From the MSA to the CPA

Transcript

James Peterson:

Hello everyone. Welcome. Welcome to our CPA webinar. My name is Jason Peterson. I am the chair of the Accounting and Business Law Department, and I'm also the program director for the MSA here at Suffolk University, in the Sawyer Business School. We have a number of you attending, which is fantastic. We have some of you are accounting undergraduate majors here at Suffolk, and some of you are current MSA students here at Suffolk. And then I believe we have a few prospective MSA students as well. So welcome everyone. I'd like to briefly introduce our guests. I'm joined by Michael Ceglie from Becker.

He's going to start us off in a couple of minutes. Becker is one of the, or probably the premier CPA exam test provider, preparation provider. I'm also joined by Tin Dang, Kevin Gozzo, and Christine Hraiz. They are recent MSA graduates and have some recent experience preparing for passing various sections of the CPA exam. So they're going to provide some great insights towards the end when we open it up for questioning. So I'm going to begin with turning it over to Michael, who's going to share his screen, and he's going to walk us through some of the finer points of the CPA exam. Take it away, Michael.

Michael Ceglie:

All right. Hoping you can all see this, the pathway to the CPA application session slide. So thank you, Jason, for allowing me to participate and present this information tonight. So basically we're going to cover three basic topics. We're going to talk about the application process to the CPA. We'll talk about the exam itself, some of the new information, some of the new content material as part of the CPA evolution. And then we'll talk about some tips for success for the CPA exam, some sequence, how to consider taking the exams from a sequential standpoint. And then just some information about Becker that I think will help lead to success for those that are looking to take the CPA exam. So let's start it off here. I'm just going to start by showing you all the NASBA website, which is the National Association for the State Boards of Accountancy.

So every state and territory has their own board of accountancy, and basically what NASBA does is they post all that information here. So it's all your resources, all the access that you need, all the resources are housed on the NASBA site. And essentially what you'll do when you're ready to start applying, you will log into the CPA portal here, and this is where it will house all of your information, your scores, applications, things like that. So the NASBA site is just, it's going to be your guiding star as you move through this process. And I will just point out the CPA exam candidate guide, which is a downloadable PDF document on the site here, and that is an amazing resource for candidates to gain access to application, information, navigation, where to go to find the resources is all kind of housed in that CPA exam candidate guide. So that's a really, really helpful document for you all. All right, so just remember that nasba.org website. This is where you'll go to get a lot of that information. So just kind of some basic CPA exam facts.

The CPA is graded on a scale of zero to 99. A 75 is a passing score. You can take the exam in any state or jurisdiction. So if you live in New York, but you're going to school in Massachusetts, you can take the exam in Massachusetts. The thing that you need to be mindful of is where you want to be licensed in. So you can take the exam at any state, but you need to meet the requirements for the state that you want to be licensed, and we'll talk a little bit more about that as we get deeper into the presentation. In Massachusetts, you currently have 30 months to pass all four parts, and basically that 30 month extension starts when you pass your first section. Okay, so once you pass your first section, you have 30 months to complete the remaining parts, the remaining three parts. That is a new newly adopted extension. Massachusetts has adopted.

I've got a slide that will walk through some of the states. Most of the states have adopted the 30 month, some have gone to a little bit longer, very few have not adopted it at this point. So in those that haven't, are in the process of doing so. The exam is broken into three core sections and then a discipline section, which is comprised of three sections, one of which you will take. You don't need to take all three, you just need to choose one of those discipline sections. For the core sections, you have financial, you have auditing, and you have regulation. And then in the discipline section you have business analysis or bar, information systems and controls, and tax compliance and planning. All the exams are four hours. They're comprised of five testlets, the first two testlets being multiple choice questions and the remaining three testlets being task-based simulation.

So that's what that TBS stands for. MCQ is multiple choice, TBS is task-based simulations. Your task-based simulations are your more scenario type questions, simulation questions. They'll take a little bit longer for you to answer. You do get a break in between testlet three and four. You get a 15-minute break, and that's off the clock. You can take a break in between the other testlets, but that would count against your time. Okay? So the steps to becoming a CPA, not a simple process, unfortunately a little bit more complex to navigate, but we've kind of broken it down into five steps. There are some steps within steps here, but for most of you, you are in the process of completing step one. So that's meet the educational requirements. And in the state of Massachusetts, you need 120 college credits to sit for the exam. You can, in Massachusetts, take the exam 90 days prior to graduation, but you'll need to fill out some paperwork, have some of that documentation notarized, and it really just to prove that you are on a path within 90 days to graduation.

So you can take it 90 days prior in Massachusetts. So step one, meet the educational requirements. Step two is kind of a two-step process. You'll submit what is called an education evaluation, and basically that is just really submitting your transcripts, to ensure that you've met the requirements to be able to sit for the exam. Now, unfortunately, that process is taking a little bit longer than in the past. It's taking between six to eight weeks, I've heard even longer up to two months. So just keep that in mind. You only need to submit that application once. Okay, once you get approval, you are now covered. However, you do need to submit another application for each exam section. Okay? And that's just called the exam section application. That is a quick turnaround time. I've heard some folks have gotten it back within a couple hours, so that is a pretty quick process.

