This is a difficult class, no doubt about it. The other reviews are true and have said enough about that. At the same time, this class has taught me a significant amount, and if transported to the start of the semester I would probably take it again. With the new McIntire curriculum though, Parham will likely be teaching other courses instead of 3720. To those that are thinking of taking one of his classes in the future, let me say this: If you are genuinely interested in finance, are thick-skinned, and are open to new perspectives, I would recommend Parham.

It would be incomplete to leave this review there though. While Parham is obviously a smart person, he is also needlessly antagonistic and imposed draconian punishments to make an example out of students. He shapes his class around his libertarian worldview and makes it difficult to share different opinions. He creates busywork and assigns textbook readings that are functionally useless. He builds a demanding environment that will sideline other classes and reshape your semester if you are not an excellent student already.

In my eyes though, this is the best prep for investment banking that we can get. Just like our MDs, Parham has some odd preferences for his deliverables, isn't entirely reasonable, and pretty clearly has favorites. Parham is also quite intelligent, a good lecturer, and clearly cares about his work. While he has his downsides, it is my firmly held belief that learning corporate finance with him was well worth it, and his other classes likely will be too.

I am actually shocked that there are not more negative reviews about this class. And where do I even begin? This class was actually the most horrendous experience of my entire UVA experience. Professor Parham is not only extremely unapproachable, but also just a bad person. His views on society are awful and made me genuinely sick to my stomach at times. I have never experienced genuine anxiety like I did in and because of this class.

Both our midterm and our final were ridiculous. The midterm median was a 27/60 (45%). I answered maybe 10 questions correctly and got around the median. I can confidently say I have learned absolutely nothing from this class, and my exam score supports that. However, the class is curved so absurdly that I ended up getting a B+/A- on the exam (another issue with the class is the complete confusion among grades, as Prof Parham has some random obsession with the number 5, so all work is out of 105 but he never told us whether we need to be looking at the number out of 105 or the %). So, I did well in the class, but I feel absolutely terrifed of (and honestly completely uninterested in) the next levels of finance classes. Further, I am not sure why the other reviews are emphasizing how well prepared they are for internships and future finance classes, because clearly his exam averages do not support that. This midterm was also Thursday 5-7PM before spring break, so if you have plans, cancel them!

He is just an unreasonable person. I am writing this review after a finals week consisting of: an extremely difficult assignment, our final (along with finals for my other courses), and a project which he gave us minimal direction on and honestly I just did not care to do it. The assignments were doing throughout the semester were ridiculous and completely impossible to do remotely well on without going to office hours. Speaking of, those would be packed (as in there was physically no space in the room). His TAs tried their best, but they were also given minimal ability to help us. They weren’t even given an answer key for our midterm, so if we did want to review it, we could only see what we got right or wrong, and not actually our answers so that was just not helpful. All 3 TAs had expressed frustration about this class and highlighted how the other professors are better.

Unless you are extremely type A, have more conservative social and economic views on the world (as in you think sweatshops and price gouging are good for society), and are essentially a suck-up, you won’t enjoy this class. Taking this class was a big, big mistake. Please listen and take this class with Chen or just take Investments (the prof is better in the spring and the content doesn’t overlap). For those of you crazy enough to take this course with him, good luck because I promise you that you will need it!

Again, this class may not seem that bad from the other reviews (honestly wouldn’t be surprised if he is deleting the negative ones), but my story is only 5% of how bad this class was. I remember choosing to stay in Parham’s class because it seemed like my grade would be fine and I would be challenged in a good way, but your grade is never guaranteed with him. I PROMISE you will regret taking this class with this man. If that doesn’t convince you, if you have an NYC Finance internship lined up, then you are totally screwed as class has absolutely 0 relevance to anything you will be doing!

