BA-951
FINANCE I
Not in Fall 2026
Term
Overview
Feedback is mostly positive. The strongest signal is that the readings, films, or examples carry real weight. The main downside is that organization is a real weakness. Best for students who will engage with the materials instead of skimming everything.
DepartmentFUQUA
Terms offeredFall
Typical enrollment8–11
Semesters of data3
6.3
Hrs / week
18
Responses
29
Enrollment
62%
Response Rate
Evaluation Scores
Overall quality
Teaching, content, and experience combined.
4.2
Intellectually stimulating
Challenges students to think deeply.
4.2
Instructor effectiveness
Explains concepts and facilitates learning.
4.0
Difficulty
Higher means harder.
3.8
Feedback Analysis
Feedback Analysishigh
Analysis based on student evaluations
Based on 26 comments across 3 sections
Feedback is mostly positive. The strongest signal is that the readings, films, or examples carry real weight. The main downside is that organization is a real weakness. Best for students who will engage with the materials instead of skimming everything.
Student Reports
How hard is the A?
A is doable but not automatic
The signal here is more do-the-work-and-you-should-be-fine than easy-A chatter. Students do not describe the A as automatic, but the evidence also does not paint grading as punishing.
Homework Load
Moderate homework load
Homework load looks moderate. The recurring signal is steady weekly work, but not a course that turns every assignment into a grind.
Lecture Load
Regular lecture load
Lectures matter here, but the evidence points to a fairly standard lecture burden rather than a course dominated by long or exceptionally dense lectures.
Strengths
• Readings, films, or outside materials come up repeatedly as a real strength rather than filler.
• Teaching clarity stands out; students repeatedly say the material is explained clearly and effectively.
Tradeoffs
• Organization is a real weakness here; several comments call out unclear structure or a messy semester flow.
Best fit for
Best for students who will engage with the materials instead of skimming everything.
Watch out for
• A large share of the evidence comes from one instructor's version of the course, so this may not generalize cleanly.
• If you need clean structure every week, this may frustrate you fast.
Student Responses
I believe this course was a useful introduction to asset pricing literature and methods, as well as to the field of Finance more generally. It covers several of the baseline models needed to kickstart one's understanding of the subject, and in that regard I found the course quite stimulating. It helped me solidify my interest in the field and get introduced to new methods and models. The three main 'things' I learned from the course would be the conditions for market efficiency and non-arbitrage, the CAPM and its extensions, and the puzzles afflicting this strand of models. From these, I particularly enjoyed learning about the puzzles and their proposed resolutions found in the past decades of research.
Fall 2024 · Bansal, Ravi
In this course, I learned the theory of asset pricing.
Fall 2024 · Bansal, Ravi
Factor model; CAPM; optimal portfolio choice.
Fall 2025 · Bansal, Ravi
The evolution of the asset pricing field through various models to solve puzzle, recursive iteration as opposed to VFI for solving household spending problems.
Fall 2023 · Bansal, Ravi
solid knowledge of theoretical asset pricing
Fall 2023 · Bansal, Ravi
Rating History
Rating history
Error bars show \u00B11 std dev
| Term | Instructor | Overall | Difficulty | Hrs/wk | Enrolled |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fall 2025 | Bansal, Ravi 3.4Rate My ProfessorsQuality3.4Difficulty3.2Would retake54%Based on 13 ratingsClick to view on RMP → | 4.0 | 4.0 | 7.0 | 10 |
| Fall 2024 | Bansal, Ravi 3.4Rate My ProfessorsQuality3.4Difficulty3.2Would retake54%Based on 13 ratingsClick to view on RMP → | 4.4 | 3.8 | 5.6 | 8 |
| Fall 2023 | Bansal, Ravi 3.4Rate My ProfessorsQuality3.4Difficulty3.2Would retake54%Based on 13 ratingsClick to view on RMP → | 4.1 | 3.6 | — | 11 |