- We, at The Finance Story, had a chance to sit down and have a heart-to-heart conversation with Harsh Anand, a CA who recently qualified in Nov’20 CA Final exam attempt.
- Harsh did his Bachelor’s in Commerce from Delhi University and started preparing for his CA exams after his senior secondary years. The best part about his journey is, he cleared all the exams on his first attempts respectively!
- Today, he will be sharing with us how he prepared for CA, the crisis, and the challenges that came with the pandemic.
Preparing for CA exams
After my schooling, I had taken up an interest in Chartered Accountancy and wanted to know more about it.
I joined the CA course soon after the 12th board exams and took coaching for the CPT exams. Luckily I cleared the exams on my first attempt in June 2016.
However, during my IPCC exams, I had to give group 1 and group 2 exams separately as unfortunately I was stuck in an accident. The doctor advised me to rest and heal before appearing for the exams. But, I cleared both exams on the first attempt respectively.
Soon after IPCC, I joined Mazars for my articleship in the field of internal audit and served in industries ranging from Insurance to Education to Automobile.
This exposure during my articleship helped me in familiarizing myself with the different industries and their individual demands. I also started preparing for my CA finals simultaneously which were due in November 2020.
I decided to take online coaching and was serving my first year of articleship as well.
Many of my colleagues at Mazars suggested that I should either concentrate completely on coaching or my articleship. But I decided to handle both and started with easier subjects like Costing and FM in the initial days of my preparation.
Struggling through the COVID-19 Pandemic just before CA Final Exams
While I was preparing for my last few subjects, India was starting to struggle with the pandemic and the Government announced a complete lockdown.
On the other side, I had my own familial issues which disturbed my preparations. I had to take a break for two months and was anxious since I still had two more subjects, DT and IDT subjects.
I had to complete my preparation within one month and needed time for revision as well. So, I started taking multiple classes each day which was very stressful at that time. But I was dedicated and maintained a weekly schedule for my studies.
But then the news came about the postponement of the exams and at that point, I have to admit that I became a bit negligent about my studies. But I still decided to sit for the exams without worrying about what might happen.
Dealing with the postponement of the CA Final examinations
I had completely isolated myself from all the distractions and the news that were floating around during the 2020 COVID situation.
I realized early on that by panicking about the situation, I won’t be able to achieve my goals. So, I continued with my preparation schedule and decided to sit for the exams whenever they are conducted.
But no matter what, I am human and the environment around us definitely has a huge impact on our lives.
At first, the exams were postponed from May 1 to May 20 which didn’t affect my preparation strategy much. But then the exams were postponed from May to June and then to July. This was the time when the future seemed uncertain and given the fact that my friends had become lenient with the preparation, it ended up affecting me as well.
Closing message…
One of the things that I had to struggle with was misinformation and fake news.
In fact, many people, including some of our faculty members started assuring us that the exams might get postponed to 2021. So, of course, we believed that and our mindset was such that we stopped preparing altogether. But then the actual news came that there would be no more postponement and exams will be conducted in November 2020 as planned.
So, my suggestion for CA aspirants would be to not get sidetracked by false information and stay updated by following the official notifications released by the ICAI itself.
Now It’s Your Turn…
If you want to speak to CA Harsh, comment below and he will get back to you.
