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Courses in finance are divided into two broad categories. One category focuses on microfinance issues: corporation finance and investments. The second category focuses on macro-finance issues: financial markets and the international financial system. All finance courses apply economic analysis, accounting, and quantitative methods to the financial questions encountered.

The Financial and Accounting Program has a broader spectrum on how all businesses should be in collaboration and is home to a unique world-renowned faculty. Some of our faculty serve as government advisers, consultants to leading firms and major government agencies, journal editors, trustees and directors of corporate and nonprofit firms.

Registration and Tuition:
This comprehensive certificate consists of 6 required courses and 2 electives.The complete certificate program is $3,700. To register for the complete certificate, you must register in person. Payment plans can be arranged. Please contact our bursar office at (212) 650-3850. To register for courses please click on the Course Browser/Registration.

Note for those who register and pay in full online: Please call/come in to our office at 212.650.3850 to register and choose your class schedule per semester. If you wish to do a Payment Plan, please come to our office E1022 ( Mon.-Fri. 9am-5pm).

Required Courses

Accounting
This course is designed to develop the students' abilities to understand business transactions and financial statements and determine the most appropriate financial measures for those events. There is an investigation of underlying rationale for accounting practices and an assessment of their effectiveness in providing useful information for decision-making. Emphasis is placed on accounting practices, which purport to portray corporate financial position, operating results, cash flows, manager performance and financial strength.

Auditing (Finance)
An intensive study is made of fundamental concepts and principles underlying the examination of the financial statement by the independent public accountant. Auditing and reporting standards and the responsibilities assumed by the auditor in the attest function are analyzed within the broad framework of the code and principles of professional conduct.
Emphasis is placed on the evaluation of evidential matter and the system of internal control. Current literature is examined, including the publications of the AICPA Auditing Standards Board.

Taxation
The purpose of this course is to develop, on a sound conceptual base, a basic understanding of federal income taxation to provide tools for a practical application to business and non-business situations. Includes such topics as capital asset and property transactions, business and personal deductions, depreciation, depletion, accounting methods and periods, retirement plans, tax credits and the alternative minimum tax system. While the emphasis is on business income of individuals, the course also provides an introduction to the taxation of corporations and partnerships. During the fall semester, the students are required to enter the annual tax tournament scheduled for late November. Students in the spring semester are required to complete a group take-home project similar to the tax tournament case study.

Corporate Finance
This course analyzes the major financial decisions facing corporate managers. The major topics include investment valuation (capital budgeting), capital structure and dividend policy, and mergers and acquisitions. There will be emphasis on both developing the tools and mindset of the financial practitioner as well as examining specific applications in the form of examples and several case discussions.

Financial Planning
This course analyzes how firms communicate through financial statements. Students will use financial statement analysis as an integral part of the strategic analysis of firms, while understanding how accounting regulations and managerial discretion influence presented financial statements. Course modules include strategic analysis, risk and profitability analysis using ratios, accounting analysis and prospective analysis. At the end of the course, students will be able to interpret and analyze financial statements, analyze cash flows, make judgments about earnings quality, uncover hidden assets and liabilities, and use financial statement analysis prospectively to forecast and value firms using cash flow based and accounting based valuation methods.
This course is the first part of a two course sequence that is ideal for students who wish to pursue careers in investment banking, investment management, consulting, as well as public accounting. In addition to being a required course for accounting majors, it is a highly recommended course for majors in finance, economics, marketing and information systems.

Portfolio Management
This course provides a broad overview of investment banking and of the forces that are continuing to change it worldwide. It focuses on three big questions: (1) How are things done in this business? (2) Why are they done that way? (3) How are they likely to be done in the future? It turns out that in order to address these questions, it is necessary to distinguish "investment banking" from "investment banks", since "investment banking" can be carried out by a number of different financial service firms, and "investment banks" have, in recent years, extended their reach far beyond "investment banking". Our approach will be to examine each of the principal businesses in which investment banks and related financial service firms have been involved, including: raising capital; advising on mergers and acquisitions; serving as a broker/dealer; trading and investing the firm's own capital; and managing the assets of others, both institutions and individuals. Throughout, there are a number of overarching themes. Among these are: the interplay of regulation, globalization, and technology; the emergence of private equity funds and hedge funds as both critical clients and potential competitors for the major investment banks; the search for new, high-margin products, and whether that process has reached its limits; and the changing relationships among the different groups within a bank, of which "the bankers" are only one. By the end of the semester, each student should be well prepared either for an entry-level position in any financial service firm or for a comparable position at a client firm, where he or she needs to interact with financial service firms. All students should find that they are able to read the financial press through new eyes by the end of the semester.

Summer 2013 Electives

Financial Analysis
The underlying principle of this course is that the world is full of randomness, and the only way to understand that randomness is to examine it systematically. Discussions will include statistical methodologies, applications of statistics in business-related and non-business-related fields, basic probability (the language of randomness), practical issues in how to think about randomness, practical issues in how to think about data, graphical and methodological ways to highlight what is going on in data, ways to summarize relationships in data using statistical models, and demonstrate the ability to highlight structure in data by doing so. Students will see many analyses of real data and spend time doing their own statistical analyses of real data using the computer and learning to interpret the results of those analyses. Students will spend relatively little time memorizing formulas

Financial Risk Management
This course employs the Socratic Method of teaching and requires students to be comfortable with speaking publicly, getting called on without warning by the professor to answer questions or participate in the discussion, and debating issues with their colleagues. There will be no “lectures.” The course encourages students to develop their ability to think quickly on their feet and to articulate the strategic and financial issues facing top executives of entertainment, media, and a select group of technology companies. As a consequence, most of the course will be taught from the perspective of the Chief Executive Officer, but the view on Wall Street and that of the analysts will be explored as well.

Complete List of Electives (not all electives are offered every semester)

Corporate Governance
 Economics
 Business Practices
Financial Analysis
Financial Risk Management
Human Resources Management
International Business and Finance
Investment Banking
Management Practices
Personal Finance
Small Business Management