This class is one of the MOST mentally exhausting, demoralizing experiences of my time at UVA. This man is so out of touch with reality that it's genuinely baffling. The anxiety I felt every time I walked into that room was unreal. I'm talking dread and full-body overstimulation just sitting in my seat. I have never felt that way in an academic setting and I sincerely hope I never do again. He repeated the word "knowledge" so many times throughout the semester that it became a running joke, yet I couldn't tell you a single thing I actually learned despite the endless hours I put in. He speaks in riddles. In class, in his slides, and somehow even in his emails. Communicating with him felt like decoding a puzzle that had no solution. He would always have these nonsense stories and obsess over us having our name tags up every single class. The classroom environment was designed, seemingly intentionally, to pit students against each other. The participation credit system, where he would physically hand out cards in front of everyone, made me so anxious that I never raised my hand once. Those PC cards were visibly stained with coffee. He also encouraged students to buy and sell PCs from one another, which raises its own set of questions. I heard that 2 girls from different groups worked on Excel for an assignment together, one lost her work, and he wouldn't let the other share hers because they were in different groups. The grading curve created an atmosphere where your peers are your competition, and that tension was suffocating every single class. The weekly assignments were nonsensical busy work. We wasted so much water with how much he encouraged AI usage. When students resubmitted them using the unlimited attempts feature literally built into the platform, he personally emailed groups to interrogate why. There was an unlimited attempts button. He put it there. He ran a bizarre bucket grading system where figuring out your grade required running a specific Excel formula he gave us. I ended with a B+ having never participated once, which tells you everything about how arbitrary the whole structure was. The quizzes were essentially impossible and so rushed I couldn't grasp the question before we moved on. The midterm median was a 27/60, a 45%, scheduled the Thursday before Spring Break, the same day as ICE presentations, from 5 to 7pm, with an automatic 5-point deduction if you couldn't make it. When a student tried to take it earlier because they had already booked their flight, he told them "you're wasting my CPU time." He also got visibly happy when only 50% of the class got quizzes right. He even offered a 60 HOUR reading for extra credit. You could tell even the TAs got frustrated and hated their jobs. I don't think they could keep up with his madness. He required attendance at outside talks with nothing to do with finance, dangling extra PCs as incentive. At one point he genuinely growled in class. I don't have anything to add to that. The most jaw-dropping moment of the semester was the PollEV incident. When students changed answers on quizzes he forgot to lock, which is his oversight, he had them send public apology emails and made the class vote on their punishment. His options: negative 5 PCs, dropping 2 grade buckets, or a C. He then released the apology letters for the whole class to read like a public humiliation ritual. This is not ethical and seems wildly unfair for changing answers on quizzes worth fractions of a fraction of the final grade. His response: "I'm surprised by the recklessness of it all: you cheat on a computerized system that keeps logs of everything you do while your professor told you in the first class he used to train world class hackers? Are you oblivious?" That quote alone tells you everything about how he talks to students. Clearly, if people were so worried about getting quizzes wrong that they'd stoop that low for something worth 0.033% of their grade, you need to look in the mirror as a professor. For the final exam, he gave us 3 different day options and then got mad when someone shared exam info with a student taking it later. His email to the class said: "Welcome to your Ds." He also had his young child sitting in the room for the first 5 to 10 minutes of the exam making noise. Extremely distracting, after holding students to an insane standard of conduct all semester long. Don't even get me started on his philosophies. The last class was literally us debating whether sweatshops and price gouging were good or evil. He would brainwash us into thinking both were beneficial, and when someone disagreed, he'd cut them off mid-sentence and go into his own rant. He also used that final day to encourage students to start dating and have children, declaring it the “optimal time for couple bonding.” He then pulled up a graph arguing climate change isn't real?! In a finance class. At a top business school. I can confidently say I learned nothing and feel unprepared.

This is one of those courses that I think every student going into finance should take. The first class of the semester helps set the tone and removes the students who are not ready to be academically challenged, because they drop it. Yes, Parham requires you to pay attention and learn, which a lot of people are not ready for. All Grades are released on a normal distribution, which I prefer, to not knowing where I stand in a class until final grades are released. His exams are difficult, but if you well on his assignments you will be in good shape for the exams (Provided you actually study/ understand the assignments / ask about concepts you are unsure of). Assignments are important for your success in his class, as they require you to think about concepts at a higher level. In comparison to the other 3720 classes, Parham is more difficult in terms of hours spent per week, but you learn about concepts that you can directly apply to investing, and life outside of class. As you read this review in November to help decide which professor to take in the spring, answer this question. Are you someone who, when faced with a challenge shy away and take the easy route? If you decide to take this class, spend some time going over statistics.