Now, please also keep in mind that every time you submit an evaluation, you are incurring a fee. The education evaluation is, I think it's about $190, and then it just does... This is state dependent. The exam section application I believe is around 300. So you're looking at about $1,500 in applications alone. A lot of firms will cover that. They may reimburse you, they may cover it upfront, really depends on the individual firm. So that's kind of step two. Step three is once you've submitted your applications or you're waiting to get those back, you can really start to think about what your study plan is going to look like, how many hours you have per week to study, per day. You're going to choose your exam review course provider. Hopefully it's Becker, but there's other exam review providers out there, and I urge you to look around, see what works for you. Becker does work exclusively with the big four and with the top 100 as well. So a lot of you will have already either received Becker via your firm or you will as part of the benefits package that your firm is offering.

And we do in fact work with some of the smaller firms as well. It really just depends on what the firm has to offer from a benefits standpoint. So once you've kind of chosen your exam review provider, you're going to create your study plan and start to think about how much time you have to study and then really start studying. Then once you receive your exam section application approval, you'll now have six months to sit and schedule your exam. So that's step four. Okay? And that's called an NTS, your notice to schedule. You will schedule your exam through a testing site called Prometric. There are Prometric testing centers all over the place. You should be able to find one that's geographically local for you as well as one that has a testing window available for you. If you're a morning person or if you're not a morning person, you might want to consider taking the exam in the afternoon. They do offer both morning and afternoon sessions.

And so Prometric is the site that oversees the CPA exam. They do other exams as well. So it's not just CPA exam takers at the site. It is a very strict and rigorous process. They'll do a digital fingerprint. You won't be able to bring any sort of resources with you. You'll have a calculator and you'll have the Excel-like spreadsheet that's embedded on the desktop or laptop there. So you'll have what you'll need to take the exam, but just keep in mind that it is kind of a strict process at the Prometric sites. So once you've scheduled your exams, you're going to take the exams, you're going to pass those exams, and then you're going to obtain your work experience. Every state's a little bit different, but for instance, in Massachusetts, you need to obtain a year of work experience working for a public accounting firm, and then you'll be able to apply for your licensure.

There are some other requirements, including the education, 150 credits, which we will talk about. So these are just a snapshot of the requirements for the local area. So Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire. You need 120 credits to sit. As I mentioned in Massachusetts, you can sit 90 days prior to graduation. You'll see some of the required coursework varies via each state. And so that's why it's so important to keep in mind which state you want to be licensed in because there may be different requirements. And then we talked about the state-specific information. So for Massachusetts, you need one year of full-time work experience in public accounting or three years in non-public accounting. And then you need 150 hours for licensure. So you can sit at 120, but you're going to need 150 to get your CPA license. So it's important to kind of think about that as you're working through your undergrad or whether you're going to go to grad school and fulfill the 150 hours, or if you're going to complete your undergrad, take the exam and then figure out how to get those additional 30 hours.

All right, I did mention the 30-month window extension. So this is just a slide that kind of speaks to what states have adopted it. This is as a few months ago. So I would imagine a lot of these states in yellow have implemented the 30-month rule, so the green means they've implemented it. So you can see Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York have all implemented it. The others have passed it, but they just haven't implemented it yet. The only state that's kind of trailing everything is South Carolina, that they're still at 18 months. The reality is it shouldn't really take you 30 months to pass the CPA exam. It is nice that now that you have that extension, but if you're taking 30 months to pass the exam, you're probably not as disciplined as you should be. I think from an average standpoint, most candidates are getting it done within a year to 18 months. And a lot of the firms, I shouldn't say a lot of the firms, but some of the firms, some of the big four firms, are incentivizing candidates to get their license quick.

So I know Grant Thornton, in fact offers a bonus if you get your CPA or you pass your CPA exam within 12 months, they're giving a smaller bonus if you pass it within 18 months. So there definitely is an incentive to get it done as quickly as possible. This slide just kind of speaks to the timeline. So we talked about six to eight weeks to receive your approvals back. You submit your applications, six to eight weeks to receive those approvals back. And then you've got six months to sit for the exam for each section that you've applied for. Okay? You can apply for multiple sections at the same time. You just have to submit different applications. So under the previous CPA exam process, you could apply for multiple sections on one application. You can no longer do that. So you have to submit at least four applications, hopefully you pass all four times and then you've got 30 months to complete once you've passed that first section.

This slide is, this is pulled right from the Becker platform, and I really like to show this slide because it kind of talks to how Becker can help keep you on track. And so this is a sample study plan, and essentially what you're going to do is input which section you're going to start with. You don't need to know the sequence of all four, you just need to know which section you're going to start with. So in this case, this person is starting with FAR, then you need to determine how many hours per week you have to study. So some of you are either going to be in grad school, you're going to be working full-time, maybe you're going to start taking the summer off and studying then. So it really varies how many hours you have depending on your current lifestyle. And it is okay, it's just you need to be honest and realistic in determining, okay, how much time can I feasibly spend studying per week?

If you're working full-time, you're not going to be able to study 40 hours a week, unless you're an exception to the rule. Okay? So just be honest with yourself. If you're working full-time, you may only have 13, 15 hours a week to study, and that's giving yourself a couple hours a day if you're not going to study on the weekends, maybe even longer. And that can be a challenge. I mean, you're working eight hours, nine hours, you're commuting, you're getting home. Do you want to spend four hours studying at the end of a long day? So just be honest with yourself. So you will input how many hours a week you have to study, then you'll input the first day of studying. You'll also input when your exam is scheduled for, and what we will do is create the study plan. It's basically a syllabus and it tells you exactly when you need to get through each section, how much time you have to get through each chapter and have everything completed by your exam.

