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. We will cover the basics of financial valuation, the time value of money, compounding returns, and discounting the future. You will understand discounted cash flow (DCF) valuation and how it compares to other methods. We also step inside the mind of a corporate financial manager and develop the basic tools of capital budgeting. We will survey the how, when, and where to spend money, make tradeoffs about investment, growth, dividends, and how to ensure sound fiscal discipline. Our journey then turns to a Wall Street or capital markets perspective of investments as we discuss the fundamental tradeoff between risk and return. We then synthesize our discussion of risk with our valuation framework and incorporate it into series of direct applications to practice. This course requires no prior familiarity with finance. Rather, it is intended to be a first step for anyone who is curious about understanding stock markets, valuation, or corporate finance. We will walk through all of the tools and quantitative analysis together and develop a guide for understanding the seemingly complex decisions that finance professionals make. By the end of the course, you will develop an understanding of the major conceptual levers that push and pull on financial decision making and how they relate to other areas of business. The course should also serve as a roadmap for where to further your finance education and it would be an excellent introduction of any students contemplating an MBA or Finance concentration, but who has little background in the area.
CI
I come from untraditional background but I find this course is very helpful! The course is very well-structured, allowing me to simply and easily understand finance foundation.
MS
This course exceeded my expectations and I strongly recommend for all non-finance professionals. I particularly enjoyed the teacher's ability to explain even the more intricate concepts.
KH
Great Course, Very solid start for those who are trying to enter Finance world. It makes you love this field if you are not familiar with it and have no previous experience. Great Job Professor.
GL
Very good course and materials. Learned a lot. The pace was very fast for me and had to watch some classes more than once, but they provide all the information needed for this subject,
SC
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!
YM
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.
JS
Very good overview of finance. For everyone looking, this is not specific to personal finance, but rather a general view and introduction to the most general topics. And a great one at that!
FS
James is a very passionate and communicative lecturer. I really love the way he presents the materials because it makes all the materials are easily digested and understood. Two thumbs up!!
JD
Excellent course for non-finance professionals.It will help to understand the financial report and will help to calculate ROI and other stuff that the corporate world demands for any project proposal.
OC
Prof. Weston gives wonderful presentations. Also during the lecture videos you are given some prompt questions that help maintain your focus. Good introduction to the finance world.
PM
Very insightful and refreshed the concepts I learned in a much better way! Professor was extremely good at conveying the course in the best way possible to comprehend complex topics!
SM
I highly recommend this course. I've always thought that I could never be a "numbers" person and the instructor did such a great job explaining things. So glad I took it!
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James is a very passionate and communicative lecturer. I really love the way he presents the materials because it makes all the materials are easily digested and understood. Two thumbs up!!
It is an average introduction to certain financial aspects. Where i really feel it was let down was in 1) the discussions with the external expert. You need to find a new expert more engaging with the subject matter. Was very dry and I was willing her on not to fail. Not a sentiment I should be feeling in a paid course. 2) The capstone project was too much too quickly. You should run through a similar project first using similar details and documentation. The instructor should run through this dry run step by step just as the student will do in the final exam. In other words, the jump from introducing NPV etc to a final project with lots of different documents was too much.
Course content was very good but the certificate was a joke - not worth the money. The certificate is signed "Signature" and lists the professor as John Doe, and there appears to be no way to contact anyone at Coursera with complaints.
Love the instructor, his delivery is on point but a little bit more clarity is needed on finance terminologies
Very good overview of finance. For everyone looking, this is not specific to personal finance, but rather a general view and introduction to the most general topics. And a great one at that!
I am a mechanical engineer looking to change careers and go into financial management. This course gave me the confidence that my choice to go into finance was well placed. The course content is well designed for a newbie like me. This course gave me the motivation and confidence i needed to learn more finance related concepts.
Prof James is a very good teacher not only because he is very thorough with his own understanding of finance fundamentals but also he genuinely likes teach. His animated gestures keeps one hooked on to the course. The exercises are very helpful to drive the concepts home
Highly recommend to take up the course for anyone who wants to understand the world of finance
Great Course, Very solid start for those who are trying to enter Finance world.
It makes you love this field if you are not familiar with it and have no previous experience.
Great Job Professor.
As a operation head of R&D center, I used to make business case for proposing requirement of equipment using help of Finance. Now I understood all details and I can do it myself. The important point is that I can now go back to those spread sheet and understand how payback was considered. I would like to thank Coursera and Professor James and Rice university for this wonderful opportunity to learn.
I specifically like conversation with real world finance person.
Thank you
I had no background of Finance before I enrolled for this course except that I had good mathematics base. I found this course very beneficial as it explained the fundamentals of Finance in a very understandable language and pace. The course structure is well organized and it is absolutely worth enrolling. This course is coming handy to me for my CFA preparations as it has built a strong understandings of basics.
I am an Electrical Engineer working in the mining industry. I am currently in a managerial position and frequently need to make decisions on whether to implement a certain project or not and what benefit would it bring to my company. I learnt a great deal from this course. I thoroughly enjoyed Prof. Weston's each lecture. There was so much enthusiasm in his voice that kept me hooked to this course and nudged me towards earning my verifiable certificate. Thank you and keep bringing such nice courses.
Need to have some basic background in Accounting (ie. Income statement, Balance Sheet) to understand this course. Still need to refer to other resources or videos to understand the formulas.
This course is so good I couldn't wait to finish it asap! While the instructor (which I became very found of) is clear he noticeably understands the underlying aspects of Finance, presenting it on a very didatic and interesting way. I took this course because I wanted to start doing company's valuation, and I can tell you that I'm much closer to doing so.
Some food for thought:
I'd like to see the guest talk more, I felt that the professor kind of directioned his speech a lot to what was said in class. I believe that she could have brought some real life examples and had gone deeper on them.
I'd also have appreciated a class that had examined a real balance sheet example as well.
Regardless of this, if you don't know anything about finance, or if you know just a little bit, there is a high chance that you'll find what you're looking for in this course. Congratulations to Mr. James Weston and his team for doing this favour to the community.
This is a very well designed course. Taking you through basics and in the end puts you in a real business scenario where you are expected to take a decision based on the tools and concepts you learnt.
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!
Very good course that tackles the most important parts of finance and accounting in a firm. The only problem I had was that a lot of technical terms were somewhat poorly explained, and week 3 was a bit confusing. Still, I would recommend this course to anyone that is interested in finance.
Its a good place to start. I would recommend this to a friend who has no clue whatsoever about finance and is looking at possibly heading in a new direction. Videos are well sized, clear and articulate. Homework assignments are well designed for this level. Although I would have liked it more had the capstone quiz given me the opportunity to work independently with the numbers given in the case rather than giving me a template to work with. Seemed a little spoon fed to me. All in all a good course to pursue for beginners.
Efficient and clear introduction to the subject, though not a lot of material. Interviews are not very useful. A written "handout" list of definitions, acronyms and formulae would be useful as a future reference (for those who didn't take notes).
The course is well prepared and the teacher is very good, the exercises however are not 100% explained and in the tests there could be issues
the course is fruitful because it presents basic concepts and simple variables that are crucial to know.
HOWEVER, the capestone case is very very hard to finish, it requires collaboration through the discussion plateform or else, you will not be able to do it by yourself