FINC 352-01 Fall 2023 Course Objectives/Concerns Objectives: 1. Get better idea of what it means to be a finance major/minor 2. Understanding how cash flows through a business 3. How finance ties to other business aspects 4. Understanding concepts and theories, not just memorizing facts (e.g. WACC) 5. Valuation and capital structure 6. Finance and the real world, and how firms make financial decisions 7. Understand financial terminology and calculations 8. Understand the interaction of valuation and risk 9. Be able to differentiate business risk and financial risk 10. Get a good grade 11. Learn about current events in the finance world 12. Be able to employ critical thinking and problem solving in financial matters 13. Learn enough to be a desirable hire in a Financial organization 14. Learn from discussions, in addition to book learning 15. Understand capital raising activities; mergers & acquisitions 16. Understand more about Capital Budgeting 17. Create better study habits for this Finance course 18. Complete all course work in a timely manner 19. Improve financial calculation skills and tie them to the real world 20. Better understand money, dividends and the market 21. Learn how to interpret financial statements Concerns: 1. In class interaction – will there be any/much? 2. Taking HW knowledge to exams 3. Course difficulty; getting left behind 4. Too much lecture; not enough example 5. Forgetting stuff from first course in sequence 6. Will it prepare me to work at a large financial firm? 7. Exam grading will be severe 8. How to remember all the formulas, or at least know when to use them 9. Applying problem solving skills to new concepts 10. Test taking is a challenge with this type of material 11. Writing skills are not strong 12. HW difficulty 13. Will there be study guides for exams? 14. The intensive writing requirements of this course – sounds intimidating 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. Is this intensive writing stuff even relevant to this class? Don’t have adequate finance background to comprehend the material Expressing the mathematical concepts into prose Try to understand the “why” not just the “how” of the math Being bored with the material Will the pace and clarity of our sessions be conducive to a positive learning experience? Learning how to use calculator (or Excel) for TVM problems Presenting in front of the class Lack of real-life examples to learn from. Will the exam question formats be similar to HW? Math is a strength, but this course looks to be more conceptual than FINC 220 Construction noise will be an issue Are exams in person or online?
