the first thing that I was starting I wanted to know from a show of hands as to how many of you are planning to do an MBA I saw almost 30 40% of of the hands up in the air but when I wanted to know have you gone through the syllabus of MBA I saw two hands in the air so that is the misconception which we need to clear out in today's session so the most important thing today is going to be I am not going to tell you what you are supposed to do that is not my uh that's that's not my right I am only here to give you all the information the decision will always come from your side because nobody can decide better than you for your life for yourself right so today we are going to just be discussing about all the options all the questions that you have we'll take up all the questions at the end of the session as well the session is going to be about information so that is what I'm going to be doing it's it's going to be my opinion so you can differ from what I say in a few respects but uh so so let's let's start off with the session so that's a little about me for those who don't know me I graduated from zavas in 2012 um and I completed cacs cfrm CIA cipm and CC CIB CA and Aim so my designations have been primarily in finance and uh I'm a visiting faculty with NC BC zavas College banipur college jdbi and quite a few B schools and I do a lot of training for cfrm courses uh CA Final msxl on a global front and also I do trainings and generally either mdp in finance or msxl training for companies like Tata genpac uh SAR Gama Century ply grasim andol and we do also have a Consulting part as well where we do automation Mis valuation and those consult um and those areas Finance related areas uh lot of sessions also we've been taking with Institute of um in assoc Indian association of investment professionals um ICI uh and all these organizations anyways now let's come back to you exactly what kind of options do you uh have in the future so when we're looking at the courses we've got CA CS CMA these courses can be taken up after class 12 CA uh how many of you think that CA is a course and accounts be honest no one all right so CA is not exactly a course on accounts because accounts is one paper in CA and Taxation will be two papers in CA when you see the third year so when you're looking at the papers and all so a lot of people have these perceptions but how many of you think that c is part difficult C is very difficult and Passa is very difficult be honest how many of you think that MBA is going to be easy than CA how many of you think MBA is easier than CA or pass rate of MBA is more than CA all right so again so these are the misconceptions that we need to clarify today because if you're looking at a B school if you're looking at the top 10 B School say for example assuming a 500 average seating capacity in each of those B schools we've got about 5,000 seat over there in the top 10 B schools in the country we're talking about India right now out of those 5,000 seats there were 2.36 lakh cat applicant in the last year so 2.36 lakh people took at examinations I agree that once you get into the B school there is a 99% probability that you'll clear understand there's something absolutely wrong with you there is a high probability that you're going to be clearing out your out of your B school but what is the probability of getting into a top 10 B school that people do not check how do you build a profile that is is going to get you through a b School in the third year how do you build a profile suddenly you're going to be spending 3 years to take just a cat examination what is the probability of getting in so there are a lot of things that you need to think about before you're making a decision about taking making a career choice there is something that you need there are a lot of factors you need to consider so again that's what I'm trying to do uh trying to remove all the misconceptions that you have so start getting very open-minded to the discussion today and start understanding things you don't have to listen to me there'll be 20 people you're supposed to be talking to and you are supposed to be taking a decision yourself you have the internet in front of you you can absolutely use it research yourself and then take a decision right that is that is what is lacking so CA CS CMA will be the three courses that can be taken up immediately after graduation uh CA is going to be focused on all the areas it is one of the most coed designations when you're looking at India CS is going to be more so focused on the law section so CS is going to be a company secretary again you can take it up after your uh Class 12 and it is going to be focused on Law and CM is focusing on the costing part and again it can be started off after class 12 all these three degrees will be having three levels and we'll discuss more in detail next you have uh so next uh sorry just a second next you have your CFA FM and CIA when you're looking at these three they called the Triple Crown in finance and you can start pursuing them I'll discuss the eligibility requirements and all CFA may be towards the third year of your graduation uhm there is no uh uh criteria eligibility criteria to be a graduate and CIA you would need Finance knowledge in order to do CIA so it has to be proceeded it's not like an eligibility requirement but you need the knowledge of either CFA or FM or something in order to start with CIA otherwise you'll find it very difficult other than that we have sorry about that we have MBA Masters and PhD these are the post qualific postgraduate options that you have if you want to take up an MBA in the future you will have to appear for your cat examination take your cat examinations at the end of third year and immediately