My holiday gift: more study time! 

It is December* and everywhere I go I am greeted with mini-lights and holiday cheer. I love Christmas! It is also an excellent time of year to stay indoors, stay warm and study. It can get to be negative thirty degrees at times here in Minnesota; my trips outdoors are limited. It also does not get sunny until well after I am usually at work. What is my solution to the winter darkness? Stay home longer and study!

In our monthly update, I let my boss know that I was having a hard time concentrating on any studying at the office. She was more than obliging to make a work-around for me since my company is paying for me to take the test. Our solution is to allow me more time to work at home.  We also agreed that the week prior to the test, I can work solely from home. I have been staying at home for the first hour to hour and a half to study, anything more than that seems indulgent. It has been a great help. I can have some coffee, plug into the office in case there is anything that genuinely requires my immediate attention, and study. The quiet helps a lot. I am through module 2 and onto module 3 at this point, but I have not had a chance to take the module 2 post test. I am fortunate as much of module 2 relates to calculations I have already learned through the course of my master’s program. Had I not had a good understanding of concepts like WACC and NPV, the calculations would require more work to learn.

I have found myself spending a lot of time going back and reviewing module 1. Retaining the information has been more of a challenge than I thought it would be; the regulations and articles of the laws trip me up a bit. I have also had another unexpected study help. I have been traveling a lot more for work lately. When I am on planes, it is an amazing time to do some studying. There is generally a bit of quiet, I am forced to sit still and the only thing I can occupy myself with is reading and studying.

I am still using the flashcards quite a bit, but I have not made good on my promise to get online more to review. I find that once I am online, I get distracted. There are emails to check and work to do. Once I am online and spend any time there, I think of things not related to the exam more quickly and have a much more difficult time staying focused. My deck of flashcards has grown quite large. I have gone through two packs of index cards. Sometimes, I write down questions that I know the answer to and need no studying at all. Hey, it’s the holidays. It is okay to give myself a little gift!

* editor's note:  Well, it was when she wrote this.  Candidates submitted blogs while they prepared for the 2011A window and were not able to edit their blogs after they were submitted.