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

4.7
stars
8,037 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

MM

Feb 3, 2016

I took Brian Bushee's course and found him to be one of the BEST INSTRUCTORS I'VE EVER HAD IN MY ENTIRE LIFE. If you've had trouble with accounting courses in the past, HE IS THE INSTRUCTOR FOR YOU!!!

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.

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51 - 75 of 1,884 Reviews for Introduction to Financial Accounting

By Manoliakis P

•

Nov 8, 2015

This course is presented in a surprising comprehensive way that will let you understand the basic functions of accounting. It will help you build the concrete foundations that will enable you to make sense of more complicated concepts as you progress in your career. Professor Brian Bushee is in my opinion a gifted tutor since he possesses the ability to transfer his knowledge in a simple interesting and comprehensive way that will let you understand the logic behind the accounting principles and the way of thinking without requiring from you any related background. He helped me expand my horizons and actually find a job in the accounting sector but most of all he made me understand and form my way of thinking around accounting in a robust and confident way. I give my thanks and gratitude to the maestro of Debits and Credits and I hope he will help you in the same way and even more.

By Antonio C

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Apr 19, 2020

I'm convinced Professor Bouchee is the A in Accounting. His ability to clearly communicate and engage me in this class was of pleasant surprise. I used to consider Accounting to be a daunting (and quite honestly, tedious) subject. Turns out it is a very valuable and essential tool in tracking and analyzing the overall operation and financial health of a business. I could not have come to this realization and intuitive feel for the subject if it wasn't for the professors' impressive teaching ability.

I would like to note his usage of '"virtual students" to bring in important questions and different perspectives to the concepts at hand. Many times, their interjections and the arguments generated from them were a big help when trying to understand these such concepts.

Overall, the course is top notch, will definitely recommend it.

By Anupriya R

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May 3, 2021

The course was easy enough for beginners with 0 financial accounting knowledge. Professor Bushee explained all the content very well in a manner that was easy to understand. The homeworks had a mix of easy and difficult questions that helped me practice the content that was learned. The only issue, which is a really minor issue, is that the homework does not tell you why you are wrong sometimes. This makes sense because you can retake the homework, so obviously they don't want to give you the answer just like that. But it was a little difficult at times because I would get something wrong but not know why. However, this only happened a few times and also there are forums where you can ask questions so you could turn to that for help. Overall, a really great and useful course. Thank you!

By Maprang S

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Jul 18, 2020

I have no prior experience in Accounting, yet I did not expect to learn so much from this course given that it's merely an introductory course but how wrong I was! Accounting is essentially a very dry subject but so important in doing and understanding business operations. Prof. Bushee did a really great job at making Accounting as fun as it can be with the help of the virtual students which I find not annoying at all. I learned so much from just this one course than I learned from another Maths Specialization (ahem not gonna say which one). I like Prof. Bushee so much that I will take his other courses on Coursera. For those of you who need to know Accounting for some reasons (personally, I wanna invest in stock market), just enroll in this course it's really worth it!

By José M A O

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Mar 24, 2020

Having near to zero knowledge about accounting this was a great introductory course for me. In other "introductory" accounting courses, I find often times lecturers forget the lack of literacy of students, and basically throw everything at you, which makes things a lot harder.

That is where this course stands out. The professor really takes his time to break down and explain concepts while providing many examples. The virtual students are a great idea! I did find them useful to reinforce imporant aspects while bringing a bit of humor to the class.

Now be prepared to invest some time into this, I found workload of week 3 especially big!

In summary, great course for beginners. I look forward to take other courses from this professor.

By Ketevan T

•

May 15, 2020

I’ve just completed this course and have to say I have learned a lot! The professor Brian Bushee is very good, meaning that he explains everything in details and an easy understandable language. Which is very important when you learn something like financial accounting and financial statements and most challenging in a language which is not your first language. Course is very interesting and informative. P.S. before starting course I’ve read most asked questions and one of them was about virtual students, but I have to say I did enjoy going through this course with them :) learning accounting something could get boring, but they definitely brought some fun and most importantly asked questions I wanted to ask!

By James W

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Oct 2, 2016

Wow, is this a great course! Professor Bushee has such a talent for making what could be very complicated, straightforward and simple. He has a great knack for explaining Financial Accounting step by step and building upon each lesson in subsequent lessons. He goes slow enough to make it easy to grasp the material but fast enough to keep the students. His nutty sense of humor is really great and I loved the comments he had the virtual students make. Very entertaining and sometimes they were the questions I would have asked live myself.

By Hervé B

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Dec 18, 2018

Very interesting and the course is presented in a nice way. Though in my opinion, it's tough for a complete beginner in the accounting field. It needs to be reviewed over and over

By Jacob M

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Sep 6, 2018

Videos are too long and content delivery could improved with less use of cartoons.

