In my professional signature, I’ve got lots of letters after my name – CFA, ASA, CERA, and MBA – also known as credentials.

I’m often asked how I got them all, which is tough to answer. The truth is it’s not that uncommon in my profession to collect credentials because they have a lot of value. Once you’re good at exams, you can keep using that skill to get more. Also, it’s not the most exciting thing to talk about. I mean, everyone did the same thing: study hard and pass exams…right?

Actually, my path was a bit different. Despite some early failures, I wound up doing it faster and with less effort than most. 

In the first three sections, I’ll give a brief description of what each credential is and the story of how I earned it. In the fourth, I’ll touch on the lessons learned and why this matters.

1. Actuarial Credentials (2007 – 2012)

My path to actuarial credentials was my first and most difficult, paved with many failures and lessons, and ending in a unique way I couldn’t have imagined.

An actuary starts their career as a professional math test taker. If you like math, you probably already know that becoming an actuary requires passing one of the most grueling and difficult series of exams ever conceptualized. They say getting an ASA is like a Master’s degree and an FSA is like a Doctorate.

While you can get started in college, most of the exam-taking will be done in your own free time…while you have a full-time job. It’s a brutal first few years of a career. Many aspiring actuaries burn out before it even finishes getting started.

I refused to let exams ruin my life. I spent less time studying than others. I had a fulfilling and healthy social life throughout my twenties, and somehow still wound up with credentials before many of my peers.

You’ll see my weird path (which was only available for a short time until 2012) saved me about 1.5 years. Very few people realized it was an option even at the time.

I discovered it because I ignored conventional advice. Rather than take the exam everyone told me to take; I learned every little thing about the paths available and their requirements, and then made a more informed (but very unpopular) decision. Like Robert Frost, I took the road less traveled.

My actuarial “journey” can be broken down into a few sections mirroring his famous poem.

• Starting out
• Two roads diverged…
• I took the one less traveled
• And that has made all the difference

Future exam taker note: If you’re reading this after 2022, many of these exam names won’t mean much to you, but the story still will. They change the names every few years and are always tweaking the content. You have to pass the same amount of stuff with the same difficulty…just slightly different topics which you’ll tackle in your own way.

Starting out

Exam P and Exam FM have been the first two exams for a long time, and are also the easiest. I passed Exam P in college on my 2nd try and Exam FM in my first year of work on my 2nd try. They should have been a wake-up call that the way I went through the motions while studying wouldn’t work, but I was slow to learn that lesson.

Exam MFE (later known as IFM) was a gut check. I failed it three times in a row. I was kicked out of my company’s study program, which only allows three failures. It is common at this point to give up. Among those who start actuarial exams, many more quit than finish. We’re told there’s no shame in it; a wide variety of careers start out as failed actuaries.

Obviously, I did not give up.

Instead, I rethought it from the ground up. I bought a new calculator (TI-34XS Multi-View) and a new study guide, which would provide a different point of view and include a new test bank of questions. Being out of the exam program, I paid for everything myself, including the exam registration, and was given no study days (i.e., no paid time off to study). I was extremely motivated. I studied much smarter and more intentionally, and I passed easily. These tweaks had made the difference.

I realized there may be a different game being played around me. It wasn’t about how many hours you spent or how much natural mathematical inclination you had…it was simply about how good you were at taking these exams.

Two roads diverged…

Exam MLC (later known as LTAM) was next for most people…but not for me. The Society of Actuaries had just created a new credential called CERA – Chartered Enterprise Risk Analyst. No one knew if it had any value yet, but I was intrigued, and it did not require Exam MLC. So, to keep my options open, I skipped ahead to…

Exam C (later known as STAM) was usually taken as the final preliminary exam. This four-hour monster included some math in which I didn’t have the background (I was not a math or actuarial major), and I failed it twice using this as an excuse.

