Someone once tried to explain to me the breadth of knowledge needed to pass the CPA exam.
He explained it by sharing the following phrase.
It’s an inch deep and a mile wide.
The thing that makes the CPA exam so challenging is how much information one must be familiar with to pass.
My journey to becoming a CPA began while I was wearing Army greens at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
I finished my first year of three years of active duty in the Army.
I began to think about what I wanted to do when my three years in the Army were finished.
Some of the people I knew reenlisted in the Army, and some got out of the Army.
I was reasonably certain that I wanted to get out of the Army after my enlistment was complete.
Prior to joining the Army, I had completed two years of college.
During my whole childhood, I had been groomed and encouraged to go to college.
As I pondered my future thoughts of college reemerged into my mind.
During my second year of college, I took an introduction to business class.
I loved learning about business.
I knew I wanted to have a career in business but wasn’t quite sure what that meant.
As I thought further about my direction, I figured that accounting was necessary for business.
The local university had set up a building on the Army base where soldiers could take college classes.
I signed up for Accounting 101 to test the waters out and see if I enjoyed accounting.
From the moment I stepped into the classroom of my first accounting class, I knew that I wanted to become a Certified Public Accountant.
Accounting is a field of discipline that is not intuitive.
Very few people understand how accounting works.
Most people think that you have to be really good at math.
The truth of the batter is that accounting is more about organization than it is about math.
Math is important in accounting.
However, the math in accounting is super simple.
You have to know how to add and subtract.
My seven-year-old son has enough knowledge of math to be capable of doing accounting.
I proceeded through my accounting courses and was in my senior year of college.
I knew my next step was to take the CPA exam.
Back in my day, the CPA exam was composed of four sections.
Each section of the CPA exam took about four hours to complete.
All four sections had to be taken consecutively over two back to back days.
At that time, the CPA exam was only offered twice a year.
Once in the spring and another time in the fall.
During the spring of 2003, I bought a study guide and started cramming all the CPA exam information I could into my head.
I then drove myself to downtown Raleigh so I could take the CPA exam with all the other poor miserable souls that were entering two days of utter torture.
The two days of testing concluded, and I had to wait for a couple of weeks to get my scores back.
Every day I went down to the mailbox to see if my scores were there.
The anticipation was nerve-racking.
Finally, the day arrived, and I opened up the envelope, and I had passed one section of the exam.
The next best score was 73.
A passing score was 75.
I had missed passing the second section of the CPA exam by two measly points.
At the time, the only way to get partial credit for passing the CPA exam was to pass at least two sections of the CPA exam.
All my time and effort spent on studying for the CPA exam was down the drain.
I was beyond deflated.
A few days later, I picked myself up off of the ground and decided to give another go at taking the exam.
I spent about around $1,000 on a CPA exam review course.
I wanted to make sure that my second go-around at the CPA exam would lead to success.
I studied diligently for another four months on that stupid CPA exam.
I then drove myself to downtown Raleigh so I could take the CPA exam with all the other poor miserable souls that were entering two days of utter torture.
The two days of testing concluded, and I had to wait for a couple of weeks to get my scores back.
Every day I went down to the mailbox to see if my scores were there.
The anticipation was nerve-racking.
It felt like Deja Vu with the waiting by the mailbox to get the result of the exam.
Finally, the day arrived, and I opened up the envelope, and I had passed one section of the exam.
My test scores the second time were worse than the first time I took the exam.
I give up.
Right now, it is not the time for me, I concluded.
I’ll go to work and get some work experience.
Five years later, the call of becoming a CPA rang back in my head.
I had just started my accounting business, and I determined that the best way for me to increase my credibility in the marketplace was to become a CPA.
The rules for the CPA exam changed so that each section of the CPA exam could be taken in one sitting.
This meant that I could focus all my studying time on one section of the exam and then take that section of the CPA exam.
Then I could start studying for the next section of the CPA exam and take that section.
Additionally, the CPA exam could be taken at many more times during the year.
This provided for much more flexibility for me as an exam taker.
The fall of 2008 was go time for me with studying for the dreaded CPA exam.
Many times, during the months of study, liquid grey matter came oozing out of my ears.
It was a herculean effort for me to study each section of the CPA exam.
Things were dramatically different in 2008 when I took the CPA exam.
Each time I went to the exam center, I was astonished at how easy the CPA exam had suddenly become.
With each section of the CPA exam, I finished the exam quicker than I had remembered the many years before when I took the exam.
When in did the CPA exam become so easy was a question I asked myself repeatedly.
The CPA exam hadn’t changed.
I changed.
I had become better.
I had years of work experience that engrained in my mind how everything worked.
When I took the CPA exam the first two times, I failed because I wasn’t good enough then.
I got better.
I improved my skills and became better.
This time I passed all four sections of the CPA exam.
One of the greatest moments of my life is when I received the letter informing me I had passed the fourth and final section of the CPA exam.
On the front of the envelope was a stamp of red letters with the word.
Congratulations!
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