Time Value of Money Seminars: Immersion Therapy for Finance Majors

Abstract

Finance majors must be able to properly use time-value of
money techniques to be academically successful. Recognizing
that many of its Finance and Real Estate majors were
proceeding beyond their first finance course without an
adequate understanding of this crucial skill, the Department of
Finance at the University of Northern Iowa instituted a series of
voluntary attendance seminars designed to immerse its majors in
the mathematics of interest. After four years, the seminars have
become an established success, providing most of our majors
with the time-value skills necessary to be successful in their
academic studies and future careers. This paper tells how these
seminars originated and evolved, and offers a roadmap for other
finance departments that wish to implement a similar solution
for their majors.