Take My SNHU MS Finance Classes

All eight courses on SNHU's MS in Finance page are in scope.

The analytical foundation comes first. ECO 500 Managerial Economics applies demand estimation, elasticity, cost curves, market structure, pricing strategy and game theory to business decisions. QSO 510 Quantitative Analysis for Decision Making covers probability, regression, forecasting, linear programming and decision analysis, usually in Excel.

Corporate finance is the core. FIN 550 Corporate Financial Management asks how a company should value projects, fund itself and return cash, from WACC and real options to capital structure theory and payout policy. INT 620 International Corporate Finance extends that to multinationals: exchange rate determination, parity conditions, transaction, translation and economic exposure, hedging with forwards, futures, options and swaps, and international capital budgeting.

Markets and risk follow. FIN 620 Money and Capital Markets covers interest rate theory, the term structure, central bank policy, bond pricing, duration and convexity, equity markets and financial institutions. FIN 685 Risk Management covers market, credit, liquidity and operational risk, value at risk, stress testing, derivatives for hedging and enterprise risk management.

Modeling and synthesis close the degree. FIN 691 Financial Modeling builds three-statement models, discounted cash flow valuations, leveraged buyout models, scenario and sensitivity analysis and Monte Carlo simulation in Excel. FIN 700 Graduate Finance Capstone draws the program together in a strategic finance project.

The table below links each course to its help pages.

Finance students usually know where they want to land, corporate finance, banking, investments or risk, and the plan starts there, along with the courses left and how many you take each 10-week term.

Each course goes to the professional whose desk it describes. Economics and quantitative methods go to an economist and a quant; corporate and international finance to a treasurer; markets to a bond portfolio manager; risk to a bank risk officer; modeling to an FP&A director; the capstone to a CFO advisor.

One company can run through the program. Picture a mid-cap specialty chemicals maker with plants in Texas and Germany weighing a $400 million acquisition. ECO 500 can estimate demand for its products, QSO 510 can forecast volumes, FIN 550 can value the target and set the financing mix, INT 620 can hedge its euro exposure, FIN 620 can price the new bonds, FIN 685 can stress test the combined balance sheet, FIN 691 can build the three-statement and accretion-dilution model and FIN 700 can recommend whether to proceed.

Inside each course, posts are drafted before the week opens and models and memos come several days ahead of their due dates.

When a course ends, the company's figures and the assumptions already graded pass to the next specialist in a short note.

Each MS Finance course is taken by someone who does that work: a corporate treasurer who manages a multinational's hedging program, a sell-side equity analyst who builds valuation models, an FP&A director, a bank risk manager who runs stress tests, a fixed income portfolio manager, a quantitative analyst and an economist who forecasts for a regional bank.

Many hold the CFA charter, and others hold the FRM, CPA or a PhD in economics or finance.

Their workbooks follow team conventions: assumptions apart from math, outputs on their own tab and no constants hidden in formulas.

A second finance professional audits every model and recalculates every figure before you receive it.

Matching goes deeper than the course code: an energy company case goes to someone who has covered energy names, and a bank case goes to someone who has worked inside bank treasury.

Modeling is the first challenge. FIN 691 and FIN 550 expect clean, working Excel models, and a single circular reference or sign error can break a three-statement model.

Quantitative methods are the second. QSO 510 regression and optimization and FIN 685 value at risk require statistical comfort many finance students have not built.

Theory is the third. FIN 550 capital structure, INT 620 parity conditions and FIN 620 term structure theories ask for precise reasoning, not intuition.

Currency is the fourth. Graduate instructors expect current market data, recent central bank decisions and live exchange rates, not textbook examples.

Most students also work in finance, where month-end close, quarterly earnings, loan reviews and budget season compete with 10-week courses, and many are preparing for CFA exams at the same time.

Excel itself is a hurdle for some. Students strong in theory can lose hours to array formulas, data tables and Solver settings, and instructors grade the workbook as well as the answer.

Course prices follow each syllabus. FIN 691 and FIN 700 are usually the costliest to hand over, FIN 550, INT 620, FIN 685 and QSO 510 sit in the middle and ECO 500 and FIN 620 tend to cost less.

The scope is yours. Treasury staff often keep INT 620; bank analysts often keep FIN 620; many hand over FIN 691 and the capstone.

Finance syllabi sent roughly ten days ahead let each professional read the case data first; mid-course starts begin at the open module.

Timed quizzes, proctored exams, CFA or FRM exams and your employer's confidential data stay with you. QSO 510 also appears on the MS in Project Management page, so work there fits either program.

Students who expect a CFA or FRM sitting during the program can have courses ordered so the heaviest builds avoid those months.