So this is the old financial section. The new financial section is actually only six. We could call them units. The old section had 10, but essentially under this model, it would take a week to get through each unit and then you'll have your simulated exams. So every section that Becker provides, you'll have two full four-hour simulated CPA exams that you'll take generally a week or two prior to sitting for the actual exam. And the Becker CPA simulated exams are actually in fact harder than the CPA exam because we want to make sure that you're fully prepared to sit for the exam. This is a dynamic document too. So for instance, if you had a vacation scheduled or you got sick and you just couldn't study for the week, you can move these sections around as long as they fit within your exam criteria.

So that's the Becker study plan. This is the Prometric site. So again, this is the site that you're going to go to schedule your exam. You can search for availability, you can reschedule your exams on the Prometric site if you have to, if something comes up, you do have that ability. So just remember that the Prometric is the site and the body that oversees the CPA exam. So now we're going to walk through each of the sections and I'll just provide you with some basic information on each section. So we'll walk through the course sections first, then we'll get to the discipline sections. So this first section we'll talk to is auditing and attestation. Okay? Auditing is comprised of 78 multiple choice questions and seven task-based simulations. It's going to take you about 80 to a hundred hours of study time to get through this section.

And that's where the foundation of auditing and advanced auditing classes, which I imagine you would all have. Auditing covers, ethics, professional responsibilities and general principles, assessing risk and developing a planned response, performing further procedures and obtaining evidence, and then forming conclusions and reporting. Auditing does require all four skill levels, and you'll see the different skill levels here. So the first skill level is remembering and understanding, and that's basically more of your multiple choice type questions. The other three, application analysis and evaluation are more of your task-based simulation style questions. Now, auditing is the only section that does include evaluation skills. The other sections do not utilize evaluation. So auditing it is a challenging section because it does require those more higher level complex evaluation skills.

And so that covers auditing. Next section we'll talk about is financial accounting and reporting, or FAR. Financial accounting reporting, this has been pared down a bit. So the new test has taken more of the advanced material that was in FAR, they've taken that out and put it into one of the new discipline sections bar. So financial accounting reporting is going to be more of an intermediate level accounting content. And so this section should be very familiar for you. You've all had a lot of curriculum that covers this content. Okay? Financial accounting reporting has 50 multiple choice questions, seven task-based simulations. It's going to take about 70 to 80 hours of study time, again with a foundation of intermediate and advanced accounting classes. And FAR covers financial reporting, select balance sheet accounts, and select transactions. And it does require your remembering and understanding application and analysis.

And then the last section of the core sections is regulation. And regulation is going to take you about 80 to a hundred hours of study time, again with a foundation of federal taxation and business law. It's got 72 multiple choice questions. It's got eight task-based simulations. And this section covers ethics, professional responsibilities and federal tax procedures, business law, federal taxation of property transactions, federal taxation of individuals, and then federal taxation of entities. Similar to FAR, REG, they've taken the advanced material out of REG and put it into tax into one of the disciplines, TCP, tax compliance. So this again is going to be more of an intermediate level section.

So as you look through that, and as you think about that, under the old model, the pass rate for really all four sections was around 50%. FAR was a little bit lower at about 48%, but with the new exam, we anticipate, and we don't know yet because we haven't gotten the score information that data yet, but we anticipate that FAR and REG will be, I don't want to say drastically, but the pass rates should be higher for both FAR and REG because the advanced material is pulled out of these sections. And I do like to mention the 50% pass rate, not to necessarily scare you, but I think I will alleviate some of the fears that come with that as we talk about the Becker platform a little bit.

And so I think that will alleviate some of the concern and fear as you look at the pass rates, but we will get to that at the end of this presentation. So those are the three core sections. Now I'm going to walk you through the new discipline section. Just to give you some background, they're calling the new exam CPA Evolution. The reason that they change the exam and they do change the exam every, I don't know, every five to 10 years, it's pretty common to update the exam. The reason that they changed the exam primarily is because of essentially firms, accounting firms were saying that new accounting employees coming in, they didn't have any background in emerging technologies, data analytics, things like that.

So they wanted to implement this information into the new exam to make sure that this material is covered to make sure that new accounting candidates and new CPAs have at least had a relevant knowledge base on these emerging technologies, data analytics type content. So that's primarily why they made the change. A lot of the material isn't necessarily new. It's been pulled from different areas of the old exam. There is new material, as I mentioned, there's data analytic components throughout all of the sections. There's emerging technologies in some of the sections.

So some of the sections have more relevant information as it relates to the new content, but for the most part, the exam hasn't changed that significantly from a content. Some of the mechanics of the exam have changed though. And so this is the biggest change in the sense that under the old exam, you had four sections, you took all four, now you've got three sections that you have to take, and then you get to select one of these new discipline sections. You select one, it doesn't matter which one you take. Your CPA license is going to be the exact same whether you took BAR, ISC or TCP. Okay? There's no variation.

You could certainly highlight it on your resume that you took BAR or you took ISC. That's obviously up to you. But from a licensure standpoint, your licenses are going to be exactly the same, and it really is up to you which section you take. So first we're going to talk about BAR. So BAR essentially is the area where they took a lot of the advanced material from FAR and put it into bar. Okay? This is a pretty dense section. It's going to take you about a hundred to 120 hours of study time with a foundation of economics. It's only got 50 multiple choice questions, seven task-based simulations. But again, this is more complex content. Basically what BAR covers is business analysis, technical accounting, and reporting in state and local governments. It does require the three skills of remembering and understanding, application and analysis. Your cost accounting is in here, performance measures on market conditions, FASB and SEC reporting requirements are in here.

