Associate Degree in Finance

The Finance associate degree program will prepare the student to work as an entry-level financial analyst, financial planner, or financial manager, and will also provide a foundation for further education and training.

Upon completion of the program, students will be able to:

• Demonstrate effective written and interpersonal communication skills
• Demonstrate a high level of inquiry, analytical, and problem-solving skills
• Demonstrate effective quantitative skills
• Demonstrate computer and information literacy
• Demonstrate an understanding of the liberal arts, natural sciences, and social sciences
• Demonstrate an understanding of the principles and processes involved in various functional areas and the need for collaboration among the different functions
• Complete the accounting cycle and create and analyze financial statements to ensure that they are accurate and comply with Generally Accepted Accounting Procedures
• Explain the key issues of internal control of cash in balance and cash flow statements and external financial reporting
• Create, organize, and maintain financial records
• Discuss and apply ethical and legal standards to the Business environment
• Demonstrate an understanding of economic and financial markets and the business economy
• Demonstrate how to assess financial data and make best-practices recommendations to management
• Use knowledge of the financial marketplace, financial instruments, and the analysis of financial issues to achieve success in managing personal financial affairs
• Discuss the role capital markets play in world economies, and explain how capital markets are used to achieve financial goals

All degree applicants are required to complete two Basic Skills Assessments, one in reading and one in math, to determine the level of readiness for beginning their selected program. Additional studies may be required.

Succeed by learning how to use your Penn Foster program, and learn how to effectively manage your time, talents, and resources in your personal life, academics, and in your career.

Objectives:

• Understand how to use your Student Portal.
• Access the Penn Foster Community and use it to find answers.
• Connect with Penn Foster on various social media sites.
• Examine your individual life goals and the steps needed to fulfill them.
• Recognize how your personal financial goals mirror that of most businesses.
• Use time management skills to make the most of your day.
• Determine personal financial goals.
• Set up a typical budget.
• Explain why creative thinking, research, planning, gathering resources, and production and marketing are vital for the start-up and maintenance of a business.

Get better at finding and using information!

Objectives:

• Search the Internet more effectively.
• Get tips about search engines and reliable websites.
• Learn how to search libraries and other information centers for important, useful information.

This course is designed to introduce you to basic business concepts, theories, and perspectives. It will serve as a basis for further learning in your program.

Objectives:

• Understand the principles of business ethics and basic economics.
• Compare the different types of business ownership.
• Describe the basics of organizational structure.
• Identify the differences between management and leadership.
• Understand the importance of information technology in today’s business environments.

Additional Course Material:
Textbook: Introduction to Business

In this course, you will gain an understanding of artistic media, historical periods and artistic movements, the roles of the artist and the viewer, and the principles of art criticism.

Objectives:

• Define the language, visual elements, and principles of design of art
• Identify two-dimensional media
• Identify three-dimensional media
• Explain the evolution of art from ancient Mediterranean cultures through eighteenth century Europe
• Identify features and popular examples of art throughout the history of African, Asian, Pacific, and American cultures
• Compare the genres of the Modern and Postmodern eras of art from around the world

Additional Course Material:
Textbook: Living with Art, 11th Edition

This course will hone your math skills so you are able to successfully use them in business and finance industries.

Objectives:

• Use percentages, discounts, and interest formulas effectively.
• Analyze present worth and sinking funds.
• Understand how to buy in installments and price merchandise.
• Explain depreciation, insurance, equations, and formulas.
• Discuss investments and statistics.

Additional Course Material:
Textbook: Practical Business Math Procedures

This course will allow you to develop a basic understanding of the principles of financial accounting. 

Objectives:

• Understand important accounting principles and concepts in order to prepare basic financial statements.
• Understand the fundamentals of bookkeeping while using the general journal, general ledger, and trial balance to prepare financial statements.
• Account for inventory, the use of different inventory costing methods, and their effects on financial statements.
• Distinguish between different liabilities and account for and report current liabilities and long-term debt on the balance sheet.
• Prepare a statement of cash flows using the direct and indirect methods and evaluate the company’s performance as it relates to cash.

Additional Course Material:
Textbook: Financial Accounting

You will be required to complete a proctored exam on selected courses each semester. These assessments will evaluate the knowledge and skills that you learned during the semester. You choose the time, the location, and the qualified exam supervisor.

This course will allow you to build your computer skills through a combination of reading and hands-on practice. You will navigate popular software tools such as Windows® and Microsoft® Office.

