I have no time to blog. No time to go to the gym. No time to walk my dog. No time to cook a decent meal. No time to organize my drama discs. No time to sit through an entire episode of a drama without thinking: gosh, I have to do my CASB soon. I’m typing this and I’m already thinking about how to start the week 5 tasks.
CASB is sucking my life away (which was already in a no-life-status even beforehand). My dog is getting obese because I can’t take her for a walk. News to all of you CASB-to-be-students, if you are a procrastinator…get some kind of therapy RIGHT NOW! This is coming from an experienced procrastinator. CASB is a suicidal bootcamp for people like us.
If you’re one those keen students who always have everything finished 2 months before the deadline, then stop reading my post, and stop rolling your eyes at me.
But if you are one those who uses 1 month, 3 weeks, and 5 days pondering on how to start the project, I can definitely sympathize. But I have a plan. (I always have a plan. The problem is STICKING in to it)
To tell you the truth, CASB is not so bad. I just had a tough week. I had to go and fly to Vancouver for the last two weekends and that kind of ruined my rhythm. You probably heard a lot of horror stories about CASB. I even found a facebook group called “CASB sucks”. The funny thing was, this group has more members than the “CASB support group”. Anyway, this is how it basically works:
You’ll get access to the webct page a week (I think, correct me if I’m wrong) before the actual course starts. In it you’ll find the entire 10 tasks posted that are required for the whole module. You can even print them all off and get a head start. If you don’t, that’s okay. You’re normal.
In CASB, you play a CA student for an imaginary firm where they make you force you to write 27423947239 Memos and have you read the entire CICA handbook and the Income Tax Act. Of course, there’s more, but I find those two to be the pain in the bum. So for the next 2 years of your life, kiss your John Grishams and Stephanie Plum novels bye-bye. Every Friday, you have to submit the tasks . There is no actual marking scheme. It is either CLEARED or NOT CLEARED. Your facilitator will send your stuff back if they need a revision (sort of how you prepare a file, send it for review, and get a thousand of queries back). I have just submitted my week 4 tasks and week 3 revisions yesterday.
Week 4 has been the worst one so far. I usually send my work in a day early, but yesterday, I found myself still in the office at 8PM trying to get it done. I didn’t like that at all. I’m not liking my life nowadays. I go home tired from work and all I want is to go to bed. But I stay up idling in the computer, “strategizing” how to start my CASB. Still, I go to bed at 11:30PM, accomplishing nothing. Therefore, today, I am going to try and jump from the procrastinators boat. There is just no place for procrastinators in CASB.
My Grand Plan
1) Thursday: Submit completed work before going to bed.
2) Friday: Day off from CASB. Have coffee with friends. Update torrent downloads in Azureus. Write a blog post. This is a do-whatever-you-want-day. But don’t forget to go to work.
3) Saturday: Go to part-time job. Do house chores until noon. Go for a long walk with Genie. In the afternoon, print off narratives and gather required information to complete tasks.
4) Sunday: Go to part-time-job. Finish DRAFT!!! This is the key point here. If you finish your draft by this day, then you don’t have to ruin your entire weekday. Of course you might have to spend a couple more hours to finalize it but at least you’re going to be worry-free for the rest of the week. There are chat sessions on Tuesday/Wednesday. I find them to be very helpful. So make sure you attend them.
5) Monday – Friday: Live a normal life!!!!
My plan is not tested yet. I’ll let you know next week how it works. But if you have one that’s better than mine, feel free to post it below.
You know what else I found very helpful: Having a study buddy. Let me remind you though, that CASB is very tight with plagiarism issues. The face to face session for module one is mostly about the Rules of Professional Conduct. For three days, they’ll grind these rules into your soul. Hopefully, I haven’t breached any of the rules or the CASB agreement I’ve signed by writing this post.
As for what I meant about a study buddy, I’ve met a couple of people from the face to face and we exchanged sn’s. When I do my homework, I open my messenger and we gather into a conference. We work individually and ask safe questions (e.g. formatting, font size, etc). So what’s the point?
Well, I find it comforting to be up at 2AM doing CASB, and it’s nice to know there is that one other person doing the same thing. Common conversation between us would go like…
Me: Hey, you still up? I think I’m going to go to bed.
CASB buddy: Yup, I’m on the last one. Okay, I’ll see you tomorrow.
Me thinking silently: Wat the heck!!! he’s on the last one…and I haven’t even finish task 1!!??? This can’t be. I gotta beat him.
Me: You know what? I’ll keep you company. Let’s finish this monster tonight.
CASB buddy: That’s the plan.