And so you might think, why would I want to take this? Or which discipline is right for me? If business analysis and reporting, if data analytics, financial risk management, technical accounting and reporting, if those things are either interesting to you or you feel like you have a pretty strong skill level on this material, then I would recommend taking business analysis and reporting. Again, it's really up to you on which section you decide to take. Okay, so that's BAR. The next is ISC, information systems and controls. ISC is going to take about 60 to 80 hours of study time. It's got 82 multiple choice questions and six task-based simulation, so pretty heavy multiple choice section. Basically what ISC covers is information systems and data management, security, confidentiality and privacy, and then considerations for system and organizational control engagements or SOC engagements. So the ISC section tests the knowledge and skills that a newly licensed CPA must demonstrate with respect to IT, audit and advisory service, SOC engagements.

It also tests the knowledge that newly licensed CPAs must demonstrate with respect to data management, data collection storage and things like that. So this is of the three sections that the data that we do have from a, I guess popularity standpoint, most students are taking BAR first. That's the most popular. The second is tax, and the third is this, is ISC. And that's not surprising because a lot of this content is not covered in your school curriculum. And so I think candidates are favoring the disciplines that they're more familiar with, which makes kind of total sense. However, if data management, IT, information systems, SOC engagement, if those things are intriguing or exciting topics for you, maybe you have a background in IT then certainly this would be a section that you might want to consider taking. So really, again, it's up to the individual, but basically that's the ISC section.

And then the last section that we'll talk about is tax compliance and planning, TCP. This is going to take about 60 to 80 hours of study time with a foundation of tax. It's got 68 multiple choice questions, seven task-based simulations. It does cover tax compliance and planning for individuals and personal financial planning, entity tax compliance, entity tax planning, and then property transactions. It does require remembering and understanding application and analysis skills. Basically the TCP section test the knowledge relating to the US federal tax compliance for individuals and entities. If tax is your thing, if you've done internships and tax, if this is an area that interests you, then this would be a great section to take. So those are the three sections. Now this slide speaks to our suggested study plan in terms of a sequential order. So depending on which discipline section you choose, what order to take those in.

Again, these are recommendations. Everybody is different. You may have your own variations of this, but again, this is our recommendation and you're going to see a common theme here. So if BAR is the section that you choose, we're recommending starting with FAR. And again, the reason we are recommending starting with FAR for all three here is it's the most familiar. Number one, because you have a significant amount of undergrad curriculum that covered this content, so it should be familiar. Number two, it has been pared down, so it shouldn't be as difficult. And so we want you to start in an area where you're going to build on your success, start out of the gate with some success, and then go from there. So you'll see we recommend starting with FAR in all three, but for the scenario where BAR is the discipline, you select FAR first and then BAR second.

And the reason for that is FAR and BAR, as we've mentioned here, they're kind of sister sections. So FAR is the more intermediate, BAR is the more advanced. It just makes sense to build one off the other and then take auditing and then REG. So that's if BAR is the discipline you select. If ISC is the discipline you select, ISC is very much a standalone section, so you really can take this one in any order. But we do recommend starting with FAR. I like the auditing second, just because auditing is a difficult section and it's pretty dense, and it'd be good to get that out of the way, but then you can kind of piece the other two in any order you want. Okay, so that's ISC. And then last is TCP. Again, we're recommending starting with FAR and then auditing and then REG and then tax.

And the reason for REG and tax together again is they're sister sections, much like FAR and BAR are. REG is more intermediate, TCP is more advanced. They took more of the advanced material out of REG and put it in TCP. Okay, so that's kind of our suggested sequence. This slide is a tough slide to view or not necessarily to view, but this is a challenging slide because it creates challenges for you. So basically because this is a new test, they have created blackout dates, so you can only take the tests in certain periods, which creates a significant challenge. In the past. Under the old exam, you could take the exams whenever you wanted, now you can't. Now this may change in '25. Generally this is what happens after they implement a new test.

They do have a schedule like this, and then once they've kind of gotten a year through it, they tend to go back to the system that you can take it whenever you want. But for instance, in quarter two, which we're in now, you can only take the core exams from April 1st to June 25th, you won't get your scores back until July 31st. So that does create some difficulties for. The disciplines, you can only take it... You have a month window, so you can take it April 20th to May 19th, and the scores get released on June 28th. So you really have to view this calendar and be very mindful of not only what you want to take first, but also how you want to sequence these and to make sure that you can take that second exam within this window. So you just have to be very mindful of this calendar and then be very strategic in how you map out your own calendar, how that process is going to work for you.

For those that want to play around with the Becker platform, you can go on becker.com/cpademo, and you can play around with the platform for 14 days. Again, a lot of you or the bulk of you will either get the Becker platform from your firm or you may pay for it privately. We do offer a discounted rate through our partnership with Suffolk where you get a discounted rate. So a lot of you will get the Becker platform through your firm, and you have access to the platform the day you sign the offer. So the minute you sign that offer, you get access to the Becker platform. But if you're not there yet and you want to kind of play around with what the Becker platform looks like, you're welcome to log in and play around on it for 14 days.

So as we kind of wrap up the presentation, there's just a couple things about Becker that I want to mention. Really, number one is the way that the Becker platform kind of matches and meets all different learning styles. So if you're a visual learner or you like to listen to lectures or you like to read a physical textbook, we have it all. So you have access to the digital platform, as well as physical textbooks. And the platform is comprised of lectures, practice tests, mini exams, simulated exams, mini video, mini what we call skill builder videos.