Objectives:

• Create, edit, and illustrate Microsoft® Word documents.
• Apply formulas and functions to large data sets in Microsoft® Excel.®
• Incorporate useful charts and graphs to summarize data.
• Add, delete, sort, and lay out table data.
• Create presentations in Microsoft® PowerPoint® using advanced tools, tables, and charts.

This course provides an introduction to managerial accounting; analysis: C-V-P and management; budgeting and performance evaluation; decentralized operations; differential analysis and product pricing; capital investment analysis, and cost activities.

Objectives:

• Understand cost classifications as applied to preparing financial statements, predicting cost behavior, and making decisions
• Understand the flow of cost in job-order costing and use activity-based absorption costing to compute product costs
• Understand the flow of process costing, computing the cost per equivalent unit using the weighted-average method and FIFO method and allocating department costs using the direct and step-down methods
• Explain how changes in activity affect contribution margin and net operating income and examine cost-volume-profit relationships, such as margin of safety and break-even points
• Explain how variable costing differs from absorption costing and prepare income statements using the different approaches as tools for management
• Understand activity-based costing and how it differs from a traditional costing system
• Understand budgets, the process used to create budgets, and the preparation of various kinds of budgets
• Compute and record various variances
• Understand and compute various performance measurements
• Prepare differential analysis as a key to decision making
• Evaluate calculations for capital budgeting decisions
• Prepare a statement of cash flows using the direct and indirect methods and compute free cash flow
• Compute and interpret financial ratios Textbook: Managerial Accounting

Additional Course Material:
Textbook: Managerial Accounting

This course will allow you to polish and enhance your writing skills.

Objectives:

• Effectively use free writing and brainstorming.
• Perfect your ability to edit and revise your writing.
• Apply techniques for getting the reader’s attention.
• Write descriptive essays, first-person narratives, reflective essays, persuasive essays, and effective thesis statements.

Additional Course Materials:

• Textbook: Successful College Writing
• Textbook: The Little Brown Essential Handbook

This course will review the functions of management and its role in planning, leading, organizing, motivating, and controlling. 

Objectives:

• Define and correctly use business terms.
• Explain the importance of communication.
• Identify the steps of managerial decision making.
• Explain the relevance of the basic skills required by managers.
• Describe major components of various management perspectives.
• Discuss the ever-increasing employee diversity and the management activities required for the changing workforce.

Additional Course Material:
Textbook: Management: A Real World Approach

HUM104 - Music Appreciation

In this course, you'll understand how to appreciate music by learning about the roles of the composer and the listener, the principles of music theory and instrumentation, musically significant historical periods, and varying styles of music.

Objectives:

• Identify the building blocks of music a composer can use to create a piece, such as rhythm, melody, harmony, texture, form, and timbre
• Explain the evolution of Western music through history, from the Middle Ages to the twenty-first century
• Differentiate between the music of the baroque era and the musical styles of previous time periods
• Recognize the major characteristics of classical music, including form, melody, and instrumentation
• Discuss the musical trends and innovations that occurred during the romantic era
• Trace the evolution of American popular music in the twentieth century
• Recognize the influence of world music on modern Western composition

Additional Course Material:
Textbook: Experience Music, Fourth Edition

 

ENG115 - Introduction to Literature

This course will allow you to develop your critical thinking skills and broaden your knowledge of literature.

Objectives:

• Identify themes and forms of literature.
• Define the main genres of literature—poetry, fiction, and drama.

Additional Course Material:
Textbook: Perrine’s Literature

This course provides an overview of macroeconomics and the modern market economy. You will learn about economy-wide phenomena such as unemployment, national income, and price levels.

Objectives:

• Identify the basic function of economics in our society
• Examine various economic tradeoffs that people face
• Explain the laws of supply and demand
• Use the concept of elasticity to explain changes in a market
• Discuss the pros and cons of trade restrictions
• Calculate and interpret the unemployment rate and the labor-force participation rate
• Describe the notion of deadweight loss and its relevance to taxes
• Draw and interpret short-run and long-run Phillips curves
• Explain why economists focus on GDP, inflation, and unemployment when assessing economic health
• Describe how comparative advantage and specialization affect international trade
• Describe how differences between world prices and domestic prices prompt exports and imports
• Describe how changes in income affect consumption and saving

Additional Course Material:
Textbook: Macroeconomics

You will be required to complete a proctored exam on selected courses each semester. These assessments will evaluate the knowledge and skills that you learned during the semester. You choose the time, the location, and the qualified exam supervisor.

