FIN 369 Personal Finance

This is a Web-based course taught by Rebecca Innerarity.

Instructor Contact Information 
SFA Purple Seal Rebecca Innerarity
email: binnerarity@hotmail.com
(936) 633-5470 or 633-5291

Course Description
This course provides the student with guidelines for making rational, every day personal finance and budget decisions. It helps prepare the student to deal with a variety of financial decisions including goal setting, spending (budgeting decisions), home buying, managing risk and insurance evaluation, investment (stocks/bonds/mutual funds), and retirement.

Textbook Requirements
Personal Finance, Jeff Madura

Course Prerequisites
None.

Course Format and Participation Requirements
The format for this course includes scheduled assignments/homework, offline reading assignments and projects, online readings and participation using web pages, email, discussion boards, and chat. The course also requires some scheduled face-to-face meetings as indicated below. All exams are on campus, including the final, unless the student arranges for a testing proctor to be used. Arrangements for a proctor will need to be made at least one week before a scheduled exam and the instructor notified of the proctor's name, mailing address, email address, and telephone number. A proctor is usually a college/university testing center.  To be successful in this course, the typical student should plan to spend at least 9-12 hours per week working on this course.

On-campus or Face-to-Face Meeting Requirements
At this time, all exams including the final will be held on-campus. These exams will be held on a Friday evening or Saturday morning, depending upon the availability of the classroom. Your instructor will provide this information as it becomes available.

Course Assessment
Students in this course will be required to take scheduled exams, complete homework assignments promptly (by the deadline), and participate in scheduled chats and discussions as a means of assessment (i.e. how students earn their grade for the course).

Effort Expected
This is a 3 credit-hour course. To be successful in this course you should expect to spend about 12 hours a week on readings, assignments, discussions, and other activities. This estimate is for the fall and spring semesters; if the course is offered during the summer course, more time per week may be necessary.

Technical Requirements for the Course
Other than the minimum technical requirements for any course, students will need MS Word or Word Pad (if using WordPerfect, all homework assignments must be in text rich or text format, i.e. saved as .rtf or .txt) and a financial calculator (Hewitt-Packard and Texas Instruments both make inexpensive business/financial calculators; students will need to know how to use the calculator for homework and exams requiring the calculator).

Before the Course Begins

  • Activate mySFA username, password, and email
  • Register and pay for the course just as you would any other SFA course.
  • As soon as you are registered, please send an email message to the instructor.
  • F-1 Visa Holders
    There are important federal regulations pertaining to distance education activity for F-1 Visa holders. All students with an F-1 Visa should follow the instructions at the following link to make sure they are in compliance.
    http://www.oit.sfasu.edu/disted/facsup/f1visa.html

    RESOURCE LINKS:
     
    Prepare for an online course: Getting Started
    Order your textbooks online: Textbooks
    Log on to your course: Blackboard Logon
    SFA has a mandatory email policy:

    Activate your SFA email account