after third year you will be able to pursue your MBA program in one of the colleges again the problem over here is getting an admission into a very good B school so you will have to take a call as to what do you define as a good B school at what level of B school would you be willing to to take an admission otherwise not so say for example you can decide okay I will get uh I'll take my cat examination before the results of cat is out you will need to take a call that only in the top five colleges I'll be going only in the top 10 colleges I'll be pursuing an MBA only in the top 15 so you need to decide as to what level of college would you be willing to take up or you would want to compromise or you would want to defer or uh try another year again by taking your cat examinations so you need to take a call on that Masters again you be starting off with your Masters post your be uh graduation you can pursue your Masters what is the difference between a masters and an MBA Masters would be to do more into academics research teaching or research so that is academics or research these are the two fields that you would be looking at when you want to pursue Masters as against MBA MBA would be a little more on the business side more on the Practical side and the placements would be more on the again on the corporate side as against your academics and research for masters so you need to again uh distinguish between the two and PhD is something you have to you can pursue after your Masters are done in India CA is considered as Masters and you can start with PhD even though you've not done Masters and if you have done CA course in us there are colleges which allow you to pursue PhD after your CFA is completed so CFA is considered Masters in the US and CA would be considered Masters in India by most of the colleges in order to pursue PhD anyways that is a little far-fetched so we'll just move forward the next one is going to be you can pursue uh law Actuarial Sciences uh civil services or social work now you would find it odd that I mention mentioned social work in the midst of all these things now generally when you're looking at the law course you must have appeared for a clat examination and you have tried to get uh you must have uh tried to enter into college immediately after your class 12 if you want to pursue law in case you have not done so and you want to pursue your graduation first and then you want to get into the law designation you can also do that the number of years would be lesser you can start immediately after your graduation you can start working and parall start studying law in a college again the Law College again it will the most important thing with law would be which college are you passing out from what kind of internship or what kind of practice are you looking at when I'm talking about law I'm not necessarily talking about just the criminal law part the law would be also referring to your corporate law say for example there is a case on vone because of the tax case because of the tax part who is going to be fighting that you need the legal department over there say for example Nestle with respect to the lead content it's not a criminal law it is going to be with respect to your food laws and all those laws in the country so you need corporate law also to fight the legal cases and all with respect to a company so those that law is what we are going to be discussing about Actuarial Sciences if you're looking at a career in very high level of statistics and insurance you would be looking at the acturial we'll disc discuss these things in detail don't worry I'm just introducing you to the different options that we have right now when you're looking at the social work part now I'll just give you an example there was this um friend's friend and uh he wanted to pursue something uh he wanted to uh um um do an MBA from one of the IV League colleges he wanted to get into Harvard and he planned 3 years he was running an NGO um no there was this lady she was running an NGO with 50 people under her for 3 4 years or something her GMAT scores were not very good still she was admitted into Harvard because she has shown exemplary performance in the social area leadership skills and social work so social work is also going to be an addition there are colleges which require you to condu uh uh complete compulsory number of hours of social work as a part of their syllabus and it is important you understand there is a different level of experience that will be added to you if you're pursuing social work it may not you may not be pursuing this as a career politics is also a career which is also a very uh I would not say lucrative in terms of money but in terms of in terms of uh uh contribution if you want to make and someone wants to pursue Politics as a career that is also something that someone can take up politics is also a career option at least we need to recognize that right not in a negative manner but in more of a positive manner you need educated people in politics as well so Social Work NGS and all can lead you there then we have different designations like say for example Acca so Acca would be like an equivalent of CA but from the UK Institute so we will discuss about that as well SEMA would be certified chartered Institute of management accounting would be more of a CMA equivalent or a cost accountant equivalent in the UK when you're looking at CPA CPA would be the ca equivalent in us so now when you're looking at say for example Acca CA and C uh uh CP PA CA is the ca institute's degree CA degree in India if you want to sign the balance sheet as a charted accountant in India you have to be a CA Institute member from India if you want to be able to sign balance sheets to do financial