So, you see…it does help.
If you’re in module one, and wants to join our little group, leave me a line.
I thought week 4 was the biggest pain in the ass as well. I totally misjudged how long it would take me, and ended up handing it in at 11:50pm on Friday. I’m looking forward to some major revisions for week 4.
How’s it going with your CASB tasks? Now I know why you haven’t updated your blog for quite some time. Wishing you all the best with getting the tasks done, cause I’d like to see you getting back into track with your blogging again…
AND of course for you to be able to get your life back on track – with the drama arrangements, downloads, walking your dog, cooking a decent meal, all that…especially blogging. hehehe..
redgeofsanity:
You really know how to make my blogging heart fat and plump with your comments! Sankyu very much!
DK: 11:50PM? LOL, playing it dangerous, aren’t ya? Hehe, well, at least week 5 looks to be manageable…
Not being able to excersize is the worst.
Whats CASB? lol
I’m the exact same way. I spend way too much time just figuring out how to approach things and in the end I just put it off till tomorrow. I guess it’s just a fear of doing a ton of work and then in the middle of things finding that I’m completely wrong and have to redo it again.
Thanks for your “jia you” on my page. Aza aza hwaiting to you!
Oh man, you make me so glad I went through Ontario’s process. Not that the CKE and SOA are a piece of cake, but I like how there’s a split between work-time and study-time.
I’m assuming you’re still doing your day job? And you’re busy with P/T stuff too? If that’s the case, seriously consider dropping the P/T stuff if you can afford to – you need as much time as possible to study.
Anyway, thanks for the update and the info on the CASB – it’s definitely an eye-opener.
Good luck!
Ya week 5 isn’t too bad. Took a little bit of time to get used to caseware, but the workload wasn’t as bad as week 3 and 4. Those checklists were a pain though, just kind of stumbled through them.
You were in Vancouver? I’m guessing F2F? How did you find the thing? My cohort ended up being like 70% from one of the big 4 firms, and 30% from various smaller firms.
Hello.
I was wondering if you could tell me how each of the modules are marked?
I heard the system is “no pass”, “marginal pass”, “honors pass”.
What type of grade do you need to get an honors pass?
Thank you.
Clarie
Claire,
You are correct. CASB do not give letter grades because it is competency-based. They assess you based on these 4 components:
-Tasks (These are the assignments you have to submit to your facilitator every week. There are usually 5 tasks every week, so in total, approximately 50 tasks. If you miss a couple, you won’t fail, so don’t worry.
-Knowledge (Mostly based on the exam)
-Application of knowledge (Again, mostly based on the exam…sorry I can’t elaborate on this as I have yet to take mine on December.)
-Pervasive (based on the 3-day Face to Face Session…so speak out, get those participation marks)
On every component, you’ll get 4 possible assessments:
1) Competency not yet achieved – Fail
2) Marginal Competency – You barely passed
3) Basic Competency – Average
4) Competency with distinction – Above Average
If you get one or more Competency not yet achieved, YOU WILL FAIL.
If you get four marginal competencies, YOU WILL FAIL.
But hold on, you have no intention on failing, right…you’re actually interested on passing with “honours”. Well smart girl…first you should have no Marginals and you should have at least two distinctions. Basically, you are aiming for two basic and two distinctions, or heck, from the sound of it, I think you are aiming for 4 distinctions…go for it then! But don’t kill yourself while you’re at it…hehe
DK: I know eh…those checklists seem to be neverending. We’re basically getting our review engagement training in CASB. I think I’m getting to appreciate the NTRs a little bit more now…
F2F was great. Our facilitator was SO interesting and funny. I think we only have a couple of people from the big fours…and the rest are from medium sized firms in Vancouver.
Sounds like you have a lot on your plate. Doing all the CASB studying, while actually still working sounds intense. Just keep at er’ and I’m sure things will be fine. Good luck!
How’s CASB going? Have you written any practice cases yet? My firm had us write a mock exam…wasn’t as bad as I thought but I’ll have to re-evaluate after I get my results.
Thanks for a great post
I’m moving to Vancouver next summer and will be enrolled in CASB starting next fall.
I had couple of question regarding CASB process:
1. Can you have more than one module going on at one time?
2. Do you need to complete module in sequence?
3. How long is a F2F session? Does it take up the entire Friday + weekend? What happens if we have important plans on the weekend?
4. What type of tasks do you get?
Kgirl I can probably answer those as I’m willing to procrastinate until my exam.
1 and 2: You complete the modules sequentially.