By Rayyan E

•

Nov 22, 2020

Professor Bushee is an amazing teacher. the course covers extremely important topics in accounting. however, after the first two weeks( which were absolutely amazing), it felt like everything suddenly moved from 0-100 real quick. the explanations to concepts became more and more superficial and difficult to digest. i had to watch the 3rd week's contents at least 3 times over to understand, and by the 4th week, I had almost no excitement to see what we would be covering during the week. I simply pushed through to get my certificate.

The pacing also got very weird. the professor would reference a topic that we were to cover in a future video or week and then we would end up not covering it, or he'd only spend a few seconds talking about it. the last two weeks felt like 4 weeks worth of content that were forcefully condensed into two weeks.

By Lu L

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Nov 14, 2018

It's the most difficult course so far after I took the business foundation course, however, it's very challenge and useful. I am not good at it, but I did learn a lot. It would be better if professor stop saying the cold jokes which is even more boring when taking this not quite attractive course. I started to realize the beauty of it only after I finished chapter 3... So hard!

By Christos K

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Dec 13, 2017

I would like for the course to have more information on what is included in the Liabilities, Shareholder's equities, Assets etc. More explanation on the T-accounts, and the answers to quizzes not to differ from the videos, e.g which accounts increase when dividends are announced.

By Kira P

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Jan 12, 2018

This course is somewhat difficult if you do it in solidarity and are not familiar with accounting concepts.

By Steve D

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Nov 26, 2017

i couldn't stand the virtual students. The lectures were very drawn out so i would lose focus.

By Luis E G

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Aug 12, 2019

I thought the animations made the course a bit less professional.

By Tianchu Y

•

Jul 3, 2017

The pace is a little too fast for a beginner like me.

By francesca

•

Oct 16, 2017

a bit difficoult, but nice pdfs

By David T

•

Jan 5, 2024

Frequency of knowledge evaluations is abysmal. There is one 10 question quiz for every 2 hours of lecture. The professor's sense of humour made the dryness of the material bearable.

By Md. N H

•

May 1, 2020

This is very good course increase accounting knowledge

By Edward T

•

Nov 14, 2020

I'm actually a big fan of learning all subjects out there. Typically, I will take a course and learn to appreciate the content and enjoy the new perspective of seeing the world. I definitely cannot say the same about this course. It has got to be one of the most poorly taught classes that I have ever taken, and I have taken many courses, including undergraduate, graduate, and online courses. This professor clearly did not put much effort in trying to communicate the concepts effectively. In fact, he went out of his way to create an animation of students who are clearly caricatures of students who have annoyed him in the past. Most of the time, the animated students' input is a waste of time and seems to be put there so that Buchee can entertain himself while acting like a complete fool by patronizing animated characters that he himself made. Honestly, this course was a pain to finish and I stepped away from Coursera for weeks on end due to the absolute boredom and nausea of having to sit through this guy's videos. If you're taking this course for the specialization, get ready because you're about to be bored and annoyed to death. My advice, get through the course as fast as you can before you completely lose interest, step away, and have to once again torture yourself in reviewing the material.

By Jinger J

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Jan 16, 2022

The virtual students are annoying and don't serve a real purpose. It's giving me online defensive driving classes that people take to get out of speeding tickets. For a couple of videos, instructor refused to call "conservatism principle" by its proper name because the word "conservatism" hurt one of the virtual students' feelings?

The grading format on the quizzes aren't helpful. There's no partial credit on questions with multiple correct answers, it's all or nothing. And there's no guidance on figuring out what answers were missing outside of "You didn't select all of the correct answers". In Week 4, there's no feedback period.

I don't think this class is helpful for people who don't know the first thing about accounting. I didn't know anything about accounting but had to take this course as a prerequisite. I retained maybe a couple of vocabulary terms, but nothing of real substance because the material isn't presented in a way people with no prior accounting knowledge can completely grasp.

By Phillip B

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Apr 8, 2021

The course content was solid, the professor made great use of humor to keep the material interesting, and he gives you plenty of opportunities to apply your skills. However, the final exam was super tricky and not well-written, and it was an extremely poor assessment of student knowledge acquired during the course. I left feeling that I was not able to demonstrate my mastery of the material. Yes, I passed, but my excitement for the topic turned into discouragement.

By Mauricio R

•

Aug 13, 2017

The teacher is the worst fucking teacher I found on this fucking website so fucking far, please delete his shit!

By Ratish K

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Jun 9, 2020

Too complicated and too many terms, best for intermediate level and not beginners

By sarath c

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Jun 19, 2020

full of bugs in the tests ,and not allowing us to pass the tests