This class is definitely challenging but, unlike ICE Finance, worth your time. If you have read some of the earlier reviews you can clearly see Parham has worked really hard to improve the class and is continually doing so. The class is very intimidating from the beginning, do your best to stay invested. Parham knows that everyone has different backgrounds going in and aims to teach everyone as much as possible. The homeworks are challenging, lecture is fast paced, and midterms difficult. Ultimately you are rewarded for your hard work, the class is normally distributed with a GPA of 3.75, higher than the other classes. Most importantly Parham is incredibly rewarding to learn from. Comm classes can tend to be dry and uninteresting. Parham peaked my interest in history, computer science, and modern financial markets. He is easily one of the best professors I have had. If you're someone who likes to learn about interesting things and work hard, take his class.

Parham might be the best professor I've had at UVA so far. His class is hard, and he aims to challenge every one of his students, but it is one of the best classes I've taken at UVA because of him. He's the boy, knows his stuff, and his approach to corporate finance.

No joke, this is one of those classes that you point to later on and say "yeah this is what made me love finance". Parham is extremely intelligent, takes his job seriously, and treats students like equals. This means the class will be challenging and you'll have to work very hard, but it is so worth it. He's probably the most lucid and most engaging lecturer I've ever had, bar none.
I also got the sense that he actively tries to create that ideal of "not caring about the grade, but just trying to expand knowledge as much possible", which is a really special experience that not everyone is lucky to have in college. Don't be discouraged by low scores - this IS a hard class but everything is curved. Just soak it in.
If you want to really understand finance, Parham should be your first and only choice.

Professor Parham is easily one of my favorite professors at UVA. Not only is he extremely intelligent and knowledgeable about finance, but he is a very reasonable and interesting guy. Not only should you look forward to his Cinco de Mayo office hour, but I cannot think of a single time during which he was unnecessarily harsh or unfair when it came to grading. This is not to say, however, that he is not a demanding professor who will push you. You will be asked to complete 9 difficult, albeit enjoyable homework assignments and an ultra in-depth valuation project, read several classic academic papers on financial topics, take a few pop quizzes each class, and take two very difficult exams that are virtually impossible to finish in the allotted amount of time. Not to fret, however, if you didn't do well on an assignment, you almost certainly weren't the only one and everything is fully curved! Parham maintains that the average in is his class is above the McIntire average of a B+, and I fully believe him.

A lot of people seemingly suggest that Chen is the better professor and that you should avoid Parham at all costs. I fully disagree with this assertion. From what I heard, Chen's exams are quite difficult and they are not curved (at least not to the same extent) to my knowledge. Additionally, you will learn an incredible amount about finance in Parham's class. He dives much deeper into certain topics, such as beta, as far as I understand. I am sure that Chen is a fine professor, but please do not avoid Parham's class because you think it will be too "hard."

This was one of my favorite classes at UVA. I am concentrating in finance in the Comm School and was honestly unsure about my concentration until I took this class. Parham pushes you hard, but his emphasis on understanding everything conceptually made the class so interesting. I got a B+, but I loved it so much because does a great job of applying the course to history, current events, and life in general. Finally, he responded to our midterm feedback and altered his course slightly to fit our liking for the rest of the semester.

Tips:
-Read the textbook, understand it conceptually
-Do the textbook problems
-Work closely with your group, it will help you all
-Listen intently and ask questions
-If you do poorly on quizzes (they're hard), make up for it by participating as much as possible!
-Go to his office hours and Happy Hour! He has great stories.

Don’t trust the older reviews, this class is awesome. Parham seems tough at first (and he is), but the class is graded on a normal distribution with the lowest grade possible being a B-. While the assignments and exams are challenging, everything works out in the end.

That said, this was probably the best class I’ve taken at McIntire and UVA in general. Parham definitely pushed us hard, but in the end I learned an insane amount about finance and critical thinking in general. Parham is genuinely passionate about teaching finance, and I’m feeling extra prepared for my internship this summer.

Tips for getting the most out of the course - read the stats notes he sends out at the beginning. You’ll end up using those concepts A LOT in the class. Aside from that, read the textbook and go to office hours if necessary and you should be in good shape.