reporting to conduct auditing work in the US you have to be a CPA from us there is no exemption that you get by doing CPA over here or by doing CA over there for ACA you get a lot of exemptions so there are about 14 papers in Acca and you could get up to around nine papers or so exempt if you want to do Acca but then as an Acca you cannot have a signing Authority in India Acca is covering more of IFRS now we have Accounting Standards C Institute gives us Accounting Standards we have to follow that in India Acca is talking about IFRS IFRS is the accounting standards that is followed all over the world now in order of uh the way globalization is happening we are trying trying all the countries are trying to have their Accounting Standards like that of the IFRS to have a international convergence so India is replacing its old accounting standards with new ind's inds IND accounting standard inds that is more like IFRS that is almost 90 95% like IFRS so what happens is that if you do CA over here you have more or less the knowledge of IFRS because you'll be appearing for the new curriculum if you're appearing for CN now it's very go to it's going to resemble the IFRS a lot you'll be gaining a lot of exemptions from Acca Acca can sign in maybe 140 countries or so I'm not uh uh I don't remember the exact number you can sign as an Acca you can sign in more than 100 countries but India is not one of those countries you cannot sign as an Acca in India so you have to understand these things yes there is going to be a signing Authority in more than 100 countries but can I sign over here so you have to understand whether you're going to be working in India or abroad if you're working in India if say for example you want to get into business eventually you would want to know the tax laws the legal uh compliances and all the auditing the accounting standards everything with respect to India so doing CA would be more beneficial in that case so you have to understand I am uh absolutely not discrediting any Institute over here of course I am in no position to credit or discredit an Institute all the institutes have their own uh uh uh courses and qualifications and all but I'm giving my opinion over here so with absolutely no disrespect or disregard to any Institute so now the others will be more of specialization like say for example cqf would be more into specializing in the quants part of Finance so the specialization would come in a little later so first of all you need to understand Finance then you can probably get into the quantitative side say suppose you want to become a market Trader so in that case CMT would be ideal chartered Market technician but again the trading in the markets is going going to be more on the basis of practical or practice experience and less of the theoretical knowledge but then if you want to become a day trader not an investor I'm talking about a Trader in that case CMT would be helpful because that is talking about technical analysis so we will discuss these courses a little more in detail eventually so let's start off and then there are various certifications offered by various institutes maybe on stock markets maybe on Finance on Excel you have to understand one The credibility of The Institute to the trainer because that becomes very important who is doing the training because that is going to add value to you ultimately and third the recognition what kind of placements are these guys providing placements what kind of placements because you might say that there is a placement assistance but what is the kind of placement are you providing what level of job or what kind of profiles are you going to be helping out with and The credibility of The Institute and designation so we will also discuss this a little later so let's uh start off with certain perceptions you might be having people have a perception that CA is a course on accounts CA is a very very holistic course we are not discussing about the exam pattern or the exam or you know uh uh any comments on The Institute that is not why we are here if I talk about the syllabus of Chartered accountancy course it has got an amazing mix of subjects you've got costing you've got law you've got audit you've got accounts you've got taxation you've got Finance you've got costing you've got everything right so when you look at the mix of the curriculum it is very very good you understand so many things you've got taxes also indirect and direct taxes income taxes GST you'll be learning all about these things so when you're looking at the content of the course from a business point of view it might be a very very good uh very beneficial cause for you to go for now again you'll have to again see what kind of business are you looking at and what kind of skills are needed in that business but taxes accounts auditing all these things are something very basic which every business would be requiring and if you think that more of managing and Manpower managing marketing all those skills are needed then probably we should be looking at more of an MBA right so we need to understand what is there in each of the courses in order to take a call so ca1 it is not a course on accounts because out of 800 marks in your final level you have 200 marks on taxation 100 Mark marks on accounts in the inter level you have 200 marks on accounts and 100 Mark is given to each of the other six papers are you understanding so before making a perception before taking a decision you need to clear your you need to have your facts straight CFA is a course on stock markets that is another perception which people have CFA is not a course on stock markets CFA is a course on finance even if I'm working in a company and I want to understand uh even if I'm working