And essentially the Becker platform uses a linear model. So you start with chapter one, you complete it, you watch all the lectures, you take the practice exams, you do the homework that's required, and then once you're complete, you move on to the next section. Each unit has modules within the unit. So unit one might have four modules within it, and you follow the steps. Everything is at your fingertips. One of the things that I mentioned about the 50% pass rate, I know it's kind of scary to hear that, but here's where I'm going to alleviate some of those fears. So for the Becker platform, we have these benchmarks, okay? And there's three benchmarks. I'll kind of walk through each one. Number one is you acquire your foundational knowledge by watching at least 80% of the lectures. So you don't even have to do a hundred percent.

We recommend doing a hundred percent, but based on the data that we've collected, if you get through 80% of the lectures and then you retain what you learn by answering at least 80% of the practice questions correctly, and that's not on first time, okay? So you may answer a question incorrectly the first time, but when you answer correctly the second time, you've now met that benchmark. And then the third, I mentioned that there's mini exams. Generally after two units, you'll have a mini exam that will cover those two previous sections. And at the end of the section, you'll have two simulated exams.

So you test your knowledge in exam-like conditions by taking these mini exams and simulated exams. And if you get a 50% or higher on those simulated exams, you've now met the benchmark of what we call exam day ready. And exam day ready means that you're 94% likely to pass the CPA exam. 94% likely. We've had Brent Thornton review this data. It's accurate, and basically you have to put in the work. There aren't any shortcuts, but if you just follow the steps and you do what you're supposed to do, you're going to be successful. And one of the ways you'll know that your exam day ready is if you see this little gold metal ribbon with the star after each unit. If you've completed 80% of the lectures and you've answered 80% of the questions correctly, that ribbon will be fully gold.

And that will mean you have sufficiently met these benchmarks and you're ready to move on to the next section. If that ribbon isn't fully gold, then you're not ready to move on. So it's pretty dummy proof in the sense that you just have to follow the steps and follow along on the platform, and you'll know when you're ready. Here's my information, my email, my phone. Please, please don't hesitate to reach out if you have questions about Becker, about the exam. I can't review transcripts or anything like that, but I can help answer questions relating to the exam, to the Becker platform and things like that. So that concludes my portion of the presentation.

James Peterson:

Thank you very much, Michael. I'm going to turn it over to our panelists and I'll facilitate a conversation. I just wanted to mention quickly, Michael spent quite a bit of time talking about the recent changes to the CPA exam, and I know that we have some current MSA students, but we also have some undergraduate students and some prospective MSA students. And I want to mention that we did redesign our curriculum heading into this past year with those changes in mind. So the way we've constructed the curriculum now, if you have an undergraduate accounting degree, a domestic undergraduate accounting degree, then you will take a concentration and the concentration that you choose will... You'll choose among the three different discipline tests that Michael had mentioned.

In fact, there's actually room for two concentrations. It's not required, but there's room for six courses for our domestic undergraduate students. For our students who don't have that undergraduate degree, it's still just a 30 credit curriculum. So there isn't space within those 30 credits to have that concentration, but you're still very well-prepared for the exam. And if you'd like to add a concentration, then we do have an MSA Essentials curriculum, which is a 39 credit curriculum, and the information systems and controls concentration within that curriculum is STEM designated. So I thought that that's worth mentioning. So there was a question here, what if someone wants to sit for two disciplines? And Michael, to my understanding, that's not something that is facilitated within the exams in terms of options at this point, correct?

Michael Ceglie:

So in terms of the discipline section, meaning like BAR, ISC or TCP, they need to select one of those.

James Peterson:

One of those, yeah.

Michael Ceglie:

Okay. If you do start one and you don't like it, you can switch from our exam review standpoint, but you'd have to take one of those at a time. If you fail, let's say you fail BAR, you could then decide to take a different discipline, but not at the same time for the discipline sections. For the core sections, yes, you can absolutely sit for multiple sections on the core side.

James Peterson:

Thank you. So I do want to introduce our panelists. So I'm going to ask each of them just to introduce themselves, maybe mention the year that they graduated and what they're up to now, and then we'll get into some questions and we'll start with Tin.

Tin Dang:

So hi, guys. I just graduated from the master program in December 31st, so I just started at Deloitte in January. Currently I assess for the audit, which is my last sections a month ago, still waiting for the result.

James Peterson:

And what area are you working in at Deloitte, Tin?

Tin Dang:

Yeah, so I've been turning since 2022, and I just start full time this January.

James Peterson:

Okay. All right. Kevin.

Kevin Gozzo:

Hi everyone. My name is Kevin. I graduated from the MSA program last May 2023. I currently work at PWC, started last September as an audit associate and I passed the CPA exams while I was in grad school.

James Peterson:

Thank you. And Christine.

Christine Hraiz:

Hi everyone. I'm Christine Hraiz. I am a double [inaudible 00:44:12]. So I graduated from Suffolk, my undergrad in 2020 and then got my MSA and MST in 2021. I'm now at Deloitte and I'm a senior tax consultant, and I passed my exams in 2022, I think. Spent some time, but I don't miss those days.

James Peterson:

Don't scare anyone off. So a question that had come up, that was typed in was a timing question. I hear this question a lot. I thought the best folks to answer to that are our panelists. When to sit? And I know there are different strategies. There's probably a lot that goes into that decision. So I'm curious what our panelists have to say about that. And I'll start, whoever wants to jump in, feel free.