Next attempt, I employed the “work smarter, not harder” lesson I learned from MFE. I bought a new study guide with an online test bank with my own money and spent a few solid hours learning that one math technique I was missing. I discovered there was a single shortcut I could memorize, which would be the only thing used on an exam question. I passed on my third attempt.

By the time I completed Exam C, my CERA path was clearly defined: if I could just pass one more exam, I’d be a credentialed actuary. If I instead went the traditional route (to an ASA), I’d still need to do another exam plus a grueling set of eCourse modules called FAP, which included two “assessments,” that took on average a year and a half to complete.

Future exam-taker note: starting 2022, the SOA will reduce the amount of material of the FAP modules by about 50%…lucky for you guys, but still not as good as me.

It was an easy decision. I would go for the CERA. Forget the ASA. See the graphic for the comparison.

I took the one less traveled by

While it seemed like a no-brainer to me, it was far from it for most. My firm had dozens of aspiring actuaries at my level and not a single one went this route. My managers discouraged it. My coworkers thought it wouldn’t be relevant to their careers, or that the unique exam would be too hard. Most likely, they all just feared the unknown, unwilling to take a risk when there was a well-tread path available (that many would never complete).

The Society of Actuaries realized how fast the CERA path was around the same time I did, and quickly rectified it. Per a curriculum change that would take effect in just a few months, prospective CERAs would have to start passing FAP (the 1.5-year eCourse). The window to avoid this was extremely narrow: I had exactly one attempt to pass the unique Exam ERM. Otherwise, I’d be back in the same boat as everyone else. (My colleagues hated how fast I got credentials for this reason…they missed their chance to follow my path.)

Exam ERM (technically the “Advanced Finance & ERM” exam) was an exam like no other. It made those preliminary exams seem like kindergarten math tests. It was a 6-hour behemoth back then. I put everything I had learned about studying into practice, but this exam was too different from the preliminaries. After weeks of studying, I was still getting nowhere. Rather trudge on and fail miserably, I took a shot at something new.

My study guide’s author happened to be teaching a five-day live seminar a month before the exam, right nearby in New York City. It was brutal…but amazing. Every concept I never understood was explained. More importantly, he finally gave me an idea of what would be on the exams; what to focus on. (He also gave us a great tip to practice physically writing, a skill no longer needed due to computerized exams, but was essential back then for written-answer exams like this one.) 

The most valuable part of the seminar was his “Top 10 Topics” for the exam. I want to be clear that the instructor said not to rely on this because he had no way of knowing what would be on the exam. I ignored his warning. Those ten topics are pretty much all I did for the final few weeks.

And that has made all the difference

I received my first and only single-attempt passing grade for an actuarial exam, and it was on perhaps the hardest exam offered. I credit the result to having such a narrow knowledge set and having practiced writing so much because many exam takers weren’t even able to finish the exam.

I had finally beaten the game of exams. With a few key tactics and focus on the right topics, you could pass anything…and in significantly less time than most.

I couldn’t believe I had actually done it. I knocked out the one small module required, attended the professionalism conference, and submitted my application. I would be a CERA. I would be among the first credentialed actuaries among my peers and the first CERA at my firm. It felt incredible.

When I got confirmation of my CERA credential, I received a letter that began “Congratulations Michael DeSimone, ASA, CERA!” Honestly, I didn’t even know I’d be getting the ASA alongside the CERA, nor that I’d be getting a raise and bonus for both (my company, and probably all other companies, have since closed this loophole…another reason my colleagues hated me for getting so lucky).

That’s how I got two actuarial credentials at once, and got a raise and bonus for both, while doing less work than I would have for one, a year and a half earlier than the traditional path.

2. Chartered Financial Analyst (2013-2015)

I crushed the CFA Program.

Often referred to as the toughest test on Wall Street, the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) credential is the gold standard for investment professionals. It is considered equivalent to a Master’s degree, like the ASA. Pass rates are usually around 40%, plummeting as low as 22% in a 2021 sitting.

I completed the three-exam program within the shortest time possible (18 months at the time), as do many who pass them on their first try. There’s no alternate path or anything like the actuarial exam tracks, but I completed it with much less effort and much more confidence that I’d pass than most candidates.

