Monique is a new NINJA CPA Blogger.
Hi! My name is Monique and like so many I’ve been trying to pass the CPA exam for years!
I knew ever since I graduated from high school back in 1999 that I wanted to be a CPA. I even asked for a study book as one of my high school graduation presents (how sad is that!). Here it is 14 years later and I still haven’t passed!
My life definitely didn’t go in the direction I thought it would but I can’t really complain. Although I’m not the licensed CPA I had hoped to be by now, I am the mother of 2 beautiful, awesome girls (Mia, 6 and Milayah, 2) and I’m married to my incredibly supportive high school sweetheart, BJ.
And to top it all off I work in the tax department of an awesome company in Atlanta!
I officially started working toward passing the CPA exam in July 2011. I gave myself 4 months to study for what I thought would be the hardest section to pass – FAR. It was brutal but it paid off and I passed! Unfortunately I lost that credit this year.
I took REG a few months after FAR and failed with a 68. It took me 6 months to retake! Fortunately, with the help of REG NINJA Notes & the Wiley Test bank I passed with an 82, but by then it was November 2012. That gave me only 6 months to pass the other 2 sections.
That’s completely doable…if you actually buckle down and study. Unfortunately I didn’t. I didn’t take AUD until April 2013 and failed…with a 72! Talk about a motivation killer! Well since I didn’t pass AUD I knew I’d lose FAR.
Knowing you will lose a section is probably one of the most discouraging things about this exam. I really let take that control of me and it’s been a struggle to get back in the game.
So here it is, August 2013 and I’m still not finished. I hope to be done with the exam by the end of the year. As you can imagine I’ll have to stick to a pretty tight schedule in order to make that happen. My plan is to retake AUD in August, retake FAR in October and then finally take BEC in November.
I also plan to continue with my video course, Wiley Test Bank, NINJA notes and maybe incorporate AUD audio for these last few weeks. And I’m always looking for tips I can try myself or share with my coworkers who are also going through the struggle.
One thing that helps me get focused is reading a few passages from the Bible (a goal outside of the CPA exam is to read the Bible all the way through!).
So now I’m off to read a few Bible passages and get back to studying!
Monique
