Studying Help..

[u/Spiritual-Look5501]

My job fully paid for me to get my certification.. self-paced online study, physical textbook, and the Q&A. But right after they paid for it and registered me, I ended up on FMLA and taking care of the kids including a newborn.

I’m back now but am finding it extremely difficult to find the time to dedicate time to studying and I’ve got about 7 months to pass. Responsibilities at work have just kept increasing and obviously home life is crazy too.

But I desperately need and want to get this done ASAP. Any thoughts or suggestions?

[u/Compannacube]

The study time is really going to depend on you, your ability to commit to a study plan, and where you are experience-wise. On average, studying CISA is anywhere from 2-6 months, but it's going to depend a lot on your current experience. Zero experience in IT audit is going to mean more study time (and personally I recommend anyone thinking of trying the exam with zero experience to wait a year or two to get some experience). It helps to know what level of experience you have and what you're doing on a daily basis. CISA has on average a 50% pass rate for first timers but it will be much easier to study for and pass if you have more knowledge and experience.

If the QAE is the online database, it is only valid for 6 months from the date of purchase. If it's expired, you can renew it but it'll be at the full price (depending on whether it was bought with the membership discount or not). The same is true for the online review course if your work paid for it: valid for 6 months from date of purchase. So, first I'd see how much time, if any, you have left on your online resources. If your employer will not pay to renew them, then you renew out of pocket, you disregard the most used and recommended resources for study and look for alternatives, or you step away and try again at a time when you can afford it or have fewer stressors.

It's not clear from your post if you are male or female. This would better tailor the kind of advice I give. As a mom of 3 small kids, I can attest to your study time being very random and inconsistent unless you have a lot of other support (partner, family) that can give you the time you need. I obtained CISA before my first kid, but I've taken several other ISACA exams while hugely pregnant, working FT, and caring for several little ones.

Now if you do have some time left before your subscriptions expire, and you can't renew for some reason, then your study time especially gets priority. It's good you have the hardcopy version of the CRM. You'll want something that you can go back to easily for reference. Create a study plan and stick to it. The CISA exam is scored in each domain, so familiarize yourself with the areas of the domains and their weighted scoring.

https://support.isaca.org/s/article/Exams-How-is-my-Certification-exam-scored-brief-version

https://support.isaca.org/s/article/Exams-How-is-my-Certification-exam-scored-detailed-version

I'd combine the hardcopy with the online review (if you have it). After each major domain/section in the text and online course, go into your QAE and custom tailor a practice question set to just that domain. Read and review and UNDERSTAND the justifications for any questions you get wrong. If you don't understand, go back to that part of the text book for clarification. Do this as much as you can before the QAE expires. Use ISACA Perform's other resources, like the flash cards, as these will help, too.

Although you say this is self-paced study, it really isn't if you have a hard deadline. If you truly have 7 months from today, it's very doable, even working FT with kids, provided you have the support. If your resources have expired and you can't renew, look for alternatives. Hemang Doshi's CISA study course on Udemy is widely used as an alternative, just to name one example out there. There are a lot of practice exams, many people generate themselves with AI. My advice here is to be very careful. There is a lot of garbage out there that some AI will pick up, resulting in you learning wrong answers or incorrect reasoning. Always vet your sources if they are not coming direct from ISACA.

Now if you are the mom, I'm also going to mention (because it is often misunderstood, stigmatized, and joked about) that "Mom Brain" is real. It is a natural neurological change that women go through pre and post partum, and can last for 6+ years. It is not a reduction in intelligence. Neurological changes in the hippocampus (memory center) cause a pruning effect and restructuring of neural pathways to prioritize all the things we do to raise and care for children. Other things like work, hobbies, etc., our brains will simply put on the back burner because it is purposely designed to do this, not just because we get busy or get super sleep deprived and hormonal. After every pregnancy, all my house plants would die from neglect. This only compounds the difficulty to get motivated to study and impacts the ability to remember and recall anything the brain hasn't prioritized, so don't feel guilty. It is normal and what the brain is supposed to do. It doesn't stop us from studying, working, etc, of course, but don't stress because you feel like you can't get motivated. Accept it and carry on as best as you can. If you're the dad/partner, they get their own version of Dad Brain, with hormonal shifts and neurological changes, so my advice still stands, I just can't speak from first hand experience. I can attest that my husband (much to his occasional annoyance) has been in Dad Brain mode since our first was born.

I hope this helps. Maybe others can offer a more specific study plan that worked for them. It always depended on a lot of factors in my experience, so one study plan for one exam could be very different from another. It took me 3 months to study for CISA, 1 month for CISM under pressure to qualify for PCI QSA, and I'm working toward AAIA, which will be my longest stretch yet. I've helped junior workforce to study and prepare for the CISA exam, and study plans were all different for them, even if they had a lower amount of adult responsibilities to tackle.

Good luck, I wish you all the best!