Pre-Skills Requirements for BUSI 640 (BA01, DC02, DC06)

Harvard Business School Publishing's "Finance Online Course: Introductory Section"

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"BUSI 640 is an introductory course in corporate financial manage­ment. The course outlines the financial concepts and techniques used to evaluate corporate decisions. The topics include the time value of money, estimating opportunity costs of capital, valuation of common securities, and discounted cash flow. The objectives are to introduce the language and structure of finance and to develop the ability to analyze financial decisions.

In my experience, finance is one of those topics that most people master through repetition. We have a limited amount of time together during the semester and the course covers a significant amount of material. While we do not expect you to have previously taken a finance course, the more that you have been exposed to finance prior to the course, the more you will get out of it. To better facilitate a basic awareness of finance before the course begins, I am asking you to complete the online pre-skills course from Harvard Business School Publishing entitled “Finance Online Course: Introductory Section”.

This online course introduces you to some of the material that we will cover in BUSI 640 (Time value of money, financial ratios, financial forecasting).  I am not looking for you to have mastered these concepts before entering the course (why a 65% score is sufficient).  Instead, I am looking for you to be familiar with them so that we can use our time together to push you closer towards mastery of the material....

Finally, I would also recommend that you make reading the financial press part of your daily routine.  This could include the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, or watching networks such as CNBC or Bloomberg.  If you are familiar with the financial issues reported upon in the press, it will enhance your understanding of the materials we examine in this course and the curriculum in general.

If you have any other questions, please feel encouraged to contact me via email (Professor Faulkender: mfaulken@rhsmith.umd.edu/Professor Mathews: rmathews@rhsmith.umd.edu). I look forward to working with you this Spring."

10% of grade in BUSI640 will come from whether or not you have obtained a score of at least 65% on Final Exam 1.

DO NOT take Post-Test 2 without specific instructions to do so.

*Note: The website considers 75% to be passing, you are only required to obtain a score of 65%.

First Class Meeting, BUSI640
Baltimore (BA01): Wednesday, March 29, 2017
DC Evening (DC02): Tuesday, March 28, 2017
DC Weekend (DC06): Saturday, March 25, 2017

Estimated to take 8 to 10 hours, depending on experience.

*Important: If you have never been exposed to finance before, the course could take as long as 20 to 30 hours. Many students signficantly underestimate the time and effort needed to complete the pre-skills. You are urged to register and begin working as soon as possible!

Take the Pretest only if you have significant prior experience with the course material. If you score 75% or more on the pretest, you can consider taking the Final Exam without going through the lessons in detail. If you have signficant experience with the material, it may be possible for you to successfully take the Final exam without going through the various lessons in detail. You only have one chance to take the Final Exam!

As a reminder, you will be taking the online course under the University of Maryland’s Code of Academic Integrity (see http://www.president.umd.edu/policies/docs/III-100A.pdf for details). Any violation of this code, such as receiving help from another individual in taking a Test, will result in an automatic “XF” on your transcript with the notation “failure due to academic dishonesty”.

HBSP Product Number: 6000-HTM-ENG

Login Information:

  • Turn off all pop-up blockers
  • Click the appropriate link below for your cohort's course section
  • Click "Register Now" if applicable, or “Login Now” with your existing account
  • Under Coursepack View, click  "Purchase Coursepack"
  • You will be prompted for payment information and click "Next"

Payment: Individually by student directly to HBSP. Students receive the Smith discounted price of $35.00.

Technical Requirements:
HBS courses are internet-based and cannot be accessed off-line. You can use different computers to access the course as long as each computer satisfies the following requirements: 

  • Computer with minimum 1024x768 screen resolution 
  • High speed internet connection (DSL / cable modem quality)
  • Windows 2000, XP, Vista, 7 / Macintosh OS 10.x 
  • Firefox 3.6+ / Safari 4+ / Chrome web browsers with JavaScript and cookies enabled. (Note: Internet Explorer is not recommended for students using Online Courses or Tutorials. Please use one of the other supported browsers instead.)
  • Microsoft Excel 2010 or later is recommended for most online courses and is required for the Spreadsheet Modeling Online Course.

Technical Difficulty? Please contact the Harvard Business School Publishing Technical Support Group: 1-800-810-8858 (outside the U.S. and Canada, 1-617-783-7700) -or email to - techhelp@hbsp.harvard.edu. HBSP tech support business hours are: Monday - Friday, 8am - 6pm ET.