Best Free MOOCs In Business In January

Financial Accounting Made Fun: Eliminating Your Fears

School: Babson College

Platform: edX

Registration Link: REGISTER HERE

Start Date: Self-Paced (4 Weeks Long)

Workload: 4-6 Hours Per Week

Instructor: Peter Wilson

Credentials: At Babson, Wilson teaches courses in advanced accounting, financial reporting, and measuring financial performance. In addition, he serves as the executive director of Babson’s blended learning MBA program, which has locations in San Francisco and Wellesley. Before joining Babson in 2010, he spent nearly two decades at Duke University, where he also served as the executive director of executive programs at the Fuqua School of Business.

Graded: Students who successfully complete the course can purchase a signed verified certificate for $49.

Description:  Ask any business student which class they dread and accounting is certain to top the list. Let’s face it: The content is pretty dry. Even more, it is like learning a new language, with a mind-numbing array of terms and applications — all accompanied by a whole set of complicated, if not contradictory, rules. Alas, accounting and finance are the dialects spoken in the board room. If you don’t learn it, you won’t get far in your career.

That’s why Wilson takes a practical approach to teaching accounting, making the content alive and relevant through stories and applications, all brought together in the context of launching a business. According to Wilson, students will cover the following:

“This course introduces you to the form, content and definitions included in the primary financial statements: income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow statement. You will learn how to use this information to make key operating decisions, such as how to balance growth with cash constraints. You will learn how to use ratios to diagnose a company’s financial health and apply these concepts and tools to evaluate a company of your own choosing.”

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Additional Note:  This is the first in a six course specialization from Babson College called “Business Principles and Entrepreneurial Thought,” which includes courses on data analytics, marketing fundamentals, and financial analysis. To learn more about these courses and register for them, click here.