Pre-Skills

Students join the Smith School with a variety of technical skills and educational and professional backgrounds. The resources below have been compiled to assist incoming students with preparing for their master's coursework.

UMD students have unlimited access to LinkedIn Learning, an online library of instructional videos covering the latest software, creative, and business skills.    

Recommended Summer Pre-Skills Assignment for BUFN 610: Financial Management 

BUFN 610: Financial Management offers an introduction to corporate financial management and is one of the first core courses all Master of Finance students complete. The objective of the course is to learn how to model the monetary implications of a firm’s strategic initiatives by outlining the financial concepts and techniques used to evaluate those corporate decisions. Topics include the time value of money, valuation of common securities, construction of discounted cash flow models, capital structure, and the weighted average cost of capital.

“Finance Online Course: Introductory Section” offered by Harvard Business School Publishing (product number 6000-HTM-ENG) is recommended to all students to prepare for BUFN 610. This online course introduces some of the material that will be covered in BUFN 610, including time value of money, financial ratios, financial forecasting. This online course is estimated to take 8 to 10 hours, depending upon prior familiarity with the material. For students who have never been exposed to finance coursework, the online course could take as long as 20 to 30 hours.

To prepare for the pace and quantity of information in the Master of Finance program, students are strongly encouraged to make financial press part of their daily routine. This could include reading the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, or watching networks such as CNBC or Bloomberg. Students who are familiar with the financial issues reported upon in the press will have an enhanced understanding of the course materials. BUFN 610 be taught by Liu Yang, PhD, who will devote a significant amount of time each week discussing what is taking place in financial markets and the broader economy. Students are expected to come prepared to participate in classroom discussions.

Finance is a topic that most people master through repetition. There is a limited amount of time together in the classroom during the semester and the course covers a significant amount of material. For incoming students new to the topic of corporate finance, it will be especially important to be exposed to some of the material prior to the start of the course. 

Questions about the BUFN 610 pre-skills assignment as it relates to course content can be directed to Professor Liu Yang (lyang1@umd.edu).

Harvard Business School Publishing Online Course Registration Information 

Course Number and Name: Finance Online Course: Introductory Section

Cost: $35, to be paid individually by the student directly to HBSP

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Technical Difficulty? Contact the Harvard Business School Publishing Technical Support at custserv@hbsp.harvard.edu or 800-810-8858 or see https://hbsp.harvard.edu/contact-us/.

 

Required Summer Pre-Skills Assignment for BUFN 640: Financial Data Analytics

BUFN 640: Financial Data Analytics is another initial core course that all Master of Finance students complete. The course introduces the skills and computing languages for analyzing financial data and testing financial models. The BUFN 640 professor will launch the course material through Canvas, which may include several assignments that will be due by the first day of class focused on probability and statistics, Python, and other key topics that will be part of the coursework.  

 

Additional Recommended Summer Assignments and Reading 

In the Master of Finance program, students should be prepared to use Python and Excel in their first semester.

 

Optional Assignments and Reading