in a company and I want to understand what uh how to raise Capital which projects to invest in how to manage my finances how to look at like say for example an exporter wants to understand how is the impact of a dollar exchange rate going to be affecting his profits and how to manage that so you would need to understand Finance so all the financial decision- making when you're talking about Finance we are referring to CFA so it's not a mar course on stock markets it's a course on finance when you're talking about MBA people have a perception that MBA is a course on finance MBA is not a course on finance MBA is Masters in Business Administration the first year of MBA is going to be now again you understand more than 90% of the people in the B schools in the top B schools when you're checking Engineers 80% 90% of the crowd is going to be Engineers because they have better mathematical skills and they generally tend to take uh uh uh occupy the 90% or so seeds in a b school now in the first year they are taught basic accounts accounting Taxation and everything organizational behavior HR marketing you'll be having subjects across all these disciplines in the second year you can choose a specialization which could be marketing which could be operations Finance or HR or anything any other stream strategy these are the specializations which a b school would be offering in the second year so MBA is not a course on finance it will have Finance subjects along with marketing HR OB Etc and you would be choosing a specialization in the second year so it is not a course on finance so we need to understand these things so let's start off our discussion with the ca course so generally when you're starting off with started accountancy we have a little bit of uh changes quite a bit of changes that have been made uh uh recently so now if you want to give you have three levels that you need that you uh you have three levels uh to clear CA your foundation inter and final the foundation level you'll be able to appear after class 12 say suppose you have appeared for your class 12 exams in March you'll be able to appear for your CPT which was known as CPT earlier as Foundation now in the month of December so you'll need to wait 6 months prepare for 6 months before you're able to give it ex take exams for your foundation course you have two McQ papers objective papers and two papers are going to be subjective in nature so accounts maths law and economics so a lot of overlap will be there with the syllabus of your class 11 and 12 so there will be relatively similar syllabus with respect to class 11 and 12 and foundation so Foundation would be relatively simpler the Pass rates are going to be approximately 40% or so so it's going to be easier it's going to be easier but again now because the paper has been removed from an entire McQ paper to a part McQ and part subjective paper you will have to work a little harder right and the Institute I believe is trying to make the foundation little uh uh um for more filtering maybe uh that's my perception or or maybe making it a little more uh difficult for you to pass so that you're better prepared when you want to sit for your inter examination when we looking at the inter uh uh the subjects in the inter exams you have accounts and there is an advanced accounts so we have two papers on the accountancy part one is going to be cost so um one is going to be law when I'm looking at law we are talking about company law when you're looking at company law how the directors are supposed to be appointed what are the rules and regulations applying to the company the audit rules in all there would be ancillary laws there will be Allied laws as well that would be negotiable instruments act contract act maybe when you move towards finally you'll have the Foreign Exchange Management act competition act would you allow the merger of sunfarm and run back SE so we need to study multiple different kinds of laws there will be laws with respect to banking regulation there will be a law with respect to insurance company there would be a law with respect to uh pensions gratuity so there are multiple different kinds of laws of course the law would be more so based on your company law part the focus would be more on the company law part sale of goods act so a lot of different legal provisions and all you'll have to study in order to conduct business so it is going to be business Centric or business related laws over here when you're looking at taxation is going to be mix of your direct and indirect taxes income taxes becomes your direct taxes which is collected from the payer the person who's bearing the taxes directly and GST is your indirect tax that is going to be cor collected indirectly ultimately the consumer is bearing the GST but who's making the payment to the government the companies therefore it is an indirect taxes so therefore all the tax laws is going to be covered over here and more so in more detail in your final level auditing now when you're looking at the company form of business business the shareholders do not run the company we people are owning 100 shares 200 shares 500 shares of multiple companies but we don't run the company the company is being run by the management so there is someone there is someone who's supposed to be checking whether the company has prepared the accounts properly or not we don't want another satam scam right so you need the auditing done properly so the Chartered Accountants are going to be hired it's only the Chartered Accountants who can do the auditing work and put a signature that the accounts of the company has been made at accurately following the accounting standards there is absolutely no uh um what do you call it fraud or concealing or