I was suggested to take Group 2 first, as it has less financial accounting, so that it would make it easier for me.

I enrolled for the course in January and started preparing basics from CBSE 11th and 12th accountancy books. Those books were pretty good. The standard of these books is good and is also suitable for self study.

I had joined private coaching classes in January. But they started classes only in March. They conducted very few classes and covered only a small portion of the entire syllabus.

So I had to rely on self study. Initially it was very difficult to understand concepts, because CMA is an advanced level course and directly landing on it without knowing basics would make it very hard to sail through it.

But I managed it really well. Whenever I couldn't understand something I would inspect every single part of the problem. I would get all the fundamentals cleared via google or friends. That would take huge amount of time, but at the end I would be 100 % clear with the concepts.

That is what is important right ? When your fundamentals are strong and your concepts are clear you can face any question asked in exams.

But, I had to put in much greater efforts and more time compared to a regular commerce student. But I was determined to do the course. So it was completely worth it.

Then, the journey became a little easier when I did Group 1, as, I was familiar with the concepts. But I still had a lot of doubts and got them cleared from my friends and faculty. But the journey was smoother this time compared to the last.

When I started finals, I was at par with commerce students. Actually, much better than that. When I was doing Group 1 itself I started teaching a lot of friends. In three months I made that transition happen. From me asking doubts to my friends, to me helping them out by teaching concepts.

So this is definitely doable. But needs a lot of effort and determination.

If you are an engineer and you are planning to do CMA, prepare the basics prior to your intermediate. I don't think any coaching classes would help you with that because they are all busy teaching regular commerce students.

Hence get accustomed to self study. Initially you would have to put in a lot of time and effort. But once you get a grip over the subject you can sail through it smoothly.

You can even do better than the mainstream students. We haven't learnt finance in engineering. But engineering has taught us how to study anything and also how to apply it.

Its just the initial days where you have to do more work.

All the best ! Hope this helps.