Finance 3060: Fundamentals of Financial Planning
Course Description: Development of bases for decision making related to family income, saving, and spending.
Course Objectives: Effective communication; financial planning process; financial statements; cash flow management; financing strategies; economic concepts; time value of money; consumer protection laws; principles of risk and insurance; analysis and evaluation of risk exposure; health insurance and health care cost management; disability income insurance; life insurance; types of investment risk; income tax law fundamentals; social security; methods of property transfer at death; client planner attitudes, values, biases and behavioral characteristics and the impact on financial planning; and networking with financial planners
Reflection on this course:
Course Objectives: Effective communication; financial planning process; financial statements; cash flow management; financing strategies; economic concepts; time value of money; consumer protection laws; principles of risk and insurance; analysis and evaluation of risk exposure; health insurance and health care cost management; disability income insurance; life insurance; types of investment risk; income tax law fundamentals; social security; methods of property transfer at death; client planner attitudes, values, biases and behavioral characteristics and the impact on financial planning; and networking with financial planners
Reflection on this course:
- As a member of LSU's CFP certification program, this course is the first of eight required courses designed to prepare students to sit for the CFP Examination after graduation. Through my enrollment, the majority of doubts I had regarding whether or not I should pursue financial planning as my career were eradicated. I feel I have a much better grasp of the basic decisions families and their financial planners must make in order to successfully plan for financial success in the present and the future.
- I appreciated the size of the classroom because it encouraged close interactions between my peers and professor.
- At the conclusion of the semester, a final semester paper was assigned to partners in an assortment of topics from family planning to liability issues and retirement planning. My partner and I addressed topics of family planning which included: the cost of rearing children, saving for education, the value of a college degree, obtaining financial aid, certified financial planners, evaluating a job offer, buying a home, and the cost of moving. Our work may be previewed HERE.