Looking back at my study schedules, I was able to estimate the amount of time I spent studying. It turned out to be less than a third of the study time of the average student (according to a CFA Institute survey), as shown on the graphic.

The way I was able to get through the CFA Program so easily was due to two main factors:

• Unfair Advantages
• Studying Expertise

Unfair Advantages

The truth is many people have massive advantages coming into the CFA program. I certainly did, due to my background and the point I was in my career.

Financial education

I had been exposed to almost every concept in the CFA curriculum going in. I was a business (economics) major in college. The actuarial exams also taught many investment concepts (financial mathematics, etc.). As you can tell from the existence of this blog, I have always been a personal finance nerd and was an experienced investor of my own money. All of these added up to someone with very strong financial literacy going into this exam.

Professional exposure

Virtually all CFA candidates have worked in finance coming into the Program; the credential does have a 4-year experience requirement. However, my particular job had transitioned to a very hands-on investment consulting role, granting me exposure to many investment professionals and requiring deep dives into concepts. Not only was I well past the 4-year experience requirement (which is a barrier to many despite their exam prowess), but I knew what kind of work CFAs did, leading me to a better understanding of the exam material.

Exam experience

The largest unfair advantage I had was that I was already a professional exam taker. The actuarial exams are even harder than the CFA ones (yeah, I said it) and I had just finished them. I had honed my exam-taking skills to perfection. I knew how to study effectively (see next section), knew how to make studying a natural part of my life, and knew what it would take to wind up with a passing score.

Studying Expertise

This is not an article about how to study, but there were a few key concepts that I applied to these exams that are pretty generally applicable to any professional exam. These were all a result of testing things out during the actuarial exam process.

Time restriction

I realize how ridiculous this sounds: “study less to improve your chance of passing!” However, I knew how to study without sacrificing the rest of my life. I used very few study materials. I used recordings of the “weekly online classes” to get my introduction to the material because they were time-restricted to only 3 hours per class. I used the “final review seminar” similarly because it was even more time-restricted. I then dove right into practice exams for the second half of my studying. That’s it.

Practice, practice, practice

I didn’t waste time reading or doing learning exercises. I dove right into practice exams, which contained the hardest problems. I did not take them as a timed exam like they recommended; I did them one question at a time and spent more time going through the solutions than doing the problems. It’s a bit masochistic…getting everything wrong at the beginning, but for me, this is the best and fastest way to learn. Ultimately, this is what separates passers and failers on these exams: knowing the material is much less important than practicing the types of questions that will be asked, over and over, until nothing can surprise you. Success is not determined by your knowledge of the material; it is your skill at taking the exam.

My sacred final week

I avoided a lot of guilt and wasted time studying early on because I knew my final week would be incredibly productive. I took 4 of the 5 days off from work. I tripled my daily study time. It’s easy to stay motivated this close to the exam. I took timed exams. I wrote myself single-page note summaries. I drilled down into the subjects on which I was weak. And, I did not study on the day before the exam – a day of meditation, video games, or whatever else relaxes the mind. Ensuring you perform at your peak on exam day is almost as important as the studying itself.

Thanks to those unfair advantages and a solid study plan, I started only 6-8 weeks before each exam (the CFA Institute recommends 6 months!) and only studied 3 days per week, maybe 3-4 hours per day. I also had my experience requirement completed and references lined up by the time I sat for Level III, so my credential was granted right away after the three exams were passed.

That’s how I quickly and easily added the CFA designation to my actuarial credentials with little additional effort.

3. Master of Business Administration (2016-2017)

The MBA was by far the easiest, so this story will be quick.

A Master’s degree in Business Administration is the preferred credential of business leaders and executives. It provides a background of management education applicable to a wide range of business topics. It’s typically much more expensive than other credentials since it is a collegiate degree. (See graphic.)