Kevin Gozzo:

Yeah, I can start just because I did take it while I was in grad school. My personal opinion would be to take it as soon as you get or at least start studying as soon as you get out of undergrad. It's really the only time in your life where you're going to have a lot of free time that you can dedicate to studying. And I see it now on the other end when I'm working where my fellow coworkers have to go home and study after working 40 hours a week. So I think obviously you don't want to study your senior summer, but if you can put in the time now, it will definitely pay off.

James Peterson:

Different opinion, different strategies here, I'm sure. But Tin, what about you?

Tin Dang:

I totally agree with Kevin about that. So I start to sit for the [inaudible 00:45:56] exam as soon as possible since I just sat for the audit just last month, so during the busy season. So I totally don't recommend study for the exam while working. So start as soon as possible and finish the whole exams. Yeah.

James Peterson:

Christine.

Christine Hraiz:

I feel like we're going to sound like a broken record right now, but I mean everyone said it. Start as soon as you can. I was studying for FAR while I was in grad school, and I was able to get two done before I started full-time and then two while I was working full-time. And let me tell you, it's not fun. I think no matter where you start, whether it's at a big four or not, you're starting a new job and I think you're already going to be preoccupied with that and just trying to do well in your job. And I think the CPA exam is a whole nother job in itself. And I think when you're trying to balance the both, you're going to burn out or one of them isn't going to be a hundred percent. So my best advice is get them done as soon as possible.

If you graduate and you're in your master's program and you have a job offer, something that I wish I told myself this, but I don't think I actually took it to heart was you have the job offer in your hand. You just kind of have to keep your GPA above a certain level and your full focus at that point should be your CPA exam. And I think my thing was like, okay, I'm going to study, but I want to keep my GPA up, but it really didn't matter 'cause I had the offer, I just had to keep it above a certain level. And so I think looking back, I wish I took the CPA during grad school more seriously and gave it more time instead of having to give it time when I was working full time.

James Peterson:

Thank you. Another question I wanted to pose was around study tools. And I know we have Michael from Becker here, but I'm just curious what tools the three of you may have implemented. I'll start with Tin.

Tin Dang:

Yeah, so I use Becker as a preparing tool for my CPA exam.

James Peterson:

Okay. Kevin?

Kevin Gozzo:

Yeah, I would say Becker is a great starting point. Some of the notes I jotted down on other stuff that I use, leverage YouTube as much as you can. I think Becker gives you a great base level, but if they're not teaching you something the right way or just not clicking in your head, there's unlimited resources online for you to learn that material in a different way. So that was huge. And then the Becker mobile app, I don't know if that's still a thing, but when I would be on the train going to class, I would just do a quick 10 question quiz or do some flashcards. So anytime you can sneak in some studying like that kind of reinforces.

James Peterson:

And Michael, is that still part of the platform?

Michael Ceglie:

It is, yep.

James Peterson:

Great. And Christine, what tools did you implement?

Christine Hraiz:

I used Becker. I think Kevin said something that's really important. I think Becker is more than enough. In fact, they give you so much information that it's honestly overwhelming and I didn't use everything. You have videos, you have flashcards, you have lectures, you have so much. And I just didn't use it all 'cause I'm like, okay, it's just going to stress me out. But I would use the materials and then if there was a concept that again, Kevin said it wasn't clicking, I would go to YouTube. I forget his name, but it was like Dr. Farhad or I don't even know if that's his name, but he was so good and he would make it click. And sometimes I think just hearing things in another way, honestly is what helped me. I know there's so much now there's like Wiley, like CPA i-75 or whatever. I don't think you need that, to be honest.

I think Becker gives you enough. And I think my favorite part about Becker was if you're someone who gets anxious when you go to take a test, I mean the CPA exam is stressful as it is. My favorite part of the Becker software was your screen looks exactly what it's going to look like on exam day. And I mean exactly to the T, it was the... I didn't believe it when people said it until I sat for my first exam, and I think that automatically made me feel so much more relaxed just because I knew where to go to find my calculator and simple stuff like that. So, yeah.

James Peterson:

We have sort of a general question here. We have two questions, but I think they're similar enough to handle as one. What is one piece of advice that you would give to undergraduate and graduate students that would help them succeed in preparing and studying for the exam? I know that's a pretty broad question, but if you could maybe think of one overall tip that you found to be helpful.

Tin Dang:

So one piece of advice is that create a schedule that fits to you right and stick to it. So be consistent, be persistent, and it's going to play out. For example, you can study in the morning while commuting to work or to school, do multiple choices and listen to the lectures and read lectures on the train on the way back from work or from school.

James Peterson:

Kevin or Christine? Any...?

Kevin Gozzo:

Yeah, mine's pretty similar. You just have to make progress each day, no matter how small it is. There's obviously days where you don't want to study, but even if you just do 10 question quiz or five flashcards, as long as you can, as I said, consistently flex that muscle and compound the growth, even just 1% a day will make progress. There were some times where I would take a couple days off and you don't really realize how much you forget in that. So I think the investment of just every single day just do something and it'll pay off.

Christine Hraiz:

I think what Tin and Kevin said is good, and I think what I'll add to that is not only just the constant repetition for me, what also helped with seeing concepts thrown at you in different ways or mixing with other concepts. Because sometimes when you're doing a module and you're answering that specific module's questions, you're going to get the answers right just because you know just learned, you know what you just studied versus if you combine that module with five other ones. I noticed that's where I would get tripped up. So I would say constant repetition, but also combining what you're learning with various topics that you don't get mixed up. But I think my biggest piece of advice would be everyone learns differently.

