Student Comments Robert Balik Has Received

Robert Balik: Unsolicited comments from former FIN 3450 students

The course that I now teach most frequently (usually four or five sections per year) is FIN 3450, Computer Applications in Finance. The following are unsolicited comments from former FIN 3450 students. That is, after taking FIN 3450, Computer Applications in Finance, students have either sent an e-mail message, telephoned, or stopped by my office. The names of these students and other personal information is omitted.

December 10, 2006: This student took FIN 3450 during the Spring 2005. His remarks: After graduation last year I moved to New York City to pursue a career in M&A. You had advised me to take accounting courses in college which I did. I am happy to be working at E&Y in the Transaction Advisory Group. It's our brand name for Mergers and Acquisitions group. FIN 3450 was the hardest class in college and I use it the most. Recently we advised Siemens when they acquired the Diagnostics arm of Bayer for $5.9 billion. I built a simulation model to estimate cash collections related to deferred revenue. Our client is using this model to negotiate $70 million. It was challenging and I could not have done a good job without taking your class. As an analyst I spend all my time building Databooks and doing all the analysis on Excel. Speed and accuracy is key. I learned this from your class and I live by these rules everyday. I like to improve my skills in VBA (building macros) and Simulation models. I was wondering if you could send me the course materials from your class on this section so I can practice. Please advise on what books are useful to improve my skills on these functions.

August 4, 2006: This student took FIN 3450 during the Spring 2006 term and got a Summer internship at PWC in Grand Rapids. This students completed a double major in accounting and finance and graduated in Summer 2006 after completing the PWC internship (which was for finance credit). While working at PWC one of the clients was Kellogg. His supervisor, when working at Kellogg, wrote: He demonstrated a proper understanding of how to use Excel throughout the engagement. For example, when one of the engagement seniors asked him to enter certain information into a spreadsheet for a quarterly review analytic and create new areas in the sheet while also changing the corresponding graphs, He was able to show his proficiency by effectively completing this task with minimal coaching. He also was able to notice certain inconsistencies in the data (i.e. one of the percentage results from a ratio seemed out of line with the rest) and brought this up to the appropriate level to be addressed.

Update: this student started working full time at PWC in late August 2006.

August 2, 2006: E-mail message from a former student. He took FIN 3450 during the Spring 2006 term. During the Summer 2006 term he had an internship at Kellogg. His remarks: I took a position as the Corporate Planning Intern at Kellogg and I just wanted to let you know that I have used a lot of information that you taught in your 3450 class. I am constantly using IF, AND, HLOOKUP and ROUND Functions to set up Excel retrieves in order to pull data from Hyperion Financial Management. Aside from using a lot of the functions taught in class I'm also using a lot of other features such as Data Validation, and Goal Seek. One more thing that I wanted to mention is that the information I process gets directly reported to the EMC (Executive Management Counsel) and I have to be extremely careful about small editing and formatting errors, so the strict attention to detail you require in class has paid off. Thanks for the valuable information taught in class; it was definitely a challenging course but I have come to find out it was well worth it.

Update: Student was asked what Excel feature he used during the internship he wished he had known better. His response: pivot tables.

June 30, 2006: E-mail message from the student mentioned in the December 6, 2006, e-mail. During Summer 2006 she had an internship at Tower Group in Boston, Massachusetts. Her remarks: It has been a month on the job for me. I am using Excel everyday at work…A lot of modeling and calculations…All the things you taught me come very handy…Thank you.

June 23, 2006: This student took FIN 3450 during the Spring 2006 term and got a Summer internship at Sara Lee headquarters in Chicago. Virtually all the other interns at Sara Lee were graduate students from the University of Chicago. A few remarks from this student's first internship report (this internship included finance credit): “If you know Excel, you’ll do fine in the finance world coming out of college.” My supervisor has made that comment multiple times since I started a month ago. At first, I thought he was exaggerating. As the weeks went on, however, I started to see the reason behind his ranting. 90% of my day involves updating workbooks, preparing workbooks for the upcoming fiscal year, and automating many of the processes that are done weekly. Fortunately, I enjoy working on workbooks, or else I would seriously be considering a new career. After completing Finance 3450 this spring, I mistakenly thought I was an Excel expert. It didn’t take long for me to be overwhelmed with the capabilities of that software in a real business setting. Updating workbooks that contain tens of thousands lines of data is not uncommon. At first, it was very intimidating, nevertheless, I have learned to trust the skills I possess and have managed to impress my boss multiple times. One Excel skill that wasn’t touched on in 3450 was the design element. It is very important to anyone looking at a spreadsheet that it be clear and easy to read. This sounded simple and easy at first, however, as the projects and tasks come rolling in, I’m finding it difficult to design and present the information in easy to read and useful tables. Space efficiency on an Excel spreadsheet is also valued. Although some of the workbooks I work on contain 20-30 worksheets, a one or two page summary is all the executives want to see.

Update: Student completed his internship in August 2006 and has been invited back during the December 2006 to January 2007 break. Also, the intern's supervisor said this when writing his evaluation: In my opinion, his Microsoft Excel skills are well ahead of most undergrad students (not to mention many Finance professionals). This skill along with his desire to learn and understand what is driving the business will make him a very valuable employee in the near future.

June 9, 2006: This student took FIN 3450 during the Spring 2006 term and got an internship at Borg Warner headquarters in Auburn Hills, Michigan. This is the second Summer he interned at Borg Warner. A few remarks from this student's first internship report (this internship included finance credit): If I had not been through my junior year at Western I would have had a terrible time here. Last year they had sympathy on me because I was young and had little experience, this year was a totally different story. I used skills that I learned in a number of classes to help me through these various tasks. Not to sound like a suck up, but FIN 3450 was the biggest help. I use Excel I’d say 90% of my day. Whether it is created a simple contact list, or a table that needs to be analyzed like working capital ratios and other various financial ratios. Every single shortcut and keystroke was that much more help. Sometimes I would even confuse my fellow employees on how