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Finance for Non-Finance Professionals

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.

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Rating 4.8★ based on 236 ratings
Length 6 weeks
Starts Jul 10 (41 weeks ago)
Cost $49
From Rice University via Coursera
Instructor James Weston
Download Videos On all desktop and mobile devices
Language English
Subjects Business
Tags Business Business Essentials Finance

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What people are saying

very good

Very good learning experience.The course is ideal for people having an interest in Finance!

Great Course, it gives very good insights and understanding of the finance world.

Outstanding course material A very good course for those who don't have any Finance background but are interested in it.

Very good!

A very good and well structured course.

I related to the way he explained things and his walkthroughs of problems were very thorough Excellent course for a beginner Overall the course was a very good introduction to the world of finance and valuations.

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.

Very good overview of finance.

:) EXCELLENT I'm very grateful for this course Very good !

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easy to understand

Step by step explanations, easy to understand.

The Finance concepts are made easy to understand and the quizzes are challenging enough to keep you going without being put off.

very useful course v Very informative and easy to understand This course as the title suggests is actually required for non finance professionals to get an understanding of concepts in Finance.

nice course Really helpful, easy to understand course 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 teacher did a great job explaining difficult concepts in a way they can be understood by non-finance professionals.

The level of details and the way information is communicated makes it very easy to understand.

Instructor teaches the concepts very well That course is completely suitable for the beginner, very easy to understand, recommend It is a good course for people like me who does not anything or just a small piece of finance concepts and application.

Easy to understand and well presented.

Easy to understand and very helpful for career

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recommend this course

I recommend this course to students and individuals who have a basic knowledge of economics (opportunity cost, etc) and have a basic interest in accounts and finance.

I'd recommend this course to anyone who wants to understand how finance in business works, as the depth it goes to is pretty impressive for how short the course is.

I would recommend this course to every Non-Finance professional or student out there.

I would recommend this course to anyone interested in finance in general or to anyone looking to pursue a career in finance very good course with a well designed schedule Thanks Very good course that tackles the most important parts of finance and accounting in a firm.

Still, I would recommend this course to anyone that is interested in finance.

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non-finance professionals

Great class for non-finance professionals Very good video lessons and the general outline of the course was "just right" in both timeline and content I would like to thank you for this amazing course, it is very helpful for non-finance and financial people at the same time.

This course exceeded my expectations and I strongly recommend for all non-finance professionals.

Learned a whole lot without feeling like my head was being bombarded with factsHighly recommended Aboslutely great course Very good course for non-finance professionals seeking management jobs.

This is a good course for non-finance professionals to begin with.

This is definitely the course to start off in Finance for Non-Finance Professionals.

Finance for Non-Finance Professionals was a great course for me to recall the materials and equations.

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professor weston

Thanks Professor Weston, Rice University and Coursera for a wonderful course!

A big thanks to Professor Weston.

Professor Weston was a terrific instructor...

Professor Weston's way of explaining tricky concepts is very lucid!

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very interesting

It is a very interesting course and I have learnt a lot of new concepts about every day finance which will be useful for my career in the future.

However, so far it seems very interesting and useful!

The course is very interesting to learn.

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my career

I believe it will help me in my career.

I enjoyed it and I believe it will help me in my career.

It was a perfect start I was needing to launch my career into finance field.

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non finance

Totally worth it Some concepts are a little difficult for a non finance person.

Really good for non finance people get knowledge The course in general covers the most essential topic in finance that regular non-finance folks may wonder: how finance helps a company run by providing the tools and methods for the management to make sound decisions.

I being a full time working non finance professional, I am sure I will be benefited a lot through this course.

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Careers

An overview of related careers and their average salaries in the US. Bars indicate income percentile.

Finance Professional 3 $65k

Finance Manager /Sales and Marketing Finance $72k

IS Project Finance/IS Finance Manager $77k

Structured Finance Coordinator, Structured Finance $79k

Finance Analyst - Corporate Finance $97k

Field Finance, Franchise Finance, Express Finance $100k

Business and Finance $103k

Finance 2 3 $104k

Finance Manager, Product finance Manager $121k

Field Finance, Franchise Finance, Express Finance Manager $122k

Finance Analyst, Finance Manager $124k

Finance Consulting $139k

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Rating 4.8★ based on 236 ratings
Length 6 weeks
Starts Jul 10 (41 weeks ago)
Cost $49
From Rice University via Coursera
Instructor James Weston
Download Videos On all desktop and mobile devices
Language English
Subjects Business
Tags Business Business Essentials Finance

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