Finance

Believe or not, we have been making financial decisions, one way or another, since at least our teenage years. However, very few of us ever bother to ask, what is finance? Simply put, finance is about allocating limited resources over time. Our parents started saving for our university education while we were a toddler; university students budget their next academic year's expenses based on their summer earnings and other income sources; a family must choose between renting and buying a residence; a firm needs to evaluate investment opportunities and decide on financing methods; a loan manager at the bank needs to decide whether to lend $50,000 to a client; a CEO and the board of directors need to decide whether to acquire another company . . . all these are examples of financial decision making.  In today's world, finance is so ubiquitous that a day can hardly pass by without our making several financial decisions. Finance is an integral part of an individual, a household, a business, a government or an organization and it often concerns the ultimate well-being of such.

• To manage your own financial affairs.
• To pursue a rewarding career in finance.
• To make informed decisions on public choices as a citizen.
• To be abreast with the increasingly complex business world.
• To broaden your mind.

The first two reasons are by far the most common motivations for people to study finance. Financial knowledge will help you to invest wisely and consume responsibly, which ensures your successful pursuit of other goals in life. Examples of peoples' lives ruined due to bad financial decisions are abundant.

Perhaps more relevant for a university student, the career potential in the financial sector should be a crucial factor to consider. In Canada and other industrialized countries, the financial sector is among the largest employers of the labour force. What's more, the rapid developments in information technology have transformed the offering of financial services into a buffet-like or IKEA style of sales. Varieties and choices often make it necessary for ordinary people to seek professional advice. As a result, there is a boom in various specialized careers in financial advisory services. 

Besides the wide scope of employment potential, a finance career is often very portable and very well paid.   

The rapid growth in the financial services sector, coupled with rapid developments in information technology, has increased the complexity and sophistication of finance jobs. University education plus professional training have become a necessity for a rewarding career.

Some of our finance courses include:

• MGTC70 Personal Financial Management
• MGTC71 Introduction to Derivatives Markets
• MGTD71 Advanced Financial Management
• MGTD72 Mergers and Acquisitions - Theory and Practice
• MGTD75 Investments
• MGTD78 Risk Management
• ECMC48 Money and Banking
• ECMC49 Financial Economics
• ECMC61 International Economics: Finance

To fully prepare our students for a successful career, our finance faculty is actively developing additional courses such as Risk Management, International Finance and Banking. 

It is also highly recommended that students take as many Accounting electives as possible since accounting is an integral part of most finance jobs. The courses most relevant for finance include Intermediate Financial Accounting I & II (MGTC07 & MGTC08) and Advanced Financial Accounting (MGTD50).

Selecting Finance Courses:

All students are advised to take MGTC03 and MGTC09 at the first opportunity. Having taken MGTC03, students can take MGTC09, MGTC70 and MGTC71 altogether if they wish, since MGTC70 only takes MGTC03 as prerequisite while MGTC71 takes MGTC09 as corequisite. The other three electives (MGTD71, MGTD72 and MGTD75) could be taken in any sequence as convenience would dictate, as long as MGTC09 has already been taken.

See Finance Resources for information on graduate studies in finance and careers.