So the way I learned in undergrad and grad school is nothing how I... Complete night and day, I used to read a textbook or prefer lectures actually in college. And then studying for my CPA exam, I started off using lectures and realized I wasn't benefiting. And so I actually just used to read the book front to back and that's how I retained. But I was never that type of person in college. Other people are going to tell you, "Oh, this is what I recommend. This is my tip." But I think there's no one formula or one things fits all. I think you kind of have to see what is best for you and take it from there.

James Peterson:

Another question, and this isn't so much a strategy, I think it might be helpful for some of our MSA students who might be going into big firms. How do you deal with it at work when you have work expectations and you're balancing the exam? How did you find that experience? I know it's challenging, but were the firms understanding? I'm assuming that many of you are in the same position or your other associates there. We'll start with Tin.

Tin Dang:

Yeah, I mean just openly communicate to your colleagues, to your seniors about when you are going to take the exam, and then between the time where you just submit your work writing and you're waiting for the review, you just take that time and study for the exam whenever possible, at lunch maybe. Yeah.

James Peterson:

Kevin?

Kevin Gozzo:

Yeah, I didn't obviously take any exams while I'm working here, but from what I've seen from colleagues, I know PWC offers 40 hours that you can build or charge towards CPA study time. It's also important to remember that these firms, this is their number one goal for you as well. They want you to have the CPA exam done and the CPA license because it helps them. But yeah, a couple of my co-workers, as Tin said, just openly communicated when they were taking the exam. Everyone left them alone for a couple of days leading up to it and then the day of. But obviously during busy season, it's tough. You're not going to be able to probably take an exam, you can try to study, so you want to try to time it around or outside of busy season in the September area or March just to make the most of it.

James Peterson:

I keep asking you last and everyone already probably said everything.

Christine Hraiz:

No, no, no.

James Peterson:

[inaudible 00:56:53].

Christine Hraiz:

No, I feel like I had this weird schedule just because in tax you kind of have two smaller, busy seasons. So I started at the firm in October and they were wrapping up their 1015 deadline. But when you're a new hire anyways, you're not going to be thrown into a busy season for a few months. So I took October, November, and December to study for FAR. And I made sure to take that right before we came back for January, busy season. I would always recommend taking PTO before an exam. For this one I didn't just because we had our holiday disconnect and then I personally took busy season off because I just wanted to focus on that. You're already working lots of hours, I don't recommend adding to that by studying. And then once April 15th hit, I went ahead and I studied for REG. When I was studying for FAR and REG, I just chose to do this, but everyone's different.

I would wake up at five or 5:30. If I were working from home, I would work till about nine, then log on, do my day at five, log off, eat dinner, go to the gym, study for two to three more hours. It was horrific. I hated it. But I mean, it had to get done. When I would come into the office, I would shoot to be here by seven and then study till nine, and then I would just sit in one of the quiet rooms here and study if I was productive or go home and study. I mean, we said it earlier, repetition's important. My last exam, I wanted to take it before my one-year hit at Deloitte, and I ended up failing by two points, and a partner sat me down and was like, "You're taking two weeks off. You're not going to burn yourself out. You just need to get this done."

She's like, "You're so close, you failed by so little. Stop worrying about the work. It's always going to be there." And I appreciated hearing that because I think as a new hire, you have this pressure of like, okay, well I have to prove myself, but I mean, Kevin said it, everyone wants you to get this exam done. And so after my 9/15 deadline, I took two weeks off, took my exam, passed, came back, had two and a half weeks, finished up with my 10/15 deadline. So I mean, it was a very hectic time, but I think if you communicate, people will push you to pass. I mean, that's all everyone wants, so.

James Peterson:

We have a question which I think is in jest, but the question is when did each of you sleep? Sleep? After you passed, right?

Kevin Gozzo:

Exactly.

James Peterson:

Just looking [inaudible 00:59:56]. I had a question here that I was going to pose, and I don't know how it's probably not as relevant. It was just simply which were the most difficult sections. But because of the recent changes, I don't know if that question is as relevant as it may have been at one time. Michael, what do you think? If they took the prior exam, is that reflective of the difficult sections on the current exam? Your microphone, Michael.

Michael Ceglie:

I'm sorry, what's the question again?

James Peterson:

The question was, well, I was going to ask our panelists the most difficult section, but mostly [inaudible 01:00:49] the older exam.

Michael Ceglie:

Yeah, I mean, auditing is pretty similar, so that would be good information to get. But because FAR is so different and REG because they're more intermediate now, it'd be difficult to gauge. But it'd be interesting to hear their thoughts on auditing.

James Peterson:

What do you think?

Kevin Gozzo:

I personally loved auditing because it has no math in it. I took it as my last section. As we said, it really depends what your strengths are. For me, FAR was pretty tough because it's straight math. And then to switch over to BEC where it's half math, half concepts. And then to get something like auditing where you don't even really have to pull out an Excel sheet during the exam, I found it way easier to study for because you're not trying to memorize formulas and stuff like that. It's more conceptual. So if you can understand the concepts, you can almost answer any question. But yeah, I think it depends really on what your strengths are.

Tin Dang:

So in my opinion, I think FAR is the hardest and then REG, and then BEC. It is in the past, so we don't have BEC anymore. And then audit, I think.

Christine Hraiz:

I feel like every section was so hard. Like Kevin said, audit was the easiest, but it was easy for sure in that sense where there was no math. But personally for me, what I thought was hard about audit was some things were... It was like I was always stuck between two answers and I was like, okay, well, I think this is the best approach, but someone else could be like, no, I think this is the best approach. So I think audit was tricky in that sense. In the word choice, you have to be careful, but I think that's the same with any exam. FAR was difficult with just the magnitude of information. REG was difficult.

