The CFE

This week, after months of preparation and years of study, I completed the Common Final Exam (CFE) for my accounting designation, and I certainly wasn't a notice leading up to this point. In 4 years at BCIT I wrote close to 100 exams in 48 different courses, and 4 of the 6 prior CPA modules also pretty grueling finals.

However, the CFE is designed to be particularly nightmarish. Three days, 14 hours, 5 cases, zero time to stop and think or make mistakes, and that's just if things are running smoothly.

 

I debated taking a picture of the convention center exam room but decided against it given how strict they are about everything and how boring a photo it would be. Fortunately, Hieronymus Bosch did a pretty good job of catching the details. You can see the candidates being funneled in the lower right corner, before being charged one more time at admissions and eventually prostrated in preparation to write.

Of course I'm kidding, in actual fact the CPA is much stricter regarding items permitted on the premises than a lazy pack of demons, and were much more thorough in searching for prohibited items like mechanical pencils and scarves.

Day 1 and 3 went reasonably smoothly, all things considered, but Day 2 was an absolute disaster.

Somehow, despite having literally years to prepare for this day, the computer servers were completely unable to log-in everyone, so most of Western Canada started hours later. We had a 3 hour delay, and before you think that doesn't sound bad, just know that most of us had 2-6 hours of sleep the night before and were therefore caffeine and sugar crashing from exhaustion just as we were supposed to start a 5 hour test. The case itself was enormous and pretty miserable on top of that. People writing in Edmonton were apparently there for 12 hours...

When I started this whole journey, my friends used to joke about the diploma being the Fellowship of the Ring, with a bunch of friends starting out on a journey together and things going generally alright. By the Two Towers, everyone is fractured and chasing after different objectives, just like part-time night school. Finally, by Return of the King, its down to a few people, well beyond exhaustion, trudging through a fiery hellscape. I was incredibly glad to have my friend Julia with me through the whole thing. We wrote mock exams together, grumbled nearly every week for two years, and both made it through. I forget which of us is Sam or Frodo in the picture above.

Now I just get to kick back until December when the marks are released...