FNAN 300 Master Syllabus

FNAN 300: Personal Finance Master Syllabus

Course Instructor:
Office Number:
Office Hours:
Email:
Course Meeting Times:
Required Course Materials: 

• Required textbook: Focus on Personal Finance, 5th Edition, Kapoor, Dlabay, Hughes, McGraw-Hill Irwin, New York, NY, 2016. (Loose-leaf edition). ISBN: 9781259531057  In addition, an online version of the text can be found below, though it is important to note that Connect is not needed for the class. 

Course Website: Canvas

Course Objectives

The emphasis of this class is on understanding the importance of developing financial goals and how financial decisions affect those goals throughout your lifetime. In addition, you will develop your own financial goals along with a financial plan that will enable you to meet those goals. This course is open to all admitted students to the university.

We will cover personal and family financial planning with an emphasis on financial recordkeeping, planning your spending, tax planning, consumer credit, making buying decisions, purchasing insurance, selecting investments, and retirement and estate planning. But throughout all of these topics, we will give special attention to how to acquire information and make better decisions. My goal is to teach you (and make you practice!) techniques that will be helpful even if the specific information doesn’t pertain to your situation (e.g., you encounter an uncommon financial situation, you spend time living in another country, the much ballyhooed “grand bargain” tax reform happens and the prevailing rules change). 

Homework/Quizzes 

All homework assigned will follow from the above textbook.  All homework will just be checked off for effort and will be utilized to make sure students are keeping up with the class.  In addition, there will be eight total quizzes given throughout the class.  The three lowest quiz scores will be dropped – this entails that five out of the eight quizzes will count for the final grade. 

Grades 

Your final grade will be based on: 

Grade distribution is based on a standard 10-point scale: 92-100 = A; 90-92 = A-; 88-90 = B+; 82-88 = B; 80-82 = B-, etc. All grades are calculated straight from the raw points allotted from each assignment. 

Note: There will be extra credit projects available and detailed in class. All extra credit work will be solitary work and capped at 4% of the final grade.

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