Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Fall Quarter Finals

One final down, 2 more to go. I really should be in bed. This quarter is far more manageable than last (spring) but my overall exam/school fatigue, helps dull any concern I might have about my performance anyway. After 4.5 years of uber-nerdy undergrad, finished by a 100 page Econ thesis, 3 years of CFA study/exam-taking, 4 securities licenses (easy but tedious) and 21 sell-side stock initations later, I am completely devoid of any enthusiasm whatsoever for timed tests, paper writing or model building. Sitting in a room with a pile of sharpened pencils and a calculator while the minutes tick down feels juvenile. More formulas? More hectic scribbles and guesswork? More late night cramming? More Excel? More report cards? Didn't I do this already?

So while it will be a shock to go back to the working world, and I do actually (despite my whining) appreciate my academic "vacation", I will be awfully glad to write my last final forever next June. There are many, many things I would rather do besides study and take tests and mock up DCFs.

(p.s. was last Thursday one of the worst days ever for anyone else either?)

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

At least you will be done with it...concentrate more on ensuring Baby Y eats all his peas, and making him realize not everything is "mine!!!". Hang tight.

BTW, in your highly valuable opinion, what's the best text for financial modelling?
Goodluck with the rest of finals.

MaybeMBA said...

Howdy anon! Hmmm, best text for financial modelling? I feel like I should have a good answer for that but so much of my current knowledge comes from bits and pieces and diverse sources. Abbie Smith wrote a text of sorts which we use in class but doesn't appear to be published. She also had us buy McKinsey's "Valuation: Measuring and Managing the Value of Companies" by Koller, Goedhart and Wessels which seems very good (though I skimmed a lot of it). Otherwise, most of what I learned from is the CFA textbooks which I'm not sure are even available anymore now that they tweaked their curriculum approach. Sorry I don't have a better answer! Hope that helps a little. Definitely check out the McKinsey book though. See if it is what you are looking for. If not, let me know.

Anonymous said...

Yeah Ms. Maybe, you should be happy that you are giving such an exam. some people, even the talented ones dont make it to the average b-school due to financial probs or sometimes affirmative action 9like in india. So you should be happy :P

MaybeMBA said...

hellalooyeahh! (my what a handle!) Ha - true, perspective is everything.