And I'm in tax, and I'll say it was just like there were so many things, and now obviously working in tax, and yes, you do some of this stuff, but I was like, I don't know why I had to do this in REG. But I think you just have to study. But I think regardless of what's the most difficult exam section, I swear, repetition is like what's going to help you out. So that's my best advice.

James Peterson:

Thank you. I don't see any more questions in the Q&A, and I think I've gone through most of the questions I had for the panel. So unless there's any other questions. We have one here. I'll just read it out loud. After you studied and took the exam, how quickly did you start studying for the next one? Did you take a break from studying after taking the first exam, or did you study right after? We'll start with Christine first.

Christine Hraiz:

It's a little different for me 'cause we didn't have the blackout periods. So for me, I would always try to take it towards the end of a period, so I didn't have to wait as long to get my score. And during that time, I would honestly just not study. I needed to release and have fun just because I was pushing my social life aside when I was studying. But what I would do is, okay, I'd be like, what section am I going to study for next? When do I want to sit for it? Kind of plan. But I never studied. When I started with work, that's when I still didn't study, but I would have to wait sometimes almost two months to get my exam score. But again, I just was doing it and sitting based on when my work was going to pick up. So I didn't study because I had work to keep me busy.

But my best suggestion for you all is it's a very tough process and you don't want to burn out whether you're doing it as you work or not. I would personally say, sit for your exam, give it your all, and take that time to just recharge so that hopefully you pass and then you could move on to your next section. And you're energized and you're not like, oh, well, I'm burnt out because no one likes to say it, but say you fail. Well, what happens if you're studying for your next section? Okay, well, what are you going to do? So I would kind of just wait to see what happens and go from there.

James Peterson:

Kevin?

Kevin Gozzo:

Yeah, I agree with that. I did take some breaks. I wouldn't say they were necessarily me saying, all right, I need to take a break. I think it was just general procrastination, like, oh, okay, I got through that exam. Let me give me some time off. But what I will say is with the new release dates, I think the strategy might change a little, because like Christine, I would take it near the end of the section, so you only have to wait a week or two to get your score. But now with the quarterly or half year, you might have to consider taking two sections and getting the scores back together. If you're going to take one, say in January, and you're not going to get that score back until June.

But it's obviously a risk if you fail both sections, then you're kind of sitting there thinking about what you're going to do. But I would say just try to pass it as fast as possible. I always kicked myself when I would get back into a section two weeks after passing the last one and being like, all right, there's two weeks gone. That's probably going to cut into my summer. I really would start studying once I just booked the exam, I would just book it before I started studying really. And then that kind of just forces you to get ready.

James Peterson:

Tin.

Tin Dang:

Yeah, I totally agree with Kevin and Christine on when you're studying, definitely take time to recharge yourself. Whenever you feel overwhelmed, take a break, stay away from the computer for a while and then come back and study. And then as soon as you finish one or two exam [inaudible 01:07:51], just take a break about a couple of days and then get back to work. If you take too long of a break, you're going to lose your motivation to study for next sections. That's my opinion on this.

James Peterson:

Actually, this is a good question on the Q&A, question is which one was more helpful for the exam, was it focusing on the undergraduate curriculum or the Becker platform? And I would just add that it doesn't necessarily have to be the undergraduate curriculum and or the graduate curriculum. Kevin.

Kevin Gozzo:

Yeah, I didn't go undergrad at Suffolk, but I think my undergraduate curriculum and my MSA curriculum certainly helped for the exam. You're not going to learn everything you need to know for the exam through your graduate or undergraduate curriculum. So in that case, I would say that Becker's most definitely more helpful. But one thing that I did when I started grad school is I would try to align what section I was taking with what classes I was taking. So as I was taking graduate financial accounting and I was studying for FAR, if I saw that we were going to go through accounts receivable in class, then I would skip over that section in Becker and leverage both together.

James Peterson:

Tin.

Tin Dang:

Yeah, so totally agree with Kevin about that. Try to schedule your exam and your studying casual at your master program or undergrad program together. For example, you're going to take FAR, so trying to take a lot of accounting classes at the same time so that you can incorporate what you learn in classes and maybe using Becker as a tool for you to leverage that and then to prepare yourself for the exam better.

James Peterson:

Christine.

Christine Hraiz:

I think no matter where you go to college and what program you decide to do, I think what you learn in college is a foundation, but Becker is going to tell you exactly what you need to know and exactly how much you should know. So I mean, Kevin did say, or making a good point, sometimes if I was in a class and we were talking about something very specifically, I would pass it in Becker or skip over and then go back to it and skim it and see, okay, did I miss anything in class? But I think you should go through all the content just because they're going to almost help you study it in a way that's CPA exam ready and not just a college exam ready.

James Peterson:

Thank you. Any other questions? All right. Well, I wanted to thank our panelists, Michael from Becker and our three MSA alums. Thank you. Thank you to the four of you for participating. Thank you to our attendees, whether you are a Suffolk undergraduate student, MSA student, or thinking about the MSA program, I hope you found this worthwhile. I will make this... Yeah. And there's a question here. I will make this recording available. And Michael, I think you sent me the PowerPoint. Is that good to share?

Michael Ceglie:

Absolutely.

James Peterson:

Okay.

Michael Ceglie:

Yep.

James Peterson:

All right. Thank you everyone. Have a great night.

Michael Ceglie:

Thank you.

Christine Hraiz:

Thanks everyone.