Give it Audit you got:

Hi everyone, I haven’t written an update about my CPA studying for a few weeks. I figured I would share my progress going into week 3 of studying!

I think most people can agree, when they start this journey they feel like they’re in waaaay over their heads. I still do if I’m being honest.

These past 2 weeks were an eye-opener for me for a lot of reasons:

1. Even the “easy” sections of the CPA are still so hard
2. When you plan to study 8 hours a day, you need to actually study 8 hours
3. Studying at home or in a loud coffee shop might seem appealing, but it is not a good place to retain information
4. I did not learn half of this in college, and if I did I just learned a general overview. One semester of audit cannot possibly teach me all that is in the 492 pages of my review book! An undergrad accounting degree is not going to allow you to pass the CPA without intense studying on your own!
5. These tests aren’t a joke, and the low pass rates for the exams are no exaggeration

Well, those are just my top 5 realizations, but I’ve had a lot more than that. I’m someone who usually gets overwhelmed easily when it comes to hard topics in school or big tests coming up, even though I know at the end of the day I will probably do well.

When I’m overwhelmed or just plain scared of something (like taking this test and failing) I like to procrastinate. I have found myself doing that a lot during the first 2 weeks when I studied at home. I would take an hour break to go get lunch, watch an episode of Netflix, or go shopping. That hour break combined with the endless breaks to check my phone really hurt my studying.

The past 2 weeks, I’ve been following the study plan Wiley CPA makes for you on your personalized dashboard and I’ve been struggling to complete my goals at the end of the day due to the procrastination I told you about. It got to the point where I’d wake up at 10, start studying at 10:30 am, and not close my computer officially until 10:30/11 pm.

Even when I don’t procrastinate and really dial in and study, it still takes me around 30-45 minutes to get through each topic. Lately, I’ve been struggling a ton in a specific area involving auditing individual transactions. I would spend nearly an hour watching a video lecture and taking notes, but at the end when I was supposed to pass a practice test, I was barely pulling out 50’s and 60’s.

I’m still struggling with this, and I really don’t know what the problem is. It’s the worst when you think you understand something really well, and then you take a practice test and it turns out you really don’t know it as well as you thought.

Last week, I had my first “freak out” when I came to the realization that I would not be ready for my July 5th exam. I decided to move it to July 8th instead to give myself the 3 extra days of review that I think will be more than enough.

I also realized that I scheduled these exams way too close together and I was too optimistic with my planning. I was planning on taking AUD, FAR, and BEC all before September 9th…. I don’t know what I was thinking to be honest. To fix this and give myself time to pass what is considered the hardest one, FAR, I decided that I will just take AUD and FAR before Sept. 9th.

I’m definitely disappointed that I won’t be able to take 3 before I start work, however I really would love to set myself up to pass 2. I’m hoping this change up pays off and I pass both, but we’ll see!

At the end of the day, I’ve realized not to rush these tests and I finally stopped putting immense pressure on myself to finish almost all of it before work starts up. Many of my professors who are CPAs have told me they didn’t pass their first times and they’re some of the smartest people I know.

Well, I hope you all enjoyed my update, if you’re studying too feel free to reach out with any tips, comments, questions, or if you just want to complain to someone who gets it lol.

Stay tuned for an update in early July after I take my first exam!!