Is CA really tough ?

 I am proud to be a Chartered Accountant but more than that I cherish the time that I spent 8 years back as a CA student.. I will try to answer this question completely from the point of view of a student .

Everyone around me (friends, relatives) was shocked by this decision and somehow tried to convince me that I am going to waste all the hard work done till that time ( 80%+ in 12th).

At that time I only knew that CA is really tough but CA earn a lot of money. 

I had 11 months left to learn basic accounting (which is taught to commerce stream students in class 11th and 12th) and also prepare for CA PE 1 subjects.

I won't go into further details but I cleared all my CA exams in November 2007 in CA Finals with All India Rank 41 in PE1 (Foundation), 38 in PE2 (Intermediate) and 2nd Rank all over India in the very first attempt Did it

Coming back to the question whether CA syllabus is really tough - it cannot be answered in one word. Yet if I had to choose one, I would say "yes".

However, it may seem easier depending on your point of view.

To begin with, I thought the factors below could make it difficult for anyone (regardless of his IQ or the number of hours of daily study)

1. Books and Study Material - While ICAI supplies study material for each subject at each level, there is no guarantee that it will be sufficient to pass the exam. The student will need to find the most suitable book available according to his study style and will often refer to more than one book for each subject.

2. Faculty - While the local ICAI branches conduct classes for each subject, their quality is not good. They mostly engage aspiring CA members to teach the students which may not be the most effective method considering the difficulty level of the exam. Similar to point #1, the onus of finding and selecting the best available teacher is entirely on a student.

3. Need for Self Study: This is probably the most important aspect of CA syllabus and that can really make or break your overall result.

Most of the topics in CA syllabus require you to understand the subject conceptually. In the absence of proper structure around books and curriculum, students have to do a lot of self study and discuss concepts among themselves to understand logic and reasoning. You should make a habit of learning things only by discussion, observation and study instead of telling someone right or wrong without proper explanation. was a student of CBSE Science stream (Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics) till class 12th and I did quite well (80+ percentile). However, unlike most of my friends, I enrolled for Chartered Accountancy right after I finished my 12th result (May 2003), mainly because my father wanted me to become a CA.

Everyone around me (friends, relatives) was shocked by this decision and somehow tried to convince me that I am going to waste all the hard work done till that time ( 80%+ in 12th).