CA is undoubtedly one of the toughest exams to crack. So it is essential to have the right resources and sound planning to crack the exams. Let me present to you the importance of a study plan or a study schedule while preparing for CA exams.
Just imagine the daily routine of a CA student --> college, articleship, coaching classes, social media, time with friends and family, self-study - everything in one day. Huh! Isn't it too intimidating? How do you manage everything or prioritize things? This is where the importance of a study timetable comes in.
Some of the benefits are:
Helps you stay focused & goal-oriented
Thorough understanding of one’s syllabus thereby making one, feel organized and in-command
The achievement of each target brings in the motivation to achieve another. It feels like it’s a game and very soon one starts enjoying the process. So a study plan makes boring studies fun! (Feels nice to write this point, but I really doubt if it can make CA fun to study :P)
Regular studies reduces the level of stress. Work doesn’t get accumulated due to procrastination.
Studying at regular hours increases concentration and inculcates a sense of discipline
Initially, the efforts may look too much, but the rewards of having a study plan are rich, varied and really long-lasting
No doubt why we have study timetables in educational institutions - schools and colleges.
However, a timetable is not restricted to studies only. This habit of making and following schedules only helps to organize things better and prioritize things without irritation or frustration.
But there is an important catch here, which a lot of CA students miss. Following a study schedule needs discipline - which is a rare quality nowadays.
Let me tell you my own story here to illustrate this point better.
This was the time when I was preparing for CA Intermediate. I had not taken any coaching classes for it and was preparing for the exams on my own. Being in a regular college like St. Xavier's gave me the opportunity to interact with my batchmates on a regular basis and talk to them about how they were preparing for the exams. This would help me fine-tune my strategies and validate them by comparing with what the others were following or their coaching teachers had told them.
An important point I noticed was that while most of the coaching teachers stressed on making a study timetable, I had not prepared any study timetable at all. And as you would have correctly guessed it... FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) struck. I went a bit deeper into this. I asked some of my close friends some probing questions on what study schedule they were following, what were the pros and cons of a study schedule, etc. I even happened to get a study plan from one of my friends who had got it from some coaching class of his. I was naturally happy to have finally got a study schedule in hand. Hahaha... job done!!
But I was wrong. Once I started to follow it, I found it to be quite impracticable for me to follow for too long a time. The study schedule roughly was like this -->
Study all subjects first like reading a newspaper. Do it as quick as possible. Time set was till July. This was Round 1. Then came Round 2 - which was dividing a month into groups of 4 days each and complete one subject in each group of 4 days. This was to be done by August. September was the time for mock tests. And then they ventured out to list down in details which subject I should be studying at what point of the day, etc. etc...
Considering that I had only 7 hours daily to study for CA, I personally found it very difficult to study a single subject for the entire day and that too for 4 consecutive days. And what happened was quite obvious... I kept the study schedule aside and studied on my own - albeit in a disciplined approach. Yes, I ensured that I was putting enough effort into all the subjects and not ignoring any topic in any particular subject. And the rest, as they say, is history - I scored decently well in all the papers and secured AIR 16.
So the key learning from my own story is --> A study schedule cannot be copy pasted. I tried to do that and was left frustrated after just 3 days. Every individual is different and has his/her own style of studying. Some students prefer to study early morning, while some prefer to burn the midnight oil. Some dislike theory, while some dislike practical subjects. So no one schedule can be prepared for all the students. It has to be customized.
While I personally did not believe in study schedules, I found my friends using one full day on preparing a study schedule in as beautiful handwriting as they could - full with colorful ink and glitter. And then either not follow it at all after the initial enthusiasm was lost, or prepare another modified version in the same way - again full with colorful ink and glitter. I personally found this to be very childish and immature (Diverse opinions are welcome!). So I never really got into this whole business of making timetables and sticking them on to your study wall.
But now as I interact with more and more CA students through this initiative of mine, I feel I might have missed a trick here. I also might have tried at creating my own study schedule maybe. That's why I have written this post to make sure that anyone who is reading this does not make the same mistake as I did.
I realize that this post has sort of become quite long, but I still have a lot to share with you all. So what I will do is to pause here and continue this in another post, where I will share some tips to make your own study schedule and maybe even look at creating a sample study schedule for all of you.
Thanks for reading, and please stay tuned for the next post on the topic of Study Schedule.
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