BUS 130 Personal Finance Syllabus

Course Description:  This course is an integrative approach to personal finance focusing on practical financial decision making as well as the social, psychological, and physiological contexts in which those decisions are made. Students will examine their relationships with money, set personal goals, and develop a plan to meet those goals. Topics
include consumerism, debt, healthcare, investing, retirement, long-term care, disability, death, and taxes.

Textbook Information:  Personal Finance, 6th edition "PFIN6" Randall Billingsley, Lawrence J. Gitman, Michael D. Joehnk 

ISBN-13: 9781337493154

Additional Course Information:  This course includes various aspects of personal financial planning including family budgeting, investments, housing, insurance, taxation, estate planning, credit and its uses, planning for retirement, and installment buying. 

Course Learning Objectives: 

1. Students will prepare a personal budget.
2. Students will be able to describe both a short term and long term personal financial goal to ensure financial security.

Student Learning Objectives: 

1. Establish and evaluate personal goals and demonstrate the effect of daily financial decisions on the accomplishment of personal goals and their physical environment in various stages of the life cycle.
2. Identify the major private and government sponsored healthcare programs, and explain their purpose and function.
3. Evaluate the appropriateness of various investment products and investment strategies in achieving personal goals at different life stages.
4. Assess the impact of social security, tax advantaged accounts, and lifestyle decisions on individual circumstances at retirement.
5. Describe the emotional, psychological, physiological, and cultural issues related to death and dying and financial decision making.
6. Demonstrate how personal finance relates to larger social issues including consumerism, environmental problems, poverty, increasing personal bankruptcy rates, access and affordability of healthcare, tax policy,
proposed privatization of social security, proposed changes to Medicare, Medicaid and other social insurance programs.

Meet Your Instructor:  

​Professor John Stro​ng, CPA graduated from The University of Texas at Dallas with a Masters of Science in Accounting and Information Management. 

Born and reared in Texas, John comes to Santa Ana College with 7+ years of experience working in various capacities as a Certified Public Accountant. His professional experience includes working as an accounting clerk (Sears Holding Co), an internal auditor (Bear Stearns), an external auditor (KPMG), a finance associate (Bridgewater Associates) and most recently as a lecturer on accounting (The University of Texas – Pan American). His work has taken him to places as far as Athens Greece, NYC, the Texas/Mexico border & Ecuador and his love for travel has taken him to Peru & the Dominican Republic. ​ ​

​John has a teaching philosophy based upon the core idea that the pursuit of knowledge is one of the most exciting endeavors one can seek. Therefore, he believes an education should be fun and looked to with positive anticipation and expectation. From this view he plans his lectures and course work.  

Course Syllabus: BUS_130_Strong_Tommy_2017_Fall_Online.docx