Personal Finance
Contents
Course Overview
In this course, we show you how to use real world data to provide a basis for making personal finance decisions. You will be watching videos, reading articles on finance and economics, and working with spreadsheets to develop your personal financial goals and skills.
Personal finance, like a lot of things in life, is a participatory sport. You can only learn how to handle your personal finances well if you actually carry out personal finance tasks (calculate the rate of return on an investment, evaluate a job offer, develop a business plan). During the course, you will complete a number of assignments that ask you to carry out common personal finance tasks--see What to Expect below.
You will also learn by interacting with the Personal Finance team and with other students on the Discussion Forum for the course, the course Facebook page and the course's Twitter account. We will pose questions for discussion throughout the course.
While the assignments listed below are central to the course, we also use questions asking for definitions and multiple choice questions both to check that you have understood important concepts and to assess your work in the course.
What to Expect
New content will be released each week. You can follow the course at your own pace, though it is recommended that you try to stay on target as much as possible, so that you can engage in discussions and get the maximum benefit from the key assignments in this course, which are peer-graded.
This course asks you to learn by doing. Throughout the course, you will complete a number of assignments that ask you to carry out common personal finance tasks.
These assignments often require that you use a spreadsheet, collect information, and determine a course of action based on the results. The assignments will be graded by other students in the course using a rubric (a set of grading criteria) that we provide. You will learn both by the comments/grade you receive on your assignment and by grading the completed assignments of others.
Assignment #1: Costs of Education
In this assignment you will calculate the costs of a human capital investment (usually education) that you have made, are completing, or are thinking about. Getting the cost of any investment is the first step in determining whether or not this investment is "worth it" from a financial standpoint.
Assignment #2: Returns to Education
In this assignment, you will estimate the returns to a human capital investment that you calculated the costs for in Assignment #1. Estimating returns is the second step in determining whether or not an investment is worth it.
Assignment #3: Return on Investment and Net Present Value
In this assignment, you will get the answer to the question is the human capital investment worth it from a financial perspective. To do this, you will estimate the Net Present Value (NPV) & Internal Rate of Return (IRR) of the education/training program that you estimated the costs and returns for. NPV and IRR are concepts that will help you in many investment contexts such as deciding whether to invest in a business or a rental property.
Assignment #4: Paying for College
In this assignment, you will develop a plan for funding college education for one of our avatar families.
Course Outline and Timeline
Here a very brief preview of what to expect from each week of the course. Content for each week will be released on Tuesdays at 14:00 UTC (10:00 EDT). This course runs for 7 weeks, beginning March 1st, 2016.
| Week | Class | Assignments |
|---|---|---|
| 1 Mar. 1 - 7 |
Module 1: Course Introduction Evaluating Financial Websites Module 2: Investing in Yourself |
|
| 2 Mar. 8 - 14 |
Module 3, Part 1: Costs. What do education and training really cost? |
Self-Assessed Assignment #1: Definitions Assignment #1: Costs of Education Assignment #1: Costs of Education |
| 3 Mar. 15 - 21 |
Module 3, Part 2: Returns. What benefits do I gain from education or training? |
Self-Assessed Assignment #2: Definitions Assignment #2: Returns to Education Assignment #1: Costs of Education Assignment #2: Returns to Education |
| 4 Mar. 22 - 28 |
Module 3, Part 3: Putting it all together. |
Assignment #3: Return on Investment and Net Present Value Assignment #1: Costs of Education Assignment #2: Returns to Education Assignment #3: Return on Investment and Net Present Value |
| 5 Mar. 29 - Apr. 4 |
Module 4: College Savings Options |
Assignment #4: Paying for College Assignment #2: Returns to Education Assignment #3: Return on Investment and Net Present Value Assignment #4: Paying for College |
| 6 Apr. 5 - 11 |
Module 5, Part 1: Employment and Benefits |
Assignment #3: Return on Investment and Net Present Value Assignment #4: Paying for College |
| 7 Apr. 12 - 18 |
Module 5, Part 2: Self-Employment |
Self-Assessed Assignment #3: Business Plan Assignment #4: Paying for College Last day to complete Quizzes and Self-Assessed Assignments is April 18. |
Grading
Here is a breakdown of the grading scheme:
| Assignments (4) |
60% |
| Self-Assessed Assignments (3) | 20% |
|
Quizzes, graded upon submission |
20% |
Grading:
100-90 points: A
89-80 points: B
79-70 points: C
60-69 points Passing
Social Media and Related Sites
A Facebook page has been set up for our course. Although most of the discussion will take place on the Discussion Forum, the Facebook page does provide additional opportunities to share items of interest with your classmates. We hope to see you here!
@WellesleyPFinan is our Twitter account for the course. You can use the hashtag #PFinanX for MOOC-related tweets.
You can see posts from the Facebook page and Twitter account (including your #PFinanX tweets) on the Community tab above.
Questions?
If you encounter any technical problem with the course (a link or video is not working, some feature is not appearing as it should, etc.), please post in the Discussion forum (tab at the top of the window in the course website), and put the word STAFF in the subject line to help us identify and address your issue promptly.
If you encounter a substantive issue with the material (i.e. you cannot locate where the answer is to a particular question, or you disagree with the answer given on a quiz or exercise), please post to the discussion forum with the words TA QUESTION in the subject line and a Teaching Assistant will address your concern. If the TA cannot address it, he or she will direct it to me.
If you want to be notified via email about responses to your posts (or other posts of interest), you can "follow" posts by clicking on the grey star at the top right of a post. (Posts you're already following will have a blue star.) You can get updates about all the threads you follow by going to the Discussion Board Home and clicking on the check box for “receive update”:
You only need to do this once. After that, you will receive a daily email digest about activity from posts you are following.
We look forward to hearing from you!
Personal Finance Course Disclaimer
This course contains general information about financial matters for educational purposes only. You should always consult with a competent financial services/legal professional licensed in your state or country with respect to your particular situation before making any decision.
The information in the lecture videos of this course is not advice, and should not be treated as such. The information in this course is provided without any representations or warranties, express or implied. Wellesley College and Ann Witte make no representations or warranties in relation to the legal, financial, or any information in this course.