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Learner Reviews & Feedback for Finance for Non-Finance Professionals by Rice University

4.8
stars
2,611 ratings

About the Course

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....

Top reviews

KH

Mar 27, 2020

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.

RM

Aug 16, 2020

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.

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51 - 75 of 580 Reviews for Finance for Non-Finance Professionals

By Bimal M

Apr 4, 2020

Delighted to learn the basics of Finance in a very effective manner which I could not have learnt thru the books. Really the teaching methodology leaves the long lasting positive punch on my mind and examples relates to the basic understanding. Quizzes are really nice and test and revises our understanding of the subject. Thanks and Regards____ Bimal Mehta

By Joel Q

Sep 8, 2021

This course has really helped me with understanding financial concepts. Being a Finance undergrad, I have learned some of these concepts in my degree college but this course had a lot of additional materials which helped me understand finance in a much better way. I would recommend people to join this course for a better understanding in Finance sector.

By Mithu K B

May 7, 2021

Though I am a technical professional, I have taken this course to improve my financial knowledge to make the decisions easily for my personal as well as professional financial management. This course is really a great learning for me and the style of learning was excellent. I will definitely recommend to all professionals to take this course.

By Abraham C B

Apr 30, 2020

Si nunca has estudiado finanzas y quieres empezar a conocer las herramientas financieras para tomar decisiones de proyectos este es el curso ideal. Si nunca has visto nada de finanzas, al inicio vas a batallar porque todo es nuevo pero todo está muy bien explicado y a lo largo de las 5 semanas vas a tener las bases para tomar decisiones.

By Shreya S

Jul 4, 2020

One of the interesting courses I've attended. It incorporates all the basic concepts involved in a finance environment, and helps you get a clear idea about applying them in all sorts of firms. It also consists of an assignment i.e a capstone example where we need to apply all the concepts in a real life scenario, which is interesting.

By miq@novozymes

Apr 22, 2020

1) It's not boring

2) It's very helpful

3) It's very easy to follow

Prof. Weston did a terrific job in making this course very easy to follow and understand, particularly for someone with non-finance background like myself. The videos and materials are also well-made and are much better than those in other courses I've applied before.

By bruce a

Sep 19, 2019

This is definitely the course to start off in Finance for Non-Finance Professionals. I sample other courses and never felt satisfied as with this course. I'm definitely going to sign up for other Corporate Finance Courses, but this course gave me the confidence and solid foundation to build upon my newly corporate finance acumen.

By Ömer F K

Nov 11, 2020

I've finished this course so fast because all classes were prepared qualified. The lecturer is so qualified and competent. All topics was taught easily to understand for a beginner. Moreover, there are "Finance in Field" videos at the end of each week. These interviews are very useful to understand real life examples.Thanks you.

By Jason

Sep 3, 2023

This is a great place for information and the Instructor is very good and has drive.

However as a high level delivery (in my case I only needed parts of the package) the capstone test is way to heavy and for me took a lot of research , others have reported similar, so if you just need pointers or frame work maybe look elsewhere

By Dhaval B

May 5, 2020

I was a beginner in finance. I was intimidated by financial terms. This course does a wonderful job in breaking down the complexities and displaying it in a very simple and understandable manner. The practicality of this course is also amazing. The discussions with an actual practitioner were the best parts of this course.

By Hana A E

Jan 26, 2021

This an excellence course to gain insights on what happens in the background to understand data obtained. I am in the marketing sector but was really keen on knowing how the numbers for projects get done and that is a lot of information. But this course needs all your attention because it can get really tricky sometimes.

By Akshay B

Feb 19, 2017

A very good course for those who don't have any Finance background but are interested in it. This course gives you an insight into the Financial Matters and helps you to make better decisions. Also the Mentor teaches in such a way that you find yourself familiar with this field. Very nice course and the way of teaching.

By Viktor B

Nov 14, 2020

I would like to give very positive feedback on the course. The amount of material is big enough, and explained in a good and understandable way. Also I like that there were regular tests/practice assignments, and those were really done such that you needed to understand material to pass them.

Great course, recommend.

By WJ C

May 11, 2020

I think that it is a very well organized course. The professor has a talent in teaching the materials in a very easy to understand manner. I thought I would audit the course, but, after going through the video lectures, I changed my mind to take the course. I enjoyed learning the materials outside of my field.

By Varun S

Jul 28, 2019

Wanting to pursue a career in finance, I have learnt a lot from this course. The course content was well organised. Further, I now have a better understanding of the basics in Finance. I would recommend this course to anyone interested in finance in general or to anyone looking to pursue a career in finance

By Lingyan W

Dec 20, 2019

Many universities offer this similar content course, yet, this course explained very nicely and keep me interested in all the time. It made the hard to understand part easy. The professor did a great job. It's a pleasure to take his courses. :) This has brought me great impression on Rice university too.

By Madhawa W

Jul 3, 2017

This is an amazing course! nicely structured with each week building on the past week and bringing everything together wonderfully in the end. Great for people who need a basic understanding in finance! Learned a whole lot without feeling like my head was being bombarded with facts

Highly recommended

By Varun B

May 26, 2020

I strongly recommend to do this course to those who are interested in studying Finance with zero Finance knowledge. Everything about this course was helpful. Every lecture, quiz and at the end Capstone case was helpful. i certainly got idea about what Finance professionals do and how they do it.

By Ajay A

Jan 24, 2017

The professor provides an excellent overview of finance. I work in a different industry but the examples provided gave me great insight and gave me an appreciation into finance. I can see myself using the tools provided in my own personal finances, and also evaluating different types of assets.

By Trishla U

Mar 12, 2021

James is really good at clearing the concepts in such a simple and easy manner. Thank you Coursera and Rice University for this course. Enjoy and learned a lot. My first step toward finance. And also my first Coursera course, totally a different level of happiness. Once again thank you....... :)

By Perera N

Mar 1, 2021

I never felt bored by the lectures. Professor James always gave the most imaginable examples of application, which as non-financial-practicing people, were easy to understand. Lectures were well structured. After taking the course for a few days, my sense of finance and money improved admirably.

By Kushal G

Apr 2, 2020

I am extremely thankful to Prof. James. This course was very useful to me as i got to learn many different concepts of finance and its real time applications. I am an engineer and looking forward to pursue my masters in finance.This course will play a key role for my upcoming journey in finance.

By kelvin

Sep 12, 2023

Such a perfect course, you should not miss it in order to apprehend more about finance and investing ideas that you might have heard from business news or gurus. Whatsoever, I literally like attending this course. I hope you do so. Thank you so much for the Coursera and Rice University teams.

By Khunaal A

May 23, 2023

This is an excellent course for people who are from a non finance background. The lectures are short and crisp, at the same time professor James Weston manages to explain the concepts really well. There wasn't a single point where a concept was understood. really enjoyed the course to the max

By Yasaman N

Oct 3, 2020

Since this is a course for people with no finance background, I wish there were more explanation on concepts and how they all get tied to one another. I have to say that the final assignment helped a lot with this, but I wish there was even more of such assignments and variations of it too.