A study and application of planning and organizing personal finances. Topics covered include education and experience, earning and spending, savings and debt, taxes and insurance, and social responsiveness. The class will also discuss how students manage and address the challenges of becoming good stewards of their gifts, talents, time, and resources.
Prerequisite Courses
Prerequisites
(LIBR 150 may be taken concurrently).
Course Outcomes
After successfully completing the course, the learner will be able to:
- Demonstrate an understanding of core financial concepts such as interest, present value, risk, diversification, and insurance.
- Demonstrate an understanding of the major types of financial instruments, including stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and investments in real estate.
- Demonstrate the skills to develop short-run and long-run personal finance goals.
- Demonstrate an understanding of how to improve their skills in using spreadsheets and other tools in common use for analyzing financial information.
- Demonstrate the ability to identify different types of taxes and calculate tax implications of different types of income and investment strategies.
- Demonstrate an understanding of social and economic influences on personal financial goals and decisions.
- Demonstrate knowledge of financial planning techniques.
- Demonstrate an ability to develop and identify analytical skills by lecture and class discussion to facilitate effective financial decision-making, including informed decisions regarding budgets, investment, insurance, retirement, and estate planning.
- Demonstrate the ability to have a working knowledge of the materials covered in the course, thereby providing the student with the ability to make – and, if necessary, access, sources – for making appropriate financial decisions, both personal and business.