ACCT 581 - Financial Statement Analysis

Sloan somehow makes financial statements interesting, which is impressive, but he tends to breeze through complicated topics quickly, assuming you have retained 100% of the content from the Accounting core course, which you have not and will come to realize very quickly.

Professor K.R. is clearly knowledgeable and the class material is useful. The first half served as a review of Mark Soliman's class and we are now heading into a more analytical framework which is a welcome change. I don't have anything extremely negative to say about the professor, but just do not find him to be the most inspiring lecturer. I do enjoy his sense of humor. The syllabus is a little unclear and disorganized as we progress. I find it difficult to track which readings/homeworks I should be doing to follow along.

Professor K.R. really helps you dive deep into a 10K and sift out the bullshit. Sometimes, even GAAP compliant financial statements tell a deceptive story. Professor K.R. does a great job of teaching the quantitative skills to understanding the nuances of the B/S, I/S, and C/F. Attendance is taken.

Fantastic professor. Highly recommended class. Very real world applicable content that you would struggle to find outside of Marshall. But a bit challenging though.

This professor is one of the best professors at USC. He is extremely knowledegable & such a gem. It helps to have a little bit of a finance/accounting background otherwise the material goes pretty quick. If you do the readings/assigments - it's very manageable.

The professor is extremely acomplished in the industry. The class is very hands on and gives you the opportunity to put learnings into practice.

A bit fast for my liking but still would recommend the course. You can easily ask questions if you are not able to follow as it gets a bit hard to follow as the professsor changes the focus of discussion very quickly. Need to pay attention in class to be able to get value out of this class

Interesting class. There is some overlap with the Financial Valuations class, and the same concepts are taught in a slightly different way so it can be a little confusing to reconcile.

Famous professor but it was hard to follow his style of delivery. I know I'm not the only one zoning out in this class. Great content though. He keeps us updated with the latest current financial and accounting news and practices, asking probing questions and keeps us abreast of things to watch unfold in the real world. Very practical so if you can concentrate and not zone out you will learn a lot that you will actually use out of the classroom.

Take this course if you expect to be combing through a lot of financial statements (as the course name suggests). The course isn't about creating financial statements, but making assumptions/decisions based on looking at different statements. KR is a nice guy. A little unstructured sometimes. We're simultaneously behind and ahead.

This course did not materialize into the class that I had set my expectations on prior to this semester. It is extremely accounting heavy - if you struggled/had to put in a lot of effort in Corporate Finance and courses like Financial Analysis & Valuation, this one is even harder. Plus, there are Masters of Accounting students in this class as well as people targeting Banking; simply put, you need to have intermediate to advanced level of Accounting and Finance knowledge to stay afloat in KR's class. The professor can also be very condescending at times and assumes that you already know a lot of the things he is teaching. Recommend going for Sloan's class in the Fall semester; don't waste your bid points on this one.

The lectures can be dense and a bit dry, yet Professor Aaron makes the class as interesting as he can. This class is a great introduction to accounting at a high level and also provides an excellent introduction to how to analyze and forecast financial statements.

^^ agree with this above - great content and you'll learn, but it isn't exciting by any means [useful field] To anyone who came to B-school in the hopes of learning something about accounting, this is the class for you.

The lectures are very dry but the professor does a good job teaching the material and the homeworks force you to actually learn how to read a financial statement. By no means an exhilirating class but would recommend for anyone wanting a strong base layer in understanding financial statements. [useful field] Yes, felt like I learned what I should have learned from the accounting core class. Regular homeworks teach you how to go through financial statements, perform analyses, and create forecasts.

Professor is very good with explaining the concepts in the class. He runs at a good pace and is always open to meet outside class if required. He also has a lot of contacts and is of great help when searching for jobs/internships. The assignments are simple and not time consuming. They can also be done in groups.

This professor is extremely knowledgable about the area. He is great on missed classes as long as you inform him beforehand, it will not count against you. The HW is extremely easy and the grading is very fair.

This was my "challenging" class for the semester - and I'm so glad I took it. I can finally see Accounting and Finance coming together by revisiting some concepts from Core classes. Prof. Sloan's pace is great if you are not an expert! Workload is a little too much but I don't see any other way to make us learn so much in just one semester.