This short course surveys all the major topics covered in a full semester MBA level finance course, but with a more intuitive approach on a very high conceptual level. The goal here is give you a roadmap and framework for how financial professional make decisions.
Offered By


Finance for Non-Finance Professionals
Rice UniversityAbout this Course
Skills you will gain
- Financial Accounting
- Capital Budgeting
- Corporate Finance
- Finance
Offered by

Rice University
Rice University is consistently ranked among the top 20 universities in the U.S. and the top 100 in the world. Rice has highly respected schools of Architecture, Business, Continuing Studies, Engineering, Humanities, Music, Natural Sciences and Social Sciences and is home to the Baker Institute for Public Policy.
Syllabus - What you will learn from this course
Course Overview and Basic Principles of Financial Valuation Discounting
Welcome to Finance for Non-Finance Professionals! In this section you will find general information about the course and instructions on how to navigate the course. For the first week of lectures, we will be covering the basics of financial valuation. We will start with the basics of compounding and discounting rates of return over time. Using these tools we will then move on to valuation using the discounted cash flow method. Along the way, we will demonstrate our valuation tools with a variety of practical examples and compare our analysis with other valuation techniques.
How to Spend Money (Capital Budgeting tools)
Welcome to the second week of Finance for Non-Finance Professionals! In this week of the course, we will build on the basic valuation tools from week one to start making capital budgeting decisions. Our capital budgeting review covers the basic tools like Net Present Value, Internal Rate of Return, Payback period, and return on capital. Our discussion of the relative advantages of each different tool leads us into sensitivity analysis and the advantages of spreadsheet modeling.
Measuring Cash Creation and Flow
Welcome back to Finance for Non-Finance Professionals! In our third week together, we will go on a treasure hunt through the financial statements. Using discounted cash flows as our motivation, we search through the income statement and balance sheet for all the uses and sources of cash. Our search leads us to our primary measure of value creation: Free Cash Flow. Free cash flow will form the basis of most financial analysis and this module gives us a roadmap for estimating and forecasting cash creation within any organization.
How Much Does Money Cost? Evaluating the Cost of Capital
Welcome back everyone! In our final week together in this course, we switch gears and take an external view of the firm from a Wall Street, or capital markets, perspective. We think about the basic tradeoff between risk and return, how to measure risk, and how to put a risk premium on different kinds of investments. We then take our analysis of risk and return and use it to estimate a firm's cost of capital. Finally, we circle back to free cash flows, capital budgeting and valuation to tie together all four weeks and get ready for our capstone case analysis.
Reviews
- 5 stars82.57%
- 4 stars15.55%
- 3 stars1.20%
- 2 stars0.20%
- 1 star0.45%
TOP REVIEWS FROM FINANCE FOR NON-FINANCE PROFESSIONALS
An exceptional course that teaches all the basics of financial world to the professionals form every field. Concise modules which are taught very enthusiastically by the professor.
If you are an absolute noob in finance as I am, this course is just for you..Just that sometimes you would have to google a bit for a few terms .... Brilliant work by Rice Uni....
Very good learning experience.
The course is ideal for people having an interest in Finance! No prior knowledge needed!
The Prof. makes sure you are involved throughout the lecture!
This course as the title suggests is actually required for non finance professionals to get an understanding of concepts in Finance. A very good and well structured course.
Frequently Asked Questions
When will I have access to the lectures and assignments?
What will I get if I purchase the Certificate?
Is financial aid available?
More questions? Visit the Learner Help Center.