Financial Statement Analysis Bootcamp
MS in Accounting

Please contact NYU IT (askit@nyu.edu, 212-998-3333) or NYU Stern IT (helpdesk@stern.nyu.edu, 212-998-0180) for all ZOOM/email/NYU Brightspace/Admin/CapitalIQ issues. Please do not copy/contact me regarding such issues. If NYU/Stern support cannot help you, please contact Student Affairs/Dean's office. All emails are sent to the email address in the NYU Brightspace roster. NYU Brightspace lists @nyu.edu email for some of you and @stern.nyu.edu email for others. This mess is beyond my control. Please contact NYU/Stern support to learn how to read/forward/check spam for @nyu.edu and @stern.nyu.edu accounts. Students do not realize that they are logged in as a Stern student and think they are checking their NYU email when they are still checking NYU Stern's email. Please use a new browser to ensure that you check NYU's email. Do not write to Almaris or me if you are not getting Almaris emails sent to the NYU email address because this issue is between NYU and you.

Overview

Prerequisites

• These sessions will be recorded, but the recording will be kept for only one month.
• Please get the most recent version of Excel. Microsoft Office 365 is free for students and has the most recent Excel version. That works the best. I will illustrate Excel functions that do not work in versions released before 2021. Please contact Stern IT for Office 365 installation.
• Both Windows and MAC will work, although the Windows version is easier to use. Since Stern podiums have Windows, I will be using Windows in class.

Help and Office

• Teaching assistant: TBD Contact TAs first. Please do NOT copy me on your messages to the TAs.
• Me: dgode@stern.nyu.edu, 212-998-0021, Office: KMC 10-86.

Materials

• I use my materials. Therefore, there is no required textbook, and you need not purchase anything.

Assignments

• Please do not email me to reconfirm any of the statements below.
• The assignments appear as tests on Almaris. I may update the deadlines as the course progresses. The deadlines shown at Almaris are the correct deadlines.
• Some assignments are short; others are long. Please manage your time.
• NO EXTENSIONS will be granted for any reason except medical or family emergencies. If you have religious or personal conflicts, please submit the assignments early. The related materials are covered well in advance of the assignments. Please do not email me to request extensions unless you have a medical or family emergency.
• You can collaborate with others while doing assignments.
• All assignments are mandatory. After the first day of class, you can view the online assignments at http://www.almaris.com/assess/ using your official Stern email (no aliases) and the most recent password emailed to you by Almaris. The Almaris password is different from the Stern password. To retrieve the password, use your full email with the domain name as it appears in Brightspace. The domain name could be @nyu.edu for some of you, while for others, it could be @stern.nyu.edu. I do not control this mess.
• Assignments are marked “late” if you do not meet or exceed the passing score described below before the deadline. There is no additional penalty for lateness other than the low score.
• Assignments have a “passing score” of either 100% or less than 100%.
  • I set the passing score at 100% if you should ace the assignment. Whatever you get on your last attempt is your final score. That is, you are graded on accuracy but not the number of attempts. You have "completed" the assignment if you score 80 percent or more on the final attempt.
  • I set the passing score of less than 100% on a few assignments if you might not get every question right. Any score above that score is rounded up to 100%. For example, if the passing score is 90%, and you get 93%, your score is rounded up to 100%. I do the rounding up in a separate spreadsheet. You will see only the raw score online.
• Almaris is not affiliated with Stern in any way. It is offering these tests to Stern at no charge.
• Almaris staff is not authorized to extend deadlines under any circumstances. Only my TAs can do that. Almaris staff will reply to your emails only if they pertain to technical issues with the Almaris system. Please contact Stern IT for technical issues with your network.

Attendance and penalty for missing classes

Requiring attendance is necessary for several reasons. First, many of you misjudge how much you miss out on learning when you miss classes. It is difficult to catch up once you miss a class. Watching a video (if available) is inadequate as it is cognitively far inferior to paying attention in a classroom. Second, less than 25% of the students who miss a class watch the video (if available). As a result, they are lost in subsequent classes, which provides wrong signals to me as an instructor. Third, there is diminished classroom interaction and poorer quality of class discussion if you are absent. Fourth, you do not get enough feedback if you do not work through the questions I pose in class. Fifth, I lose the feedback on how much you are learning with fewer questions in class.

The policy below will be in effect only after the add/drop period.

Without mandatory attendance, as much as half the class can be absent. Therefore, though I dislike doing this, I penalize absences. I understand that there are valid reasons for absences. If you anticipate being absent for good reasons, please email me well in advance. You can enter "Excused" on the attendance sheet described below to avoid the penalty if I approve. If you miss a class due to emergencies and cannot tell me in advance, do not panic. Take care of the emergency first and then email me. I will permit you to change the "absent" to "excused." But, if you miss a class without a valid reason, there is a penalty, as shown below.

For sections meeting in 150-190 minute sessions, you would lose one grade (A to A-, A- to B+, B+ to B, B to B-, and so on) for EVERY missed session unless you were explicitly excused via email. Thus, if you miss two class sessions, you would lose two grades, and so on.

For sections meeting in 75-80 minute sessions, you would lose one grade (A to A-, A- to B+, B+ to B, B to B-, and so on) for EVERY TWO missed sessions unless you were explicitly excused via email. Thus, if you miss four class sessions, you would lose two grades, and so on.

Please sit in the same seat in every class and display your name tags. After entering the class, please mark yourself present in the first 20 minutes in the OneDrive sheet (link posted on OneDrive after the add/drop period is over.) You will be marked absent if you are more than 20 minutes late unless it is because of factors beyond your control (traffic, subway, interviews running late). You will also be marked absent if you leave the class early unless you have my permission or get it afterward. You will get an F in the course if you are caught cheating on the attendance sheet.

Exams and Grading

• Please read about the penalty for missing classes above.
• Assignments: 30% of the course grade. Incomplete assignments will result in a failing grade.
• Final exam: 70% of the course grade. An overall score of 80% on the final exam will be considered a passing score if you have completed the assignments. However, your course grade will be an F regardless of the exam score if you do not complete the assignments. The exam has a penalty for multiple attempts, as described on the login page on Almaris.

Schedule