First off, I’m taking the 簿記論 (Bookkeeping Theory) and 財務諸表論 (Financial Statements Theory) exams this August.
Challenges
My honest assessment is that I will not pass this year, because most people require at least a full year of study while I’ve only properly started in April, giving me 4 months of study time. Doesn’t hurt to try anyway.
One big challenge for me is that I’m not a native speaker. While I’ve lived here in Japan for over 20 years and can speak rather fluently, I have also struggled to write long, proper essays. Now this isn’t really an issue restricted to Japanese, I suck at writing essays no matter the language. Doing so in Japanese is just harder.
I’ve had experience creating issues, PRs and even documentation in Japanese when I was still employed, but I had the benefit of using the device in front of me. Typing is much easier than writing as I only have to know how a kanji is spelled, the computer does the actual writing.
The exams
Based on what I’ve seen of the past year’s exams, the bookkeeping exams are mostly mathematical in nature, which is why I actually feel confident taking this subject.
The financial statements one though, requires memorising a large amount of jargon, and writing large amounts of texts using said jargon.
Obviously, the exams are in person, hand written with a pen. Each subject is 2 hours long.
There are 3 sections, sections 1 and 2 are ‘easier’ as the questions are created by professors and tend to be more academic in nature. ‘What does the law say regarding X’, ‘How financial statements help?’ etc. The recommended time for those sections is no more than 20 - 30 minutes each.
The final third section is very much harder. It’s managed by industry professionals based on contemporary real world scenarios. It’s so hard that it’s not actually feasible to complete all of it, but it’s also the highest scoring section.
What do?
I’m taking online lessons where they provide a good mix of online videos and pdf course work.
There are hundreds of hours of videos. I watch them at 2-3x speed, often while doing chores or driving. Honestly, I’m not paying too much attention to it. I try to keep track of certain keywords and will re-watch parts I feel important. But it’s mostly just to familiarise myself with the subject matter.
Here comes the important part.
I re-do every single course work until I’ve gotten all of it correct. I’m also making it a point to handwrite all the jargon and essays. I’ve read a few people’s experiences and they often doing it digitally, either typing or copy-pasting. I’m doing it the analogue way because I think it’ll help me remember the words better.
It also gives me an opportunity to practise writing kanji. I can read it just fine, but I’ve not had to write any kanji since leaving school.
Then of course there’s the notes I’ll be publishing on this blog.
An honest assessment
I’m really just making it up as I go.
I’ve never been particularly good at this kind of rote memorisation, heavy regurgitation style of studying. We’ll see how it goes. The thing is, these are just the fundamentals. There next 3 subjects are on tax laws, requiring even more memorisation and regurgitation of endless jargon. If I can’t pass even these two subjects, I have no hope of passing the tax law ones.
That said, I actually think that I can pass the book keeping exams even with only four months of study. Yes yes, ego, hubris, the arrogance of a tech bro that thinks nothing is harder than software engineering, can you even reverse a b-tree?! blah blah blah. It’s just math! How hard can it be?
I’m not as confident about the financial statements one though. Let’s loop back on this again at the end of April, once I’ve done more of the course work and have a better understanding of how deep of a shithole I’ve dug myself into.
It’s hard. That’s why it’s worth doing.
One more thing
I’m not at that point yet, but once I’m done with the all course work, I’ll be getting the Past Year Exams books and work on those.
I expect to be done with most of the coursework by mid May, and can start focusing on the PYEs then.