Are You Ready for a Career in Finance?
Classrooms are full of finance students who can recite the statement “A dollar in the present is worth more than a dollar in the future.” But there’s a big difference between comprehension of the Time Value of Money and application of the Mathematics of Finance.
You want to know the biggest problem I see in the classroom? It’s cheating, but not in the way you might expect. Aspiring finance professionals are cheating themselves by thinking that comprehending the above statement is knowledge of the Time Value of Money. It’s not even in the ballpark!
There’s a reason our Introductory Unit on the Time Value of Money includes 28 lessons—the equivalent of two lessons for each word in the above statement! You can check out the playlist at TVM Rules.
I blame the teacher in me for putting the below QR code on the back of my business card. If you’re an aspiring or current finance professional, you should have no problem correctly answering these three real-world Time Value of Money questions:
Photo by Brent Pritchard.
Who would you rather hire: someone who can recite 14 words or apply the Mathematics of Finance?
Brent Pritchard is an author and college finance lecturer with over two decades of industry experience and cofounder of Boxholm Press, LLC, a family-owned-and-operated publishing company providing educational content, products, and services. He pioneers an innovative and approachable new way of learning and teaching the Time Value of Money as well as thought leadership in other business topics. His most recent book is Would Your Boomerang Return? You can contact him on his website here.