This course will provide students with the knowledge to apply accounting theory, concepts, and procedures to financial problems. Topics covered include: computing earnings per share; lease transactions; income tax accounting; cash flow information; pension and benefit information; financial statement analysis.

Objectives:

• Understand and interpret the history, structure and process of financial accounting and accounting standards
• Analyze the balance sheet, the income statement and know when and how to disclose important information
• Perform the full accounting process from creating journal entries for transactions through the closing process
• Apply your knowledge of revenue recognition and the time value of money to be able to accurately report revenue and the value of investments on financial statements
• Examine different ways to properly account for cash, receivables and inventory
• Value and account for changes to long-term assets including property, plant and equipment as well as intangible assets

Additional Course Material:
Textbook: Intermediate Accounting

This course provides a basic introduction to the study of finance, including financial institutions, investments, and corporate finance.

Objectives:

• Categorize financial management functions and organizational structure
• Analyze a firm's financial statements, cash flow values, risks, and returns
• Recommend budgeting policies, planning, structures, and costs for a firm's capital

Additional Course Material:
Textbook: Finance: Applications & Theory

 

This course provides an introduction to the various methods of organizing material for a professional setting. Students will compose business documents using the ABC method. These include memos, emails, outlines, reports and proposals, descriptions, and organizing materials. Students also work on honing their grammar skills.

Objectives:

• Describe the basics of the writing process and the ABC method of organizing material for a document
• Identify the parts of speech in a sentence
• Demonstrate correct pronoun use
• Choose proper and effective words for writing documents
• Identify the elements of a well-written sentence
• Demonstrate how to use length, directness, emphasis, and variety to craft impactful sentences
• Explain how to construct a coherent paragraph
• Describe how to write an effective cover letter and resume
• Format and write an interoffice memorandum, a routine business letter, and an effective email
• Identify the different ways to write for blogs, the Internet, and social media
• Describe how to create an organized formal outline
• Identify the types of research and methods of documentation used in business and technical writing
• Explain how to create visual interest and clarity in reports with illustrations, tables, graphs, charts, and overall design
• Explain the purpose and importance of various types of informal reports
• Describe the nature of formal reports and identify their components
• Differentiate among external, internal, informal, and formal proposals
• Describe an object or a process and prepare a set of instructions
• Describe the preparation and submission of professional and technical articles and manuals

This course introduces basic algebraic concepts that you’ll need to be successful in your career.

Objectives:

• Understand the systems of equations, polynomials, and radicals.
• Factor polynomial expressions.
• Simplify rational expressions.

Additional Course Material:
Textbook: Intermediate Algebra

This course will introduce students to the fundamental concepts and importance of personal financial management, including analysis and management of personal assets and financial instruments.

Objectives:

• Apply money management skills to personal financial goals and plans
• Formulate a plan for saving, protecting, and managing financial assets and debt
• Develop strategies for consumer and housing purchases
• Evaluate various types of investing
• Determine the type of investments that best suit your financial goals
• Construct a will, a trust, and an estate plan

Additional Course Material:
Textbook: Focus on Personal Finance

SCI120 - Introduction to Biology

This course will allow you to explore the origin of life and the relationships among all living things.

Objectives:

• Explain how organisms are structured and how they work.
• Discuss the various forms of life and their processes.

Textbook: Essentials of Biology

 

SCI140 - Nutrition 

This course will allow you to develop a healthier lifestyle by making smarter nutritional decisions.

Objectives:

• Explain the various components of nutrition as a science.
• Describe nutrition from a global viewpoint.
• Understand the importance of water and exercise.
• Identify the basics of human growth and aging.
• Discuss food safety procedures.

Textbook: Nutrition for Life

 

SCI110 - Earth Science

This course will allow you to learn about planet Earth and the various aspects of the environment.

Objectives:

• Describe specific characteristics of Earth.
• Describe different types of rocks and minerals.

Textbook: Earth Science

You will be required to complete a proctored exam on selected courses each semester. These assessments will evaluate the knowledge and skills that you learned during the semester. You choose the time, the location, and the qualified exam supervisor.

This course will provide you the opportunity to explore statistics and how they affect business.

Objectives:

• Interpret and present data.
• Analyze frequency distribution, averages, dispersion, and index numbers.
• Conduct time series analysis.
• Forecast business.
• Apply the theory of probability and statistical inference.

