The Opportunity
I was 4th yr. college at the University of Santo Tomas taking BS Management Accounting. It was a normal day at school. No quizzes, no events, just classroom discussions. I was outside of our classroom when I learned that one of the professors was discussing about the CMA program.
From what I learned, we just have to take an exam prepared to see if we were qualified for what they called back then as the first “Elite Batch”.
A few days after thinking about it, I gave it a try. I spent some nights reviewing the materials given. What’s fun was only a few people knew that I would take the exam.
Exam day came, some of my friends were surprised that I took the exam. Let me tell you that the exam was the first 100 item exam I have ever taken, and it was really difficult. I didn’t expect to get a passing score. I even placed a bet with my friends that if ever I passed I would treat them with pizza.
Back to normal but with a lot of quizzes now. I didn’t expect the results to come out soon because of the workload of the professors during quizzes. Until one weekend morning, I woke up with my phone bombarded with “Congratulations!” When I learned that I placed first in that list of passers I ran and screamed towards my parents to show them my achievement.
I was happy and most of my friends were happy for me, then I remembered that I had to buy pizza. Anyway, because of the results I was able to convince my parents to enroll me in the certification program.
The journey to be a Certified Management Accountant is a very challenging task. I had to sacrifice some time to do stuff I wanted to prioritize what I needed to do.
The most memorable for me though was my exam month. It was June 2017. My exams were scheduled on the 2nd and 4th week. Our graduation was on the first week of June, so I wasn’t able to enjoy graduation as early as my batch mates did. I remembered sacrificing going out with friends to study every day to prepare for the exams. It was the most challenging thing I did for the certification.
In the end, it was worth it. I received the results in August 2017 and I passed the two-part exam.
Now, I’m a financial consultant of an insurance company and because of my certification I can provide better insight and added value to my clients. I’m on my way to managership and making my family very proud.
To the readers, make it a goal to learn from the certification program rather than achieve the title, it is this way that all your sacrifices and journey will be truly worth it and really useful in the workforce.
Good luck and God bless!
About the Author:
Aldwyn Jan T. Gonzales graduated BS Management Accounting at The Pontifical and Royal University of Santo Tomas batch 2017. He passed the CMA Examination for both parts in the June 2017 testing window. He is now a financial consultant in one of the world’s leading life insurance companies.
