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Learner Reviews & Feedback for Fundamentals of Finance by University of Pennsylvania

3.9
stars
875 ratings

About the Course

In this course, you’ll learn the basic fundamentals of corporate finance. Based on the pre-term qualifying courses for Wharton MBA students, Professor Jessica Wachter has designed this course for learners who need a refresher in financial concepts, or for those who are learning about corporate finance for the first time. You’ll identify foundational concepts in corporate finance, such as NPV, Compound and Simple Interest, and Annuities versus Perpetuities. You’ll also learn how to apply the NPV framework to calculating fixed-income valuation and Equity, using hypothetical examples of corporate projects. By the end of this course, you’ll have honed your skills in calculating risk and returns to optimize investments, and be able to assess the right set of financial information to achieve better returns for your firm....

Top reviews

RB

Mar 17, 2024

The teacher is very knowledgeable but sometimes passes some topics too fast and its hard to grasp the concept and the idea. The quizzes are not according to the classes that are given.

CB

Mar 21, 2022

The notes for this course were excellent, and the lectures were concise and easy to follow. Prof. Wachter is easy to listen to and is relaxed and helpful in her explanations.

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51 - 75 of 236 Reviews for Fundamentals of Finance

By Jacob M

•

Feb 2, 2021

This is a great introduction to the fundamentals of finance course. Professor Wachter is very clear and concise in her lectures and examples. The provided lecture notes are a great supplement to the recorded lectures.

The only negative thing about this course is the quiz, specifically how it is graded. There were numerous problems in multiple quizes that marked the correct answer as being incorrect. Or the answers required too many decimal places of precision to be marked correct. Ex: inputing .12 instead of 0.1200 would be marked wrong. This is stupid and an unnecessary hassle. Perhaps this is an issue with Coursera itself and not the course itself, but either way it should be addressed.

By Jatin R

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Jan 16, 2021

This was a fantastic course, that was taught extremely well by Professor Wachter. I really learned a lot from the short videos and in-depth explanations and wonderfully detailed topic notes at the end of each section. The only improvement I would suggest is showing the correct answers on the quizzes and having ready explanations, instead of making us guess what the answer is, without reason as to how we get those answers.

By Anistya R K

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Aug 23, 2021

well explanation. Kinda hard for beginner, but because I have learnt about it in my mother language I can understand about it. Other things that might help you to finish this course by talking with another participant in discussion forum. I hope this could help you guys for finishing the course. Good luck :)

By Arthur Y

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Jan 5, 2021

I really think it is on par with a real Penn education. The professor was very knowledgeable about the subject yet the one thing I had a major problem with were the quizzes. Very little support structure to help you improve on the quizzes. And it was very hard to pass them because there was no feedback available. Additionally, the decimal points are confusing and how to round them correctly took a lot of time.

By Pranesh R

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Sep 10, 2023

Quizzes can be moderated in a more precise manner as answers seem to be incorrect for certain questions.Not all correct answers are accepted and there is inconsistency in the degree to which answers must be rounded off to throughout the course.That being said,course notes and lectures are easy to understand and the instructor does a great job in laying out the key information in a clear and concise manner.

By Harshad N

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Feb 28, 2023

It is a good course. The only thing why I didnt give a 5 star is that the course quiz had some questions that even if I was entering a correct value the answer would be wrong, the reason of this would be because the coursera changes its questions values and all, but it does'nt update its answer sheet accordingly. That's why I was only able to score 72 percent.

By Tetiana N

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Jun 26, 2021

The course was quite confusing. Some lectures were good, nice pace. general idea explained well. But then quizes are so out of context. frazing is very strange, very demotivating. Students had to discuss not the lectures/info but trying to solve tests together. This is not ok for learning.

By Utkarsha B

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Sep 30, 2021

the course was good but the content lack detailed explanation of some terms and detailed explanation of examples properly. some quiz question were same as the example discussed but the answer was ultimately coming wrong. i wont recommend this course for beginners in finance.

By Brad M

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Jan 7, 2024

Some answers need to be updated and corrected. The course lectures do not cover some of the more complicated questions that would appear on the quiz and I had to find my own ways of solving some of the problems as there is very little response to questions.

By Adeer S

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Jan 1, 2021

Quizzes are very messy i.e. some questions are worded confusingly, some fields expect a percentage answer where the answer is actually supposed to be a numerical one, otherwise the course content is an 8/10.

By Ann K

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Jan 30, 2021

There should have been many more examples and the quizzes after you submit them should should you the correct answer and how it was obtained.

By Ty D

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Oct 31, 2021

I am certain this is a good course, but no way is it a Beginner level. I was overwhelmed in the first 5 minutes.

By Senthil K S

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Jun 13, 2021

Lectures and material were not self sufficient - i had use other videos and books to learn the content

By John L

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Jan 6, 2022

This course was frustrating. There are errors and inconsistencies in the notes and exams, which makes it very frustrating. I lost a lot of time because, e.g. one answer required you to round differently from the other answers. Also, not all of the exam questions are straight-up applications of the examples in the lectures; instead, many are "applied" questions, where you have to stretch your understanding to know how to use the equations. I understand why this is a valuable type of question for achieving true learning, but in a learning scenario where you can't go back to the teacher and ask "why am I getting this wrong," and especially given how confusing the notes are, it is extremely frustrating.

By Alex K

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Jul 26, 2023

Maybe I expected something else but this course was way too difficult for a beginner in the subject. The professor is lackluster and not inspiring. The first quiz was impossible to solve without a lot of previous knowledge of mathematical models and equations. There was literally no introduction to finance as a whole. It goes straight into complex equations and maths.

By Soraya B

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Sep 14, 2022

I feel like the course is not for beginners. We spend a lot of time on the formulas but the course lacks overall contextualization and explanation of the basic concepts.

It is very hard to remember formulas when there's no concrete application and solid examples to attach them to.

By Endrik-Oliver P

•

Jun 3, 2023

Very complicated course, some questions of quizes are confusing, some errors in rounding of answers in quizzes, lack of explanatory material. A lot of times, you have to depend on discussion forums or googling the formulas and hoping you find the right formula...

By Ben E

•

Jan 1, 2024

Occasional rounding errors in Quiz answers, a reasonable amount of important info is brushed over rather than actually covered by the lecturer, instead, minutes are wasted covering multiple different ways of answering the same question.

By Katri A

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Aug 24, 2023

I suggest to find in a different way to explain, calculations and everything related with them. Its difficult to understand how you showed us

By Yunjong G

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Jul 31, 2021

Nice supplementary materials but the lecturer basically repeats them without much contextual explanation to provide more insights or reasons.

By Jeremiah C

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Jun 18, 2021

very solid information but its not really a audit if they make you sign up to take the quizes. Loved this app but then they made this...

By Samantha A

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Oct 1, 2021

Good information, somewhat hard to understand when based solely on lectures and notes. Wasn't a very enjoyable course.

By Nicholas N

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Sep 1, 2021

Lectures were definitely not enough to cover quizzes

By ELENI B

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Dec 2, 2021

its not for beginners.

By Marcel L

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Jan 15, 2024

I found that the professor implied that the student's had prior knowledge and would imply many things throughout the course. Add that to the fact that there is no exercises to execute (you go directly from the online lectures and text material to the test) and it creates a difficult formula to learn. I had to refer to external online sources to compliment my learning to be able to complete the course. All in all, I did learn and got a good grade in the end, but I just thought that the teaching methodology wasn't the best for the online format. A sort of summary version of lectures, no exercises, and then straight to the test.