Additional Course Material:
Textbook: Statistics for Business and Economics

This course explains the steps in making investment decisions, the nature of securities and markets, how technical analysis is performed, and how to set up a portfolio.

Objectives:

• Outline the basic concepts of risk and return, how to invest, and the types of investments and investment managers
• Summarize how stock markets function and behave, how investors choose investments, and how stocks are given value
• Calculate various interest rates, bond values, and yields using a number of analysis formulas
• Identify how to form a diversified portfolio and how to evaluate the portfolio's performance
• Differentiate futures and options and the investment strategies built on each
• Explain how investors use option valuation, financial statements, credit ratings, and economic indicators to make investment decisions

Additional Course Material:
Textbook: Fundamentals of Investments: Valuation and Management

This course is an introduction to the legal environment of business. Topics covered include American court practice and procedure, alternative dispute resolutions, employment law, business organization and regulation, contract law, and agency relationships.

Objectives:

• Explain the sources of law.
• Discuss the judicial process and alternative dispute resolution.
• Describe different forms of business organization and their characteristics.
• Explain the elements of contracts and rules pertaining to contracts.
• Explain the law of agency and laws concerning employment.

Additional Course Material:
Textbook: Business Law

FIN310 - Corporate Finance

Objectives:

• Evaluate financial statements and long-term financial planning
• Analyze the value of an investment based on cash outflows and/or inflows
• Evaluate new projects and determine which new projects to accept
• Perform and interpret a scenario analysis and incorporate risk into the analysis
• Determine a firm’s cost of debt and equity capital

ACC211 - Computer Applications in Accounting

Objectives:

• Explain how to install, register, and update the Sage 50® accounting software
• Print reports and back up data files using Sage 50®
• Record, post, and complete the accounting cycle for a service and merchandising enterprise using an automated accounting system
• Analyze the business flow of transactions in automated accounting systems, including customer lists, vendor files, inventory records, and employee files
• Demonstrate knowledge of the voucher system, accounts payable, accounts receivable, payroll systems, and departmentalized accounting
• Analyze and solve management accounting problems relating to operations and business profitability and financial reporting

This course provides students with a foundation in the basic concepts of public speaking. Students will learn how to research, organize and write effective speeches, incorporate presentation aids, and rehearse and deliver speeches effectively. Students will prepare, rehearse, record and submit speeches in a number of rhetorical styles to be graded.

Objectives:

• Demonstrate knowledge of the importance and benefits of public speaking
• Demonstrate knowledge of communication apprehension, identify the causes of communication apprehension, and apply strategies to overcome communication apprehension
• Identify the audience for a speech
• Identify the purpose of a speech, select a topic and write a thesis, plan supporting materials and organize a speech effectively
• Use research and presentation aids appropriately and effectively
• Prepare speeches in different rhetorical styles, including narrative, informative and persuasive
• Identify and develop effective delivery and presentation techniques through practice and rehearsal

Additional Course Material:

Textbook: The Essential Elements of Public Speaking

SSC130 - Essentials of Psychology

This course will introduce you to the relationship between biology and behavior. You will learn about human development throughout the life span.

Objectives:

• Identify major psychological theories.
• Discuss consciousness, memory, thought, and language.
• Define intelligence, personality, and stress.
• Analyze the role of gender in psychology.
• Explain how community influences behavior.

Textbook: Psychology and Your Life

 

SSC105 - World Civilizations

This course will allow you to understand the importance of studying history as it relates to the individual and society as a whole.

Objectives:

• Discuss the major events of the sixteenth through twentieth centuries.
• Explain the consequences of events and the trends that they cause.

Textbook: Understanding World Societies: A Brief History: Volume 2

 

SSC125 - Introduction to Sociology

This course is designed to introduce you to social structure and social interaction through groups, networks, and organizations. Study politics, the economy, population, social movements, technology, and social change.

Objectives:

• Describe deviance, crime, and social control.
• Discuss the effects of stratification, racial and ethnic inequality, sex, gender, and sexuality.
• Examine the role of health, family, education, and religion in human behavior.

Additional Course Materials:

• Textbook: Seeing Ourselves
• Textbook: The Basics

You will be required to complete a proctored exam on selected courses each semester. These assessments will evaluate the knowledge and skills that you learned during the semester. You choose the time, the location, and the qualified exam supervisor.