COMM 2730

I would highly recommend this course. You need to take this course if you are in your 4th year worried about your financial future. I feel so incredibly grateful and lucky to have learned about budgeting, retirement, credit, investing, and insurance. As others have noted, this is one of the most practical courses you will ever take at UVA. It teaches beginners how to make financial goals that make sense for you.

Instructor: Professor Kelly is one of the few professors who care deeply about their students. We all got to have lunch with her (in small groups) during in the semester. We talked about our dreams, got advice, and she listened. She also encourages questions. She wants feedback and actually makes adjustments based on our thoughts. I do feel like some of the lectures towards the end of the course were a little more challenging to follow/learn from; however, overall her teaching was effective for me.

Class Format: Participation is highly encouraged (she wants everyone to speak at least once). For those curious, here is the grade breakdown: Homework (25%), Book readings questions (25%), Group project (20%), Midterm (15%), and Final (15%). There are multiple opportunities for extra credit. One of the options for extra credit includes a personal financial plan that you can use as an opportunity to take all the skills you learned and apply them to your own financial future. I would highly recommend doing it. It is not a high burden course, and yet it still teaches you SO much about mananging your own finances.

#tCFF24

This class was my favorite this semester and extremely practical. I started the semester not financially literate (to say the least), and by now I feel much more confident in my ability to invest, pay my taxes, and manage my finances wisely in general. Professor Kelly is wonderful and genuinely cares about every student. She makes a point to pay attention to everyone, from inviting students to brunch to asking students for their opinions during class. Her cheerfulness and passion for what she does made me look forward to coming to class even though it was an 8 am class. The long-term group project encouraged us to get to know our classmates and learn more about financial decision-making in the real world. After several weeks of me discussing what I had learned in class with my mom, she commented that she wished she had taken this class in college. If you want to improve your financial literacy or are worried about how to be an adult (like I was!), this class is a must.

Best class I've ever taken. Professor Kelly is AMAZING! She prepares you to enter the world and gets you thinking about everything from your health care plan after graduation to how much you should invest in your retirement account. Yes, this class has a little work, but it is SO worth it. You will leave this class telling all of your friends everything you've lived.

This is one of the most practical classes I've taken at UVA. I can honestly say I learned a lot and will use the content in the future. The class itself was weighted 50% assignments (which were tedious but super easy to get 100s on as long as you did them by the due date), 15% mid-term, 15% group project, 15% final, and 5% participation. The mid-term and final were a bit difficult considering they were closed-note and often did not reflect the things we learned in class. However, there are ample opportunities for extra credit, so the exam scores aren't as heavily weighted towards your overall grade. Professor Kelly was a really nice professor and she made the content more enjoyable. She'd also bring in treats for us occasionally and always played music before the start of each class. Very easy to approach as well. Overall, this was one of my favorite classes and I really recommend taking it! #tCFF23

Professor Kelly is amazing as a person and is very knowledgeable about finance (she is very qualified and has a pretty legit career path for those who care). However, the course material itself was very boilerplate. Nothing covered in the first half of the course really goes beyond common sense, and the lectures were never in line with what the homework problems were asking us to do. The homework is still a breeze though, because it is on LearnSmart; there is an option to check your answers in the problems themselves, so there's no reason you should be submitting without a perfect grade. Participation is very important to her so I would definitely not take the class if you plan to skip; if you miss half of the lectures she may give you an F for the course. People who show up to every class but don't say anything get 8/10.

Grading is super generous: 10% LearnSmart Homework, 10% LearnSmart Readings, 15% Group Project 1, 15% Group Project 2, 20% Midterm 1, 20% Final Exam, 10% Participation. She does offer extra credit, which she is very generous about- if you complete all of it you will get an additional 5 points added to your *final grade.* Group projects were super easy. You don't have to present anything.

Something to note: The exams are not necessarily difficult but they are tedious (midterm was close to 60mc and the final was close to 70 mc). They don't go much further in depth from anything you will cover in the classroom or through the homework problems but it felt like some of the stuff I had to answer I hadn't really seen before, which led to less than perfect results.

Overall it was a pretty easy course and only fun because the professor is very upbeat and fun to speak with, I would only recommend this class if you need a GPA boost or don't know how a credit card or 401k works. Definitely one of the easiest A/A- on grounds

At 8:00 AM, I was expecting to get more out of this class. I learned some important things for my future as a responsible adult out of college, but the lectures didn't always line up with the readings and were often dry. It's a fairly easy course if you do your homework, research, and study for the exams. But I wouldn't recommend taking it.

Dot is awesome! Seriously one of the most practical classes I have taken at UVA. Learn about mortgages, 401ks, credit cards, all the necessary basics. And Dot loves her students and actually wants them to succeed. Literally I still email her regularly for interview and job advice. Very manageable work load and easy tests. Can't recommend enough!

I think the class overall was ok. We had two projects, a midterm, and a final. We had a custom UVA textbook for this class which you had to read from and work on assigned problems. The HW was not graded but she would ask us for the answers on Top Hat which you have to pay for along with buying the textbook. I thought the textbook itself was terrible and very disorganized but it was useful when preparing for midterm and final. Her lectures were ok, but it was kind of boring especially at 8 AM in the morning. The attendence is recorded so make sure you do not skip class....she writes the code that you have to type in for top hat to record attendence. Participation comes from answering questions on top hat (there are no deductions when you get the answer wrong). She gives a study guide for midterm and final which helps, but make sure you don't procrastinate! The midterm was challenging for me, but I didn't do so well on the final either which is probably because I was behind on reading the textbook. The projects weren't that bad just make sure you cover all the points she addresses in the rubric. My overall grade was a B but we had a 10 point extra credit assignment which brought my grade up to an A. Overall the class is ok if you want to learn about personal finance, but It was boring for me.

Save yourself and don't take this class. I was very much looking forward to it, but Professor Kelly made it too difficult and pointless. She blabs on the whole class (at 8 AM), but then her tests come out super hard and unfair. I wish I never took it.

Bottom line: Professor Kelly should receive grace -- it's her first time teaching this course and she had big shoes to fill. But for the future, she needs to be more prepared for each lecture and not seem like she's creating the material as she goes. (She did a great job in the beginning but not towards the end of the semester.) She can do well but needs to tie the readings to the lectures and make the lectures feel worthwhile.

Approachability: A+.
She was always keen on orienting the class towards feeling like a family. After lectures, she made herself available and was very open to criticism (which is why I believe I can share the direct comment above.)

Readings/Topics: A.
Long and unengaging text. Though extremely useful. Glad to talk about very practical things during college -- otherwise, it seems like these topics aren't discussed at all. In terms of assignments, it is very easy: two small, personal research papers (2-5 pages).

Instruction: C-.
There were two major downfalls:
(1) There was almost no connection between the readings and the lectures (except for topic) which made the readings feel irrelevant to the lecture, or the readings as the ONLY necessary piece of instruction for the class. It felt like a waste of time going to lectures.
(2) Continuing from the comment at the top, she seemed very ill-prepared. Usually when professors ask the students about their thoughts, it is to have them think critically. For this course, it felt very obvious and, at times, like she was stretching out time. I realize Prof. Kelly's intent may be different, but from a student standpoint, that's how it felt.