Best Free MOOCs In Business For February

The Global Financial Crisis

School: Yale University

Platform: Coursera

Registration Link:  CLICK HERE

Start Date: February 1, 2016 (11 Weeks Long)

Workload: 4-6 Hours Per Week 

Grades: Not specified.

Instructors: Andrew Metrick and Timothy Geithner

Credentials: Metrick is a deputy dean and professor of finance and management at the Yale School of Management. His research focuses on financial stability, particularly the causes and effects of the 2008 financial meltdown. Holding a Ph.D. in Economics, Metrick spent 18 years teaching at the Wharton School of Business and another five years at the Harvard Business School, earning the highest teaching awards at each school. From 2009-2010, he also served as the chief economist for the Council of Economic Affairs.

Geithner served as the Secretary of Treasure from 2009-2013 during the height of the financial crisis. In this role, he helped allocate TARP bank bailout funds and developed strategies to soften the impact of toxic assets. During the crisis, he was President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Geithner also held the position of Under Secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs during the second term of the Clinton administration. He is currently the President and Managing Director of Warburg Pincus.

Description: Remember the fall of 2008? As debt amassed and risk skyrocketed, the housing bubble finally burst, taking Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers with it. As America reeled, the public was introduced to terms like “toxic assets” and “too big to fail.” But what were the causes of the global financial crisis? Why did so many people miss the signs? How did the crisis irrevocably change the markets? And could it all happen again? Those are the key questions answered in this course, featuring Tim Geithner – the man in the middle of the storm. During this course, students will be exposed to the key drivers to the crisis, along with examining just how interconnected the financial system is, the impact and limitations of government regulation and policy, and the lessons learned from debacle.

Review: “I really liked this course. It is a detailed acount of how the global financial crisis came about, starting with the housing crisis (including sub-prime) and the global savings glut. It continues with how the anxiety started and spread through the global financial system, turning in to a full-blown panic. Next is the measures taken to combat the crisis, and the course ends with describing the double dip recession in the euro zone…I spent around one hour a week on the course. I listened to the lectures on my phone while commuting to and from work. After every 5 to 10 minute segment there was a quiz with two multiple choice questions to see if you understood the material. If you failed the quiz you could just re-take it until you passed. After each module (around 10 video lectures), there was a multiple choice quiz with 8 questions (mostly), and you had to get at least 6 right…There were also a lot of graphs and charts (very good), but some of them where also very hard to see on the phone screen. Professor Metrick usually talked us through everything in the diagrams anyway, so it was not a big problem there. Timothy Geithner commented less on them, so it was a little harder to follow in his parts. All videos were professionally produced by Yale University…Overall, an easy and quick course with very interesting material. I learned a lot, and their conclusions felt well motivated, drawing on research reports, and presented in lots of graphs and diagrams. Time well spent for me!” For additional reviews, click

here.