ACCT 581 - Financial Statement Analysis

You will learn useful skills to analyse F/S and find a more reasonable value of firms, but a bit challenging if you don't have accounting backgrounds.

This class was definitely out of my comfort zone since I do not come from a quant background. However, it did give me the right amount of information to review the basic accounting/finance principles we learned in 1st year. The professor is great at explaining, and does not cold call. The work load includes group assignments that are manageable. Highly recommend for those who want a refresher course, and want to reinforce the balance sheet, income statement, and cash flows.

Leonetti is one of the best professors I've had at Marshall. He really knows how to engage the class and make the course relevant and interesting, and we get hands on experience analyzing a company of our choice throughout the semester.

The class is really fast-paced and the book is not great at all. It's too much content for someone who is not going into accounting. I wouldn't suggest this class as a "stretch" course.

This course was not useful for my current goals, but I wanted to get better at reading financial statements and this course is good for that. I've heard that the other professor, Leonetti, is really good. Sloan is decent--definitely an accomplished professor, sometimes funny, but also sometimes extremely slow. ~10% of each class is spent figuring out the projector or the slides or some other technical difficulties. That being said, if you're invested in the course material you will get a lot out of it. 5 cases, all done in groups, varying in workload. Overall a decent class--not awful, not amazing either.

Professor Sloan provides a step-by-step approach for analyzing financial statements. I wish I had taken the course prior to my internship, but I'm excited that I'll have it for my full-time position.

Everyone should take this class, even if you did poorly in accounting! It's a great way to review that material and actually learn how to use it.

Great professor! He brings in relevant current events in the context of finance and combines that with a practical financial statement analysis curriculum

Having no accounting background and being completely lost in accounting back in core, this class helped bridge my understanding. Sloan is a matter-of-fact and clear-thinking professor who can help you concepts that seem pretty foreign to you. Very often in this class, I had moments where I felt, "Oh, it's that simple?" Recommended for people who have little background in accounting and want to feel like they know what they're doing.

This class helps you understand the "why" of financial statements so that you are more knowledgeable about business strategy and the ways in which companies can tweak financial statements to impact their earnings and valuation. While some of it goes over my head, the professor is really great and you will definitely learn a lot.

The curriculum is beautifully crafted, and the workload is also balanced. On the other hand, the most of the concepts don't need explanation, can be studied remotely.

Jim is a former CFO of several companies. His class is run in a business like manner. There is no wasted time or effort. He is incredibly easy to learn difficult content from. You will be blown away with how quickly he provides feedback on homework assignments, exams, and presentations. Jim is one of the rare professors that can talk about a subject and provide personal experience and examples to make the content that much easier to grasp.

This course was very useful for someone interested in finance or accounting. You spend a lot of time reviewing 10k's and learning the in's-and-out's of how to read them. More importantly, you learn how to read between the lines to see what is really happening in an company's operations, investing, and financing. Workload and grading was average difficulty.

The professor makes the accounting very easy to understand

Take it if the professor is Richard Sloan. He's a new professor coming from Haas who really knows the subject well. The value is there even for those who won't go for finance (if you're going to manage your own portfolio). It's applicable for identifying undervalued stock through financial analysis.

Great class, learn step by step how to analyze financial statements and build forecasts. The professor is engaging and the content is relevant. A must do for anyone in finance.