something of that sort and we will be giving a an opinion we will be providing an opinion whether according to us the statements have been prepared properly or not so we will be going through that part in auditing part it and smm generally is a a problem for the students don't like they don't like this subject ITN smm it is your information technology now you understand that we cannot afford data is becoming very important especially with zaker B in the news with all of the data related issues and the way he's being grilled right now you understand how important the information technology the it security part can be for any for any company so it part is going to be relatively theoretical I know it people find it a little irritating and the SM is your Strategic Management it's going to be a little theoretical in nature the paper so I'll not get into too much of its application Advanced accounts again it's going to be again the accounting part partnership all those accounting amalgamation merger Accounting Standards a lot the syllabus is is increased when you're looking at the inter part there is a lot of accounting there's a lot of accounting standards and all a lot of things from the final level that has been uh moved to your um what do you call it ipcc level that is your inter level and then you have your fm and economics earlier we used to have 50 marks cost and 50 marks FM as your paper combined but now we have a 60 marks FM paper and 40 marks business economics along with costing that is 100 marks now so instead of seven papers we have eight papers in the inter level now when you're looking at the FM in economics FM is talking about Finance when you're talking about Finance I'll discuss the details more when I will be talking about CFA but when you're looking at FM valuation of equity shares valuation of bonds debentures how to have your capital structure what amount what percentage should be Equity what percentage should be debt so understanding all those things so all the finance Capital budgeting which projects to invest in which project is more profitable this project is a three-year project which will give me 20 lakh profit but this is another 5year project but it will give me a profit of 27 lakh now how do you compare the two the duration of the project is different the profits are different now how do you make a comparison so Capital budgeting portfolio how do I make my investments how much money suppose I have 1 lakh rupees how much money do I put in your bonds how much do I put in as an FD how much in your Equity shares how much in real estate right so all those things comes into your portfolio part that is finance FM which is going to become sfm in your final level and economics business economics is going to be very similar again with your class 12 or your graduation level work international trade gross domestic product GDP International Trade Public Finance basically monetary and fiscal policy so it's only for 40 marks there will be a certain sums in all also now understanding economics for business decisions is very important if you cannot make a forecast as to how will the dollar rupee rates be changing how do you expect yourself to make profits as an importer or an exporter because if you are an importer or an exporter you will be affected by the dollar rates so you need to understand international trade you need to understand should I manufacture more inventory or less inventory you need to understand how the economy is performing now you'd be hearing your parents and everybody talking about you know Market Mand the markets are not doing very well so do you need to stock less inventory at that point of time so maybe our parents take these kind of decisions without maybe knowing the exact terminology but they know these things that will come from experience from knowing the roundings from knowing the economy why do you think every day everybody is you know we we find our parents definitely reading the newspapers early in the morning you you need to develop that habit I'll discuss that also you need to start reading it's very important to know about what's happening in the economy otherwise how do you make decisions whether it is your own business or even if you are doing a job somewhere it is a business it is a larger business of which you are a part of and if you're not able to perform you will not get the bonus you'll not get the promotion you not get the raise so you need to know about what's happening in the economy that becomes very important so that's why economics in the final level we'll see the subjects are going to be the same we've got Finance over here and finance over here we've got the law we've got taxation split into two direct and indirect taxes we've got the same cost paper itm has been removed and it has been replaced with your elective there will be six papers so there are seven papers which are the same which are more or less the same as before of course the knowledge is going to increase when you're looking at the accounts part we'll have more of company holding subsidiary accounts and all those accounting as against your partnership and amalgamation and all you'll have more accounting standard in DS and all being covered in your final level when you're looking at Finance we'll have derivatives we'll have portfolio we'll have mergers acquisition lot of different readings with respect to finance a more advanced level of content when you're looking at law again the company law will be much more magnified you'll have Securities Law se's law right listing uh say for example bankruptcy code if a company is going bankrupt and nowadays so we are seeing a kind of an environment where we see so many companies defaulting on their payments so we need to