This course aims to provide business and accounting students with a broad understanding of all the important financial principles, concepts, and analytical tools. This is a first course in finance and is compulsory for all business and accounting students. For students intending to major in banking and finance, this course is an important foundation course in order to better prepare themselves for other advanced courses such as Advanced Corporate Finance, Financial Markets and Institutions, International Financial Management, Investments, Equity Securities, Fixed Income Securities, and Derivatives Securities.
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Tutor: Jade Nie
Expected Grade: A
Actual Grade: AA lot of self-study is required. TBH I found the lectures, LAMS classes and tutorial classes are less useful compared to tutorial questions and the textbook. However, Prof Jade is a very friendly prof and gives very constructive feedback for projects. I really enjoyed her calm class atmosphere. My advice is to really do the tutorial questions, past year papers and read the textbook. Be consistent, if not you really have to study ur ass off during the study break… (and the quizzes are impt too! so be consistent!)
January 9, 2022 -
Favourite module of the semester. Advice: pray you get Prof Jade Nie. Her teaching is top-notch and students’ questions are handled really well.
The mid-term assessment is really different from the final exam, which threw me a little off guard. Be prepared for lots of MCQ in the former, then none at all in the latter.
If you’ve had experience with financial modelling (say, personal finances with time value of money/discounting assumptions), you’ll find this module pretty manageable.
Not all modules provide past year papers, so make use of those to the fullest.
Grade: A-
December 27, 2021 -
Tutor: Dr Chanika
Grade: A+I took this mod in AY 20/21 Sem 1. Dr Chanika is a really good prof who explains all the concepts well and even teaches beyond what is inside the notes. And this is important and you should note down what she teaches as they will come out in tests and exams. Dr Chanika also calls out people from time to time to help with our class participation marks. You can tell that she is passionate about what she is teaching as she is very helpful and even arranged many zoom consultations. She is also really nice and jokes quite a lot in class. The only problem is that she may speaks a little fast and her accent may be harder to understand.
Content-wise, most people would say that FM is a killer mod. However, I feel that with the exception of time value of money and bonds, everything is actually quite manageable. As long as you take some time to go through the lectures and do the tutorials, you should have no problem understanding the content. If you do face trouble, you can attend the peer tutoring sessions organised weekly.
For the assessment, there are two seminar presentations. Both of these can be done quickly and you just need to make sure to maintain eye contact and speak confidently to do well for your presentations. There is only one quiz and the median score is about 10 or 11 out of 20. The median score for the finals should also be quite low as most people struggle with this mod, so the bellcurve is quite forgiving.
My final tip to you is to just make sure you do your weekly LAMS and tutorial. Practice the past year quizzes and exam papers to make sure you are familiar with the type of questions that will come out. Getting the FM calculator and textbook is a must but you don’t need the 4th edition of the book, the 3rd edition is good enough. You don’t need to attempt the questions in the textbook but if you want to score an A+, you should read up on some of the content inside the textbook.
July 4, 2021 -
Professor: Chanika
Grade: B-
Generally, I felt like this module, you can do well if like you really practice a lot and try your best to understand the theories by heart. I think what’s really important is to do your self-reading before class. Like honestly, for me, with zero background in FM, it was really difficult to understand and follow-through with the seminar without doing my own self-reading beforehand. Like if you choose to be in Chanika’s class, you have to be prepared to sit through a 2 hour bullet-train seminar, as she speaks kind of fast for me haha. Some people prefer her style of teaching, but I think I personally didn’t because I am a slow learner. But, I think she is quite good and patient if you 1-1 consultation with her, she is really dedicated in her teaching, so I guess this is one good thing about her haha. Content wise, I felt like everything revolves around the 2nd Chapter: Time Value Money (TVM) , hence, ADVISE: is to grasp this concept really well! And I think what I think will help all of you, to ask for the FM bibles from your seniors if you have and memorize like the important concepts for each chapter. Because at the end of the day, all the quizzes and the final exam consists of 50% conceptual questions and 50% problem sums. That kind of thing, so yeah really important to start banking on your concepts and theories, because in a sense it will also help you when you do the problem sums.
HOW TO STUDY?
1) FM TB (MUST BUY, some answers to the questions from exam and quiz not from lecture notes, must read TB!)
2) FB TB ( DO THE QUESTIONS INSIDE OSO CAN!)
3) READ LECTURE SLIDES 3 TIMES
4) REDO-TUTORIALS AND CIRCLE THOSE WHICH YOU GOT WRONG, REDO UNTIL KNOW
5) TEST YOURSELVES ON THE CONCEPTS aka DO THE PAST YEAR PPs
ALL the best!:>June 14, 2021 -
Pretty hard mod as content is not very understandable. However, even understanding the content and being able to answer any questions is very different. Highly HIGHLY recommend to do tutorials. Started with grp B so did not do tutorials that regularly but got a shock before finals. My prof is pretty laid back and funny. Also, he has pretty good insights.
June 2, 2021
