East Carolina University Graduate Certificate in Finance

So, a little less than a year after finishing my MBA program, I've decided to tackle a new challenge: a graduate certificate in finance at East Carolina University. This program is four courses long, which the student chooses from any of the Finance electives available to MBA students at ECU.

The program can be done either entirely online, entirely on-campus, or as a mixture of both. To be admitted to the certificate program, you must either be an ECU MBA student, or already have an MBA from an AACSB-accredited institution. Total tuition and fees for one three hour course is $654 for in-state students, which means that the program will cost about $3000 once books and exam proctoring fees are included. In addition to the courses, my $3K also buys me access to the same resources available to full-time MBA students, including on-campus recruiting and other career services.

Why am I pursuing this certificate? Partly for personal interest - finance was the one subject I did worst in at Duke, and I want to shore up my knowledge in this area, and partly for access to the career services tools that I don't have access to at Duke. When I'm done, I hope to use this certificate and my MBA as a springboard away from IT into (most likely) management consulting or maybe even investment banking/venture capital type work. I'm hoping to be done in May 2009 taking one class this term, two classes in the fall, and then one class in the spring of 2009.

I'll use this thread to detail my experience with the program. Class doesn't start for another week, but here's what I know so far:

The online delivery platform is Blackboard. No surprises there. Exams are proctored. I haven't been in a program that used proctored testing before, but I actually used ECU's testing office for my CLEP testing during undergrad, so I expect that the process will be somewhat similar - call and schedule the test, and they'll be waiting for me at the appointed hour.

ECU's business school is transitioning from an advisor-managed registration process for its grad students to a self-service process, and certificate students are going to be the last to make the transition. This means that this semester (and possibly next), I was in line behind all the MBA students when it came to picking classes, leaving me with pretty slim pickings. I'm registered for a Real Estate Finance class, even though I'm not particularly interested in Real Estate, because it was the only class available to me that met program requirements. My advisor assures me that there will be more options available to me in the next few semesters, including some intriguing on-campus possibilities.

Overall, I'm pretty excited to be starting the program!

 

This sounds pretty good, I'm interested. Can you post a link?

I read some of your blog, congratulations, you deserve lots of respect for your progress. Pitching the carbs is the way to go.

Regards,

Mike

 

Mike,

Of course I'd forget to include the program link.

http://www.ecu.edu/cs-acad/gradschool/results.cfm?id=208

Thanks for your kind comments regarding my blog!

 

I bought my book today and...

...textbooks are too damn expensive.

I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but I just had to rant. I purchased the textbook for my real estate finance course (Real Estate Principles: A Value Approach, by Ling and Archer, for those who care) and experienced a bit of sticker shock when I found out the book was $125.00, or $95.00 used. Of course, there were no used copies available, because the book was just released in 2008. Students are being taken for a ride. This book has been updated every other year since it was released in 2004. Does real estate finance change that fast? And if it does, is the new material incorporated into the courses on the subject? Somehow, I think the answer to both questions is “No!” I feel sorry for students who are trying to get through school these days without burying themselves in debt - tuition costs are rising faster than inflation, and expensive textbooks just add to the misery. Eventually, the Internet is going to bury traditional publishers. I hope that day comes soon!

 

Can you post the ISBN number? Perhaps if I can find a better price, you can get a refund.

 

Never take a university bookstore's price as the last word. They are pricing their books for what they believe is a captive market. Refuse to allow yourself to be captured! Amazon.com www.amazon.com has used copies starting at $91.12 and Bookfinder.com www.bookfinder.com has used copies starting at $12.94.

 

The book was released in January 2008, the prices you quote are for earlier editions. Unfortunately, there just are no used books right now - the book hasn't been out long enough. I usually import my textbooks and have saved a ton of money over the years by doing so, but in this case, there was no international edition available. I just wanted to rant.

 

You might have missed my post above.

 

As you yourself asked: Does real estate finance really change that fast? And if it does, is the new material incorporated into the courses on the subject?

 

I did some research into your book.

Is your course FINA 6854 (Real Estate Analysis) Spring 2008?
If so your ISBN number is 9780073046211

This is the required text for this course as ECU Bookstore states.

This is a revised 2nd edition with a copyright of 2008.

If you put that ISBN number into Google, you'll be able to find many revised 2nd edition copyright 2008 book that are brand new for under $100

 

I've used textbooksnow.com quite a bit. They typically ship very fast and have low prices for my books.

Bing

 

Textbooksnow.com has this for $88.59...used. Naturally, shop around and find your best deal.

Bing

 

+1 - I just paid $157 for a social research text in my DPA program at Valdosta. It came with SPSS, but the student license is only good for one year. It is also a new version, so it was not available anywhere used. Statistics must be as dynamic real estate finance.

 

Guys,

Thanks for the help finding cheaper textbooks. I appreciate it!

 

The $127 per semester hour tuition makes it easy to overlook a high-priced book.

 

ECU Update:

I’ve passed the halfway mark in my quest to earn East Carolina University’s graduate certificate in finance. My first two courses went very smoothly, and I earned an “A” grade in both of them. However, after finishing my second course, I came to something of an impasse - there were no more classes in my program offered online, and going to campus during the day is simply not an option for me. Apparently, I’m not the only student with these concerns, because ECU has allowed students in the finance certificate program to use certain courses from the Professional Investment Management and Operations program to satisfy certificate requirements. This is how I find myself in FINA 6904, Mutual Fund Management and Operations. The course has just started, but looks like it will be very interesting material that builds upon the information from my previous finance courses. There is going to be a lot of non-quant stuff as well, but it’s the price I pay to be able to continue with the program instead of just spinning my wheels. Of course, after this course, I’ll have one class remaining. Hopefully, I’ll be able to wrap this up during summer session!

 

I have a neighbor who is a retired college professor. He wrote several books on real estate and updates them frequently to reflect the publishers requirements. Currently the trend is to eliminate content (reduce page count).