<p>Anyone know why they are changing the exam from 4 parts to 2 parts?</p>
<p>Will it be more or less rigorous?</p>
<p>I'm currently an accounting major. I'll be done with my degree in December. I've decided on the CMA vs the CPA because i'm not looking to get into public accounting. I've just finished my interemediate accounting course. Even though i've passed all my accounting courses with a B+ or higher, I really don't like it. I don't want to be a straight accountant...i'd like more of a financial management role. </p>
<p>P.S. This may not mean nothin but my courses are 5 & 10 weeks long (Intermediate 1 & 2 and Advanced 1 & 2 are 10 weeks) so i'm probably covering all the material.</p>
<p>More rigorous but less material. The old one was longer but as a business major all the extras were things you’d probably covered probably(econ, supply chain, management, etc classes). You might have to dig a little deeper into financial things, budgeting, and cost accounting than your classes do for the new test. </p>
<p>I’d say it is probably easier for experienced people and non-business majors but harder for recent accounting majors than it was.</p>
<p>I don’t know what to do yet. I’m already 32 so I’m a late-bloomer as it is. But I want to be taken serious so I AM going to get a professional certification, or at least die trying lol. And I want it to be either the CPA or CMA.</p>
<p>I was leaning towards the CMA because, although I havn’t yet taken my Advanced, Auditing or Tax Classes, I’ve taken my Managerial, Cost & Intermediate classes and so far have not liked the material even though I passed with a B+ or better in all.</p>
<p>I choose Accounting as an undgergrad because I figured it could be a gateway degree to all financial jobs (including an accountant) whereas Bus. Management or Finance could not be. I would first like a job as either a financial management anaylst or financial management specialist. Would a CPA really help with your job duties with these?</p>
<p>CPA if you want to be taken remotely serious. Yes, a CPA is useful for corporation finance/accounting. Someone need to know the accounting treatment of various transactions.</p>
<p><strong><em>P.S. This may not mean nothin but my courses are 5 & 10 weeks long (Intermediate 1 & 2 and Advanced 1 & 2 are 10 weeks) so i’m probably covering all the material.</em></strong></p>
<p>I meant to say i’m probably NOT covering all the material.</p>
<p>Dawgie,</p>
<p>That’s the feeling I get more and more as I read about certifications. So are you saying not just accountants get the CPA? Financial Managers go as well?</p>
<p>Although I’ve done well so far in my accounting courses (at least a B+ in all i’ve taken so far), I feel like I still don’t know much about accounting. I don’t want to start the CPA and be out of my league. My school is not AACSB accrediated (Indiana Tech).</p>
<p>I’ll be eligible to take it after i’m done with undergrad because I have an associates in PC Support that I got 10 years ago. So I’m over the 150 credits plus the 24 in accounting and 24 in business admin (Indiana requirements).</p>
<p>I just don’t want to be amoung that 50% that fail. I’m old enough as it is, so I want to go ahead and get it done.</p>
<p>I don’t know what financial managers are, if you are talking about VP of finance, controller, and etc, then yes a CPA is VERY useful. CPA is not that difficult, each part is roughly 500-800 pages. Easy to master that amount of material in a month or two.</p>
<p>No more waiver. The parts that got waived have been eliminated anyway. The CMA was basically a freebie for people who already had BBA’s or MBA’s in accounting and learned what they were supposed to learn. Now it should be less so because the material added isn’t going to be something you should already know. My understanding is that there’s finance material that goes beyond what you probably learned in your average corporate finance class that everyone has to take at business school. Also cost accounting and budgeting type material that goes beyond your basic cost accounting class.</p>
<p>So, to sum up it should be a better credential for accounting majors but maybe worse than it was for others. An engineer would have a lot more value added by getting the CMA because you wouldn’t expect him to necessarily know what activity based costing is or how to find manufacturing overhead variances. He’ll still need to know that to pass the CMA but he doesn’t need to know anything about economics, management, marketing, operations/supply chain, etc.</p>
<p>On the other hand, if you’ve got a candidate with a 3.5 GPA BBA in Accounting you’d probably already expect him to know as much if not more of the old CMA curriculum than the average CMA! Now CMA’s will know a few extra things that every accounting major doesn’t. </p>
<p>Still not a substitute for the CPA of course, but maybe worth considering in addition to the CPA or if you cannot get your CPA for whatever reason(legal trouble, 150 hour requirement, too lazy or stupid to pass the test, whatever). You can get it in school while everything is fresh in your mind and you might differentiate yourself from people with only the CPA, particularly if you end up in public accounting. It might fool industry employers into thinking you are suited to something other than financial reporting or internal audit type material.</p>
<p>I really want to take the CPA exam. But I feel i’m just an average accounting student so I don’t know if I can handle the exam.</p>
<p>I’ve heard of the ‘level A’, ‘level B’ and ‘level C’ questions with level C being the hardest. But I don’t know how those are broken up percentage wise.</p>
<p>I just learned that the CPA is also changing their format. That there are less multiple choice and more simulations starting in 2011. Just by reading about the changes I would imagine that the test is going to be tougher now.</p>