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Old 05-07-2013, 08:58 AM   #16
me_dennis
Scoring Winger
 
Join Date: Aug 2005
Exp:
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Your age doesn't really matter, it really depends what your personal situation is like.

If you are married with young children, then the CA lifestyle may be a challenge. Articling students that work for the Big 4 (PWC, Ernst & Young, KPMG, Deloitte) work a lot of hours (70+) during the months of January - April. Plus, most articling students will be studying for their CASB modules after work. You can expect to have no social life for a good 3 years. Plus the UFE is one of the most difficult exams you can write, and many people do not pass.

Salary wise, you can expect to make very little coming out of school (~40G), but you should expect pretty big raises every year (~15-20% depending on your performance).
Keep in mind though, that you will not get any overtime pay.

If you are supporting a family, this may be very tough for you to live off of.

As someone else has mentioned, if you're interested in the CFA route, you can start it right away, provided you have an undergraduate degree. Sure, it may be tougher if you don't have a finance or accounting background, but I know of a lot of engineers who go for their CFA. Get to meet people who are also writing the CFA exams, and study with them. It will be a lot of hard work and long hours of studying, but if it's something you're interested in, it is possible.
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