Born in Ujjain, Ayush Jajoo has been an ambitous student from his school days, with goals of achieving big in his career.
He did his Graduation in BBA from Vikram University, which is in Ujjain itself. While working full time, he cleared FRM Part – I in 2021
Let’s deep dive into his background story and preparation strategy which helped him clear the FRM exam in first attempt. Given below are the excerpts from our interview with Ayush –
Why did you decide to pursue FRM?
After my graduation, I was trying for MBA, and also appeared for CAT but I couldn’t clear due to some personal reasons. At this point, my family wanted me to settle down in my career.
Hence, I was looking for a course which can be done quickly, and is related to finance – that’s where my interest lies. I didn’t consider CFA because it takes 3 years to complete. Also, CFA is not job oriented or a niche course.
I chose to pursue FRM because it involves statistics, and numbers attract me much from my childhood. Also, when the Covid hit in 2019, Risk Management was apparently on boom.
What steps did you take to further your FRM preparation?
After BBA, I was helping my father in business, and was also doing a job as a research analyst at Sheer Capital, Ujjain. So, I went out of touch from studies for quite a long time. And FRM is a couse which needs a lot of discipline. Thus, I was sure that I will need an external help.
I was initially doing self study, but my preparation was going nowhere due to lack of schedule and set sequence of the topics to be prepared. I started searching for various prep providers.
Then I got to know about Quintedge on Google. I got in touch with their Faculty, Yash Jain who gave me an initial counselling of 30 Minutes. It was a pure reality-check and a knowledge oriented session. No hard selling.
Also Read: How to Prepare for FRM Part 1 | How to prepare for FRM Part 2 Exam?
How did Quintedge help you?
They Gave me a basic study plan because I was not in touch of studies from a long time. Yash Sir helped me to get back on track, as his videos are not just ‘lectures’, but also a big source of motivation (You’ll get to know when you watch them!).
Then they guided me as to which topics to focus more, given my current knowledge.
Their lectures are full of real life examples which helped me to grasp the concepts easily. And I must say, he left no stone unturned in re-explaining the concepts if any student had doubts.
Can you share your preparation strategy for FRM Part – I?
I was given study plan along with timeframe (time lines) to cover that study plan by QuintEdge. So I’ll break down my preparation strategy into 5 phases-
Phase 1 – First I was confused which book to read first, Sir told that I should read the first book as it would give me a brief about that whole FRM level 1. I did the same and it was very helpful as it gave me clear idea about the entire curriculum. The book was short and finishing it gave me a confidence as in my head. I had gone through 1 complete book in 10-12 days.
Phase 2 – Second I was advised to go for book 3 as it was majorly theory and some concepts which needed to be cleared before attempting book 2. I was down with 2 books in a span of 25 days. This gives you a moral boost and motivation. Book 2 was a bit difficult but the way Quintedge had strategized it for me made the journey a bit easier. I already had the understanding of the concepts via book 1 & 3. Now it was helpful for me to understand why and what are the formulas used for. I got through the book in 25 days.
Phase 3 – Then I was advised to go for Book 4. But along with that I started revising book 1 & 3. This was a key point because as you go on reading new concept and chapter, you tend to forget earlier ones and continuously revising concepts is very helpful. If you revise the topics many times, you would spend less time revising the concept before exam. I completed revision along with book 4 reading in another 22-25 days. Book 4 has some new concepts, so you need to read the book carefully.
Phase 4 – Now it was 1.5 months to exam and all I had to do was revise book 2 then book 4 along with questions. It took around 25 days to complete this. Another 20 days in bucket. I talked to Yash sir and he told me to attempt one mock. I scored decent in it then I was told to have a look at the mistakes I made in the mock and to revise those topics thoroughly. I did that along with revising all the important topics. This took 3-4 days. Then I again revised all the topics again before appearing for second mock, my score improved a lot in this one.
Phase 5 – After this I was just sticking to revision. One of the golden rule that sir told me to adhere to was this – before exam so not solve hard questions and just focus on revising concepts. So 2 days before the exam I solved schweser questions as they are easy to crack and boosts confidence.
Final Verdict – The strategy helped me to get into exam with confidence and I scored 1 quartile in all 4 subjects.
