Chevron Left
Back to Introduction to Financial Accounting

Learner Reviews & Feedback for Introduction to Financial Accounting by University of Pennsylvania

4.7
stars
8,080 ratings

About the Course

Master the technical skills needed to analyze financial statements and disclosures for use in financial analysis, and learn how accounting standards and managerial incentives affect the financial reporting process. By the end of this course, you’ll be able to read the three most common financial statements: the income statement, balance sheet, and statement of cash flows. Then you can apply these skills to a real-world business challenge as part of the Wharton Business Foundations Specialization....

Top reviews

EY

Sep 19, 2019

The course is very easy to understand, and most importantly it is fun to learn accounting! I find this course covers basic yet comprehensive contents compared to other basic accounting online courses.

YR

Jun 13, 2022

It is a great course for beginers like me to start to learn about accounting. The concepts are easy to understand, and the examples are very helpful for understanding. I like the virtual students btw.

Filter by:

1651 - 1675 of 1,897 Reviews for Introduction to Financial Accounting

By Hernando E

•

Apr 15, 2020

Professor Bushee's presence on camera and instruction style were very good.

As a complete beginner in the field, the content of weeks 3 and 4 was a bit excessive and presented too rapidly

Would prefer more detailed feedback (specifically recommended areas of study) in response to failed quizzes.

Overall an informative (but difficult) course that confirmed my long-standing belief that I have little aptitude for accounting

By Mariam M

•

Dec 4, 2016

A great course for someone (such as myself) who has next to no knowledge of finance and accounting. I was looking to be able to generally make sense of company financial reports, and that's exactly what I gained from this course. It became a tad more technical than I needed it to be in weeks 3 and 4, but don't let that put you off. It's worth the extra effort (and a couple of failed first attempts at quizzes) to pass.

By MOHAMMAD S K

•

Jul 2, 2020

I was new this financial accounting thing. The initial concepts of accounting are very important to understand whole chapters and Those concepts need to be covered in detail and in a simple manner. The way of teaching was great and having a word problem practice quiz as homework would have helped more with detailed answers. At the end a great professor with great knowledge and great teaching. Glad to be part of it.

By Rohan P

•

Oct 10, 2020

Aside from the annoying cartoons and their fake computerized voices that were extremely distracting, the course was challenging and the quizzes helped reinforce the material. If the cartoons were sparsely used, it would've been okay, but they were a constant source of annoyance. But the syllabus was solid and the course was very practical in nature, which helped me understand the fundamentals of this subject.

By Soyoung P

•

Feb 27, 2016

It was a really great course! The lectures were high-quality, to-the-point. and very enjoyable. I wish there had been a bit more opportunities to practice the calculations, though. The first couple weeks were perfect because the instructor provided plenty of exercises, but the other two weeks did not have as many of those, and I'm worried that I won't be able to retain the knowledge without the practice.

By Paul D

•

Nov 22, 2015

I feel like I am really learning a lot about a topic I've always considered to be pretty difficult. Professor Bushee does a good job of communicating the concepts and the way they fit together. His approach has helped me develop a confident grasp of the fundamentals--which is saying a lot since I've tried to make sense of this material before but have never quite gotten my head around it in the past.

By AMAN R I 2 B

•

Jun 29, 2020

The explanations can be a bit more introductory in nature. As I already had experience in accountancy, I could keep with the course, but it felt like as an introductory course, there should be more explanation orientation towards making it even simpler. The variety of topics and the depth was brilliant and very useful. The ratio analysis using various Financial Reporting Statements seems very useful.

By Julieta V

•

Jun 11, 2020

In terms of content, very good course. I think it can be updated regarding tools and perhaps a different way of delivering the information. I liked the cases, and how each topic was addressed and shown with an specific example. I didn't find very useful the questions in the final exam, though I had to re do it, and that is something that I'm not used to, I didn't enjoy the type of questions.

By Francois R

•

Nov 30, 2015

Very clear, organised, and entertaining course. Professor Bushee (and his tech team) did a great job. Some non-graded practice exercises could be provided to the students as a form of training prior to the different tests. I would suggest the following number of non-graded exercise sets per week: 2 easy (2 x 10 questions) + 2 medium (2 x 10 questions) + 2 hard (2 x 10 questions).

