 27 weeks of prep time. I’ve already done 13 study units in Gleim over the course of the last semester, so I am left with 67 remaining study units to tackle cold turkey. A quick number crunch shows me needing to average about 1 study unit every 2 days – assuming a 5 day week. That’s a tall order, but it can likely be done without too much of a problem. If I start running behind schedule, I’ll just realign the dates a bit, but that is only a last resort.
Assuming, this schedule and assuming I pass on the first go around, I’ll be done with EVERYTHING by mid Dec. That will give me about 2-3 weeks to rediscover the meaning of life, then I’ll figure out my next game for 2010.
Will I go work as a CPA or go back to professional aviation? Hmmmmmm…… 
Its a tough choice. I believe I know the answer, but I’ll hold my cards close in for now.
May 13th, 2009 at 7:19 pm
Why on earth would you want to be a CPA? I almost took that path — even made a half-hearded attempt at the test and passed one part. — and decided against it, much to the disappointment of my mother. The thought of doing audits and taxes for the rest of my life was nightmarish.
You live the “high life,” right? Why give that up?
May 13th, 2009 at 9:47 pm
hmmmmmm…what will you do?!? I’d like to know!
May 13th, 2009 at 10:10 pm
The “high life”, huh? Perhaps.
As to your attempt at the exam, you ought to have finished. Perhaps your reason for not following through is related to the negative light you cast on the field. One of the beauties to being a CPA is that most of the real competition has been weeded out, contrast that with the professional pilot life. Unless you’ve done it, you won’t get it.
May 18th, 2009 at 6:14 pm
Congratulations on making the decision to leap head-first into the CPA exam! It’s a life-changing experience and certainly not easy but once you realize that it is a test of discipline, not of intelligence, you’ll do just fine.
If you need any tips or tricks along the way, feel free to reach out.
Best of luck to you!!