study that advanced level of auditing auditing standards when you are doing auditing when you're performing auditing for companies compliances all these things are becoming very important right so how do you do that testing so that becomes a part of audit direct and indirect taxation again you understand GST has become such an important area of study because it has been recently implemented so everybody is trying to understand that your GST will be covered in indirect taxes and income taxes will be covering not only personal taxes personal taxes was more so in the level one uh in the inter syllabus in the final level the company taxes charitable trust how are they going to be paying taxes the companies uh you know different kinds of machine companies will be having different kinds of exemptions so all of those all those things mergers taxation so all those taxation related queries we'll be studying over here assessment Provisions penalties if you're not filing the tax returns all those things with respect to taxes in the electives you'll be given six options two papers are with respect to finance so one is risk management since risk management is becoming such an important requirement uh today I'll discuss that again later with the frm then you've got a paper on Capital markets you've got a paper on accountancy you've got a paper on uh uh other laws you've got a paper on International taxation so depending on what you find more interesting with respect to your inter curriculum you can take on your elective based on your area of Interest based on your what you want to specialize in based on that you can take a call uh uh on which elective you want to choose now one of the advantages that I personally feel I had with respect to uh pursuing chartered accountancy was that I did not have to study for college at all because everything uh with with with respect to college subjects were taken care of in the ca curriculum another advantage that I personally uh faced was that in the inter level all the subjects were introduced and now I was in a better position to make a decision with respect respect to what do I enjoy I understood that I don't like taxation at all I'm not it's my personal opinion you have a you can have a great career in taxation you can make a great career in law I cannot because that's not my area of Interest my area of Interest was finance and I went on specializing in that so you need to understand that you have to pursue something that you enjoy studying that you enjoy doing because ultimately even after your studies are completed for the rest of your life you're going to be doing you're going to be working in that area generally generally that is a trend right so you would want to choose a subject you would want to choose an area that you are going to be enjoying the most so I understood that I have uh I have a particular affinity for finance and I really enjoyed finance and therefore I went on to cover Finance went on to pursue Finance in future so uh that is one advantage that you know it's kind of introducing you to multiple subjects um lot of students when I interact with and I ask them as to what do you want to do and they're like I'm figuring it out I'm trying to understand what I like what are you doing to figure out nothing so you have to first of all understand that you want if you want to you have to take a step forward right you have to experiment you have to try you have to do something in order to understand what I'm going to like in the future if you're not liking anything if you're not doing anything how would you know whether I like this or I don't like this by doing CA in I understood that yes I like finance and I want to complete CA definitely because there's so much of hard work I've already put in and not just that it is a very important designation I would learn so much more about Accounts cost law and all and there's so much to study and I'm studying everything with respect to business if I want to evaluate whether to buy a company or not to buy a company suppose I want to get into Investment Banking I want to do the mergers I want to do the I'm I'm getting into the mergers and acquisition Department right I want to become an i Banker don't you think it is important for me to know competition act sunfarm and runback mergers was held for some time they had to first of all clear the competition act provisions and then they were able to get into it I don't know competition act now I don't remember because I've not used it but then at least I know that yes there is a provision of this sort and I can always reread it revise it and see if it's uh applicable to my uh uh area of work I I might not be filing my own tax returns because that is not my job but then the impact a taxation can have on the company I need to do that in order to understand say for example if I'm going for a merger and if that company has got a lot of tax losses if I buy that company I will be getting a benefit because I can set off those losses with my profits and pay less taxes this year so even if I'm a finance guy I need to know these things if a what if the company is doing a lot of fraudulent accounting I need to know how the auditor has done his work how the financial statements have been prepared how they have been showing their accounts based on the accounting standards if an accounting standard is changing the company's financials will change and if the company's financial reporting is changing their ratios will change so if I as an analyst I want to be a financial analyst I need to understand the accounts the way they have been prepared right so you need to have a good knowledge about different areas so this is your subject uh syllabus your curriculum your course matter where