By John M

•

Jan 5, 2021

Not enough homework or explanation of homework problems to prepare you for final exam and make sure you fully understand all concepts. More practice problems with better explanations when you answer a question incorrectly would be a great plus. While the instructor says no accounting textbook is necessary, that seems to be the only way to get more practice with the concepts.

By Justin K

•

Mar 29, 2021

Loved taking this course with Prof. Bushee and learned a ton not having any accounting knowledge. It took longer than suggested each week for me. I would have appreciated better explanations in the final exams as I passed them but still do not understand some of the questions and resulting answers. I wish this could be addressed so I could better understand.

By Mustafa O

•

Mar 18, 2020

Very good content, very organized. But the material is heavy and need a lot of focus as the instructor needs to deliver a lot in very short time. I got back to some videos more than two times because I've missed some information. But in general it was not very hard.

The instructor is humorous and entertaining and I liked the virtual students very much.

By Matthew K

•

Oct 1, 2016

Pretty good course. The instructor is engaging, and parts of the course make sense. I had a lot of trouble with Accounting, and I spoke with a friend and he agreed. Accounting is one of those subjects where things don't necessarily make sense in a way you can just figure out. The only way to get those items is brute force, memorize them.

By Zach F

•

Jun 23, 2021

There needs to be an additional class for explanation of terms earlier on and how they work on a balance sheet. 15 examples in a row using new concepts in each example of a balance sheet is not enough. I'm googling critical terms like Cost of Goods Sold to figure out the missing pieces, and that is the sign the course is not complete.

By Francisca E

•

Mar 13, 2021

For a somewhat mundane course, I think Mr. Bushee did an excellent job in presenting a lot of material in an organized fashion. Given the scope of material, I would recommend taking notes and listening or reading the lecture notes at least twice. Would have liked to have seen more explanation on account terminology. Thank you.

By Nate L

•

Jul 22, 2023

Good course and great instructor. Overall it's a good crash course on the subject, but it'd be better if there were more opportunities to practice the concepts outside of the quizzes. It's a bit too much information to retain without any practical application. The module on ratios is particularly overwhelming in this regard.

By JS

•

Oct 12, 2021

The course lectures are excellent. The professor gives enough motivation and good questions. The practice examples are excellent too but this kind of course needs more practice examples, especially for someone who is a complete beginner with the terminology. The 30 mn time limit on the final exams is stressful.

By Kalyani R

•

Sep 15, 2020

This is a through peek into account if one is not an account student/professional. Now I can indeed "read" a company's annual report and make sense of it.

Prof Bushee has a dry sense of humor (does that fit the stereotype of accountants) but he is a good instructor, trying hard to make things challenging.

By Amber H

•

Apr 24, 2016

Thoughtful and smart introduction to accounting. I thought some of the quiz/test questions were worded poorly so some of the test content did not feel like you were actually being tested on your knowledge of the content, it was testing how literal or non-literal your understanding of the questions to be.

By Jason S

•

Aug 15, 2023

Content was easy to understand, and the real-world examples really helped. I would have liked more of an opportunity to practice some of the concepts outside of the exams so that I could have a better idea of why I got some of the questions wrong, despite passing the exam, before taking the exam.

By Yolanda C

•

May 6, 2017

Lecturer explained concepts really clearly and in way such that it is easy to understand. The examples given are great as I can see how the concepts work and how they are applied. The pace is fast for a beginner but acceptable taking into account that it spans over only a few hours for 4 weeks.

By Rishi R

•

Oct 12, 2018

You could improve a little bit by considering that this course will not be taken by just Economics related students. You might want to develop a short notes kind of stuff for ease of access. Otherwise, great work sir! Especially, when you do the "Put the gain in, take the gain out..." :P

By Nilay P

•

Jun 5, 2020

I think this course was exceptional in the way professor Brian teaches, makes things simplified. It is needless to say this course requires a lot of concentration and is more than an introduction especially concerning those who come from a totally different background (like myself).

By px k

•

Sep 27, 2022

Great Course. Only feedback that I have are to provide correct answers on the final. A couple of questions on Part 2 of the final were just marked incorrect. I really would have liked to see the correct answers. I was not going to retake that portion of the final.

By George B M

•

Jul 10, 2016

Professor kept it lively. Accounting is hard, and the work was challenging but he taught well, kept it engaging, and taught me a LOT. This class truly shows the quality of education that Coursera houses, at a truly great price compared to a class at an institution.