Class Central is learner-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.

University of Michigan

Introduction to Finance

University of Michigan via Coursera

This course may be unavailable.

Overview

Prepare for a new career with $100 off Coursera Plus
Gear up for jobs in high-demand fields: data analytics, digital marketing, and more.
IMPORTANT UPDATE:  This course is being discontinued after the current session June 1 - mid September is over. The content has been translated into the first two courses of a new specialization we are launching titled "Introduction to Finance: Valuation and Investing" offered by Professors Gautam Kaul and Qin Lei. The specialization has been motivated by two specific kinds of feedback consistently provided by learners over the past three years who have enrolled in this MOOC: to make the content more modular, while also providing advanced frameworks and applications. There are two introductory courses based on this MOOC, and we have added two more advanced and applied courses. All learners interested in the Introduction to Finance MOOC should enroll in the specialization instead;  the first course launches on September 15, 2015.  For more information please visit the Specialization site. If you are enrolled in the next session of this MOOC, Coursera will batch-enroll all leaners in the first course of the specialization. Anyone can choose to unenroll at any time of course.
About the original MOOC:This course is primarily devoted to the fundamental principles of valuation. We will learn and apply the concepts of time value of money and risk to understand the major determinants of value creation. We will use both theory and real world examples to demonstrate how to value any asset.

Subtitles for all video lectures available in: Chinese (provided by Yeeyan), English, Portuguese (Lemann Foundation), and Ukrainian (Pinchuk Foundation)

Syllabus

See the detailed Syllabus. Please note that based on feedback we have received following our first offering of the course, we have decided to extend the duration to fifteen weeks for this, and all subsequent offerings.

Taught by

Gautam Kaul

Reviews

3.9 rating, based on 44 Class Central reviews

Start your review of Introduction to Finance

  • Anonymous
    Lack of meaningful feedback from quizzes (e.g."think about it"),endless peripheral chatter, and poor delivery of material consumes time and frustrates the learning process, if not actively working against it. I suggest giving this one a miss.
  • Anonymous
    This was a frustrating class. The first few weeks were awesome, but then things started to deteriorate. There were four main problems: 1) Principles were explained in a very simple way, but never presented in their complicated real-life settings dur…
  • Wan Kong Yew
    One of the distinguishing characteristics of this class is that Professor’s Kaul’s lectures consist of a high proportion of what I would call conversational fluff. That is, the professor spends a lot of time talking about himself, his love of financ…
  • Yury Bakalov
    I decided to wright the review because of a negative experience some had with it. First of all, I have to say that this is definitely one of the best courses I ever took or even more the best one. It is not perfect, but still my favorite. If you ev…
  • Met Bay
    Warning: I don't recommend this course to anyone. Do not lose your money, do not lose your time. Why? - No practice questions before exams. - They don't give the correct answers of the exams. So you don't have the possibility to understand your mist…
  • Anonymous
    There are a few things I can tell you about this course that may be of value. The professor obviously knows his subject well as he is able to conceptualize large subjects into their very essence. I do have to challenge one thing he relayed in a vi…
  • Anonymous
    This is the course I have taken so far with the longest videos (around 20 minutes each, lots of them), least useful information in each video, and assigments nowhere near the content of the videos. Find another course for introduction to finance.
  • Anonymous
    In contrast with most courses I have taken in Coursera, this Introduction to Finance course is not self-contained and requires that you learn the subject on your own using external resources not included with this course. The provided videos are not…
  • I'm not sure why the reviews seem to be so polar in that some people love the class, and others hated it. This course is by far the worst of any that I have bothered to stick to the very end. The class structure could best be described as one part f…
  • Martin Gehrke
    The way the course is structured allows me to accomplish the necessary work within my schedule. There is usually about 1-2 hours of video lectures divided into roughly 20 minutes chunks, followed by a assignment that takes another 2 hours. This all…
  • Anonymous
    A challenging class presented by a likeable lecturer. Access to Microsoft Excel or a financial calculator is a must. I give it five stars for the tremendous amount of material that I learned, but it's not quite perfect. Some of the assignment questi…
  • I find professor Gautam genuine and very interesting person. I enjoyed his lectures, but what I didn't like, and what made me drop this course after 3rd week, is that tests are just to hard comparing to what is thought in lectures. I have scored ~90…
  • Abhineet Kumar
    The quality of the course is really good, and perhaps it is the most important factor which brings me here. I am doing the same course at Amity University, and found that quite a few things were lacking. One was the lack of doing practical, real-wor…
  • Matt
    The Intro to Finance course offered by Gautam Kaul is a solid choice if you have an interest in finance. The quality of the course itself was superb and I thought the problem sets were well-done. The problems were a mix of basic to advanced with many problems presenting some subtle nuances that were easily missed and turned out to be very important. This course will require some work but

    This is a great beginning course in finance with a great professor that will offer some challenge without being overwhelming. I would recommend it as a great first technical course to take if you have any interest in finance.
  • Anonymous
    I guess you'll find a lot of courses talking about the technical details of finance but what makes this course so special is the fact that Prof. Gautam Kaul will relentlessly try to make you imbibe the essence of finance in each of his lectures (which is actually the reason why videos tend to be long). I believe books can efficiently deliver the technicalities of any subject but an online lecture has to deliver what books can not which is precisely what this course intends to do.
  • Anonymous
    Remarkably challenging course. Entails discipline and curiosity to learn the difficult principles on your own. Best online class ever. Professor Gautam was interviewed by 'The Business Week" and stated this course is equivalent to taking an MBA in the TOP universities.

    Highly recommended!
  • Profile image for Richard Van Egas
    Richard Van Egas
    I am giving 4 and not 5 stars.... Because the name is misleading this is not AN INTRODUCTORY course.... an associate or bachelor degree in actuarial science, maths, computational finance, engineering or finance is needed or extensive experience selling bank services or trading assets or derivatives in a market

    the math and computational skills might be very steep for rookies or thoroughly illiterate gentiles looking for enlightment in this field

    all and all , you will enjoy the quizzes and final exam if you are a veteran of FINANCE

    the formulas and math foundations might scare you away if you hate or if you have always hated math and statistics all your life
  • Anonymous
    Excellent class, very informative and fun to watch. Professor Kaul is outstanding instructor. Thanks a lot for your passion and wisdom that made learning not very fun subject such as finance a truly enjoyable. Highly recommended.
  • Anonymous
    Prof. Kaul is a real personage.

    I liked a lot his course and the way he teach it.

    This was very intersting and profound.

    Thanks.
  • Anonymous
    It was a great learning experience. Of course, we were expected to do our own research outside of the given material. I'm not sure why that would be a problem.

Never Stop Learning.

Get personalized course recommendations, track subjects and courses with reminders, and more.

Someone learning on their laptop while sitting on the floor.