3. F2F is 8-4 on Friday and Saturday. 8-2 on Sunday. You’ll be in class the whole time…the facilitators aren’t allowed to let you leave early. It’s mandatory so you have to attend, unless you have a really good reason. You also get a mark for F2F and you can fail F2F just by being late.
4. The tasks are just weekly assignments where they ask you to do various things like tax returns, answering client questions, journal entries, etc. I don’t think we’re allowed to get into too much detail about them…
Hopefully that clears up some of your questions.
Thanks DK for your answer.
I have one more question: is it okay to be out of country while doing the tasks? I”ll be back for F2F and evaluation. I’ll have good access to internet while I’m gone.
Your plan’s theoretically correct but probably not practially feasible. I’ve tried similar plans. For me, I had greater success this module by trying to start earlier-this was good early on in the module… by the time Week 10 rolls around, you’re already starting sh*t on Thursday night because you’re sick of it.
Anyways I’m on mod 4 writing my exam this saturday, and the way I found this blog speaks volumes… I basically googled “casb sucks”
I’m just a regular guy, not getting things done ahead of time that much, bit of a procrastinator. If i can do it, so can you.
just remember sometimes you gotta go through hell to get to heaven, this is what i tell myself
My plan only worked for a week and then I’m back to my normal procrastinator self, but I’ll give it another try on mod 2.
Heaven, you say? Hahaha, not a lot of CAs in my firm seem to be in a heavenly state this time of the year.
Btw, good luck on the mod 4 exam.
Mod 4 exam tomorrow – not fun during busy season.
Anyone have a sample module they can post? I am just wondering what type of cases/problems are involved and the amount of time required to complete them.
Are they accounting cases?
Cheers.
Hello,
I have a question… Once you get your degree and meet all the CASB requirements how hard is it to find a CA articling firm?
Please anyyyyyone email me back at mike_mcphee@hotmail.com
I partly quit CASB because my parents decided to buy a restaurant that same year I got a job and expects me to work once a weekend. They think its only a few hours….w/e… but with what you’re writing about… that is why I quit!!
Unfortunately, Kristie, I’m at a point where I can’t afford to quit. After all this…this…I can’t even think of something nasty to call it..but yah, I better continue plowing or I would have wasted everything for nothing.
I, like Mike, am curious if anyone currently enrolled in CASB had a hard time finding a job. I am on Vancouver Island and am graduating June 2010 and have been through interviews and such on the Island. Not many firms are hiring at the momment so I guess I just hit the pavement and start pestering the smaller firms.
Thanks,
Michael
HI Mike,
My friend has dropped out of mod 4 because she can’t find a CA training office that would hire her. She lives in Vancouver right now. I don’t really know how hard it is to find a job in the big city. We’re out of work in my firm but they’re still planning to hire one more student. I don’t get it. *scratches head* Anyhow, you have lots of time if you’re graduating in June ‘10. Plus, I think the actual CATO requirement for CASB is around mod 4 or 5. They gave the students a temporary policy relief due to the downturn in the economy.
So your friend was able to go through some modules even though she wasn’t employed? Or was she laid off?
I am thinking I might have to pack my backs for Alberta. I grew up in Vancouver and have always lived in BC but I would spend 5 years or so in Alberta if I had to.
Just curious, when did you complete your undergrad degree? Do you know if most or all of your grad class has found work?
Thanks again for the info.
Michael, the norm is you can register for mod 1 and 2 even if you are unemployed. For more info, you can read this memo:
http://www.casb.com/pdf/09May04_Student_Policy_Relief_Memo.pdf
Yes my friend went through modules 1 to 3 without working for a CATO. She did work one tax season in a small firm in Vancouver but she quit due to bad management and a crappy salary. I don’t live in a big city like Vancouver. I graduated in 2008. Not all the people in my grad class found a job in my city. Most of them moved in smaller cities or sometimes up in the north just to get a job.
Job hunting is not easy. But you have to try. It would really help if you have connections, I think. It’s great that you are starting now. Please visit krupo’s site ->
http://steeplemedia.com/blogs/krupo/
He has more resources and guidelines on job hunting for accounting students.
It is a really helpful site. I promise.
Out west, as I understand it, the large firms and some medium sized firms hire a year in advance (hire now for Sept 2010). And there are pretty strict guidelines for them to follow (e.g. CACEE forms in by Sept.30, interviews from Oct.8-22, and first round of offers expire Nov.4). That is the reason for starting now. I had quite few really good interviews, but no offers.
I was expecting more interacting from Vancouver firms but only heard back from firms on Vancouver Island. I also applied to Telus and the Auditor General.
Thanks for that site I will take a look.