10/19/10 update

Ok, lots to update here! Well, maybe not lots, but one significant item - I was offered that position I interviewed for within my company! I accepted on the spot of course. I start there on 11/1. With the position, my exams will be paid for, I will get study materials, etc. It will be awesome!

I believe it was a combination of a strong work history as well as the two exams that made me stand out for the position. I'm sure there are a lot of candidates just out of school, with one internship perhaps, and two or three exams, but perhaps this gives hope for those of us that are "middle aged" and are deciding to look at this career. I asked about people who are career changing in my interviews for this position, and people have come from much more diverse backgrounds that me. I was in an operations position already within the company, and with a solid work history there that really helped me stand out - but even people with good work histories in unrelated fields are people that stand out, according to some of the people I interviewed with.

So, I have been only glancing at the MFE material for now, and plan to start the real study effort after 11/1. I'm going to put a testing date countdown on the blog, but that will be tentative until the actual test date is confirmed. Looks like MFE will be going from a fixed test date to a Computer Based Test with flexible dates in 2011, as I get more info I will pass along updates.

9/28/10 update

It has been a month since I passed Exam FM! I wavered for a week or two on trying to take Exam MFE on Nov 5. I bought a study manual and started reviewing it, but ultimately decided I shouldn't attempt to squeeze in another exam with only 10 weeks of studying. At this point I am going to take MFE in May 2011.

In the meantime, I was able to obtain a job interview for a position as an actuarial student within the company I currently work for. I think it went well, we shall see if that comes through. If it does, that will be so awesome. Can you imagine exams paid for and study time at work?!?

I expect to update more frequently as I begin to study for MFE more seriously.

Passed!

Took Exam FM/2 today and passed! Of the 35 questions, I was very confident in 30 of my answers, totally guessed on 4 answers, and there was 1 question that I kept getting two different answers depending on how I approached it. Both were possible answers, so I just chose one of them.

I found the exam itself not quite as difficult as practice exams I encountered. Having gone over the material and practice questions over and over, the 30 questions I felt comfortable with were well within what I had studied, and in fact many were almost TOO easy. I'm not saying the exam was easy, but there were a lot of questions where I got an answer very easily and reread the question slowly 4 or 5 more times to make sure I took in all of it. Good thing I did, as there were two or three times I changed an answer due to a detail in the question (interest v discount, beginning v end of period, etc).

I'm not sure which exam I am going to attack next at this point. I will keep you posted!

8/20/10 - T minus 3

Since the last post, I have managed to get back in the studying groove a bit. I haven't been able to get anywhere near the focus or energy I had for Exam P, but I've been putting in a few hours every day. I'm really not sure how I feel about the exam or my chances overall at this point. I have at least a small measure of confidence in every section of the material, so I should have at least a fighting chance at every question. Oh the other hand, I find myself getting tripped up or doing things incorrectly more often than I would like. I am going to put in a solid effort over the next 3 nights and go into the exam just looking to do my best. I know that sounds like I should be doing that anyway, but I guess what I mean is I'm going to try not to put any pressure on myself. Sure, I want to pass, and in the moment I will feel some pressure I am sure, but I also know I can only do what I can do.

Ok, that last paragraph was really rambling! I am still pretty exhausted from the summer, from the past year, etc. I need a break! I will try to give myself a week or two before tackling my next project.

My confidence in passing is at about a 4 right now.

8/11/10 T minus 11

Long time no post. It has been a rough month for studying. The two trips I took turned out to be really exhausting. I guess all travel is, but I'm not usually studying for an exam so perhaps I don't notice as much! My job has been very taxing during the last month as well. If I had thought about it, August is one of my busiest months and not the time to try to study on the side. That being said, I would have scheduled the exam anyway to see how it went.

So, in the past month I have tried to keep up the studying as much as I can, but I just don't find the new material I need to know sticking. I find myself exhausted still, and just can't focus in the evenings when I sit down to study. My motivation and drive is pretty low right now as well. Needless to say, my studying hasn't gone well. I'm not confident at all of being able to pass this exam in 11 days. With exam P, I had a clear path and was able to focus on it. With this exam, I know the stuff I still need to learn, but I just don't have a great structure for it.

My confidence in passing right now is at about a 1.5.

T minus 41

I finished reviewing the material and have been digging into practice problems since the last update 10 days ago. I'm am finding a nice percentage of problems I already am confident with, but there is still a bunch of problems where I know that the method to solve was in the material but I don't have it memorized yet. I haven't been going back to work on those yet, I wanted to make one pass through all the material just seeing how many I knew already. I am at about 25%, which is a lot better than where I was for Exam P at this time.

I have 41 days left, but about 11 of those days are going to be vacation days to one degree or another. I am still going to try to do some problems while I am away on a family vacation, but we will see if that is really possible. If I think of it as I have a "net" of 30 days left to work on this, I start to feel a little bit of pressure, which is good. That will keep me focused on the material, and hopefully I can still use parts of those 11 vacation days.

I am finding that even for the problems I don't know how to solve yet, it is only because I don't know a specific formula or method. In other words, I know what I need to learn, I just don't know it yet. That does give me some confidence, in that my follow up studies should be very focused.

I am still pretty confident of passing. I'd say I'm at an 8 right now.

T minus 51

I have been making progress on the FM material. I am almost finished with the first review of all the material, then I will begin working on problems hardcore.

I am finding that this material is much more conceptually familiar to me than the exam P material, I don't spend a ton of time just confused as I am trying to think about it as I did with Exam P material! I expected that, so I am glad to see my progress is meeting my expectations.

I also had anticipated finishing my first run through the material by next Saturday (7/10) so I am on pace for that as well.

So, everything is proceeding as I expected thus far. I am a little bit nervous that some of the problem solving techniques won't gel for me, but only a little. If I can pick up the Exam P problem solving techniques with hard work, I REALLY should be able to pick these up.

My confidence level is still very high - 8.5 right now.