While I had always wanted to pursue an MBA to advance my career toward leadership, it never made sense as I was pursuing other Master’s-degree-level credentials (ASA, CERA, and CFA). Even after completing those, it wasn’t clear how much value I’d get out of an MBA. I certainly didn’t want to stop working at my successful career to become a full-time MBA student (and get buried in student debt), and I had heard part-time MBAs rarely provided enough value to pay for themselves.

As luck would have it, around the time I finished my CFA, my company was purchased by a large corporation that offered a full-tuition reimbursement program for graduate degrees with an online institution called Ashford University.

A part-time MBA from this low-quality university would be worth very little, but it would cost even less. It did not require taking the GMAT or going through an admissions process. I did my due diligence and discovered it covered much of the same material as mainstream business schools. While it would have no name recognition and provide me with no professional network, I’d be getting a similar MBA education for absolutely free.

The MBA program’s design was great for me; an intense sprint that would only take 1.5 years without missing a day of work.

I had a slew of unfair advantages going into this degree, even more than going into the CFA program. Much of the coursework overlapped with the CFA curriculum, and passing a college class is much easier than passing a professional exam. So, I only worked two nights per week (the nights that assignments were due) ranging from 30 minutes to 2 hours each night. They were so easy for me that I rarely even needed to read any material. 

I graduated with a perfect 4.0 GPA in exactly 1.5 years.

A few months after I started this degree, our company was divested from that corporation and the tuition reimbursement program disappeared. Again, no one at my company had the opportunity to follow me…more lucky timing for me.

That’s how I got an MBA for zero dollars while doing extremely little work.

4. Epilogue

Lessons Learned

I think each of these three stories had different key lessons.

Actuarial Credentials

There were two big lessons here. First, fighting through failures might be an overlooked skill. Many exam takers get easily discouraged and quit on an exam part-way through studying, give up after a failure, or take long breaks that lead to quitting altogether. Counterintuitively, failing kind of motivated me. It was something to do, a challenge to defeat, like a video game boss. I never took a sitting off; I just kept working and kept making changes each time I failed. 

Second, I ignored conventional advice about what path to take. Analyze things for yourself, even the things no one else reads or cares about. Let them poke fun at you. Sometimes, it will amount to nothing. Other times, you’ll discover opportunities that launch you way ahead.

Chartered Financial Analyst

The power of a time-restricted study plan was the key lesson here. If you can plan it out, you can achieve a lot in a short amount of time. Don’t just blindly read the material or go through the motions. Study with purpose and it can have triple the value of the studying of others.

Master of Business Administration

This was about seizing opportunities. There were plenty of reasons not to do this and push it off to “someday,” but I did it anyway because I knew a free MBA couldn’t be a bad thing. I wasn’t afraid of a little bit of work considering what I’d just been through with the CFA and actuarial exams. If I had waited even a few months, the opportunity would have been gone.

Why this matters

Many people gloss over credentials. In stories about successful people, they are an afterthought or a stepping stone on the way to something else. However, if you’re in the middle of the process or considering it, you should know what you’re signing up for, but not a lot is often said about it.

I didn’t write this to brag or flex. My employers and clients don’t care how I got my credentials. However, prospective or current exam takers might.

Transparency is important. The more stories that are out there, the better prospective students can make informed decisions and stay motivated. The exam process can make you feel isolated and alone. Stories like this help others see that plenty of us went through this same thing. It may be boring, but it is not pointless.

Perhaps someone can learn from my mistakes, or apply some of my strategies. This is not meant to be a how-to guide…many of the things I did back then would not even work now, but the way I approached things may still be applicable. 

My story of accomplishing all this so quickly is not meant to put others down; it’s to show what’s possible. Perhaps more importantly, it can show what’s not possible without the right amount of luck and unfair advantages (about which I have been as transparent as I can be). There is no shame in putting in a little more work than the person next to you because you have no idea what kind of head start he or she had.

If you’re still awake at this point, I guess stories about credentials don’t have to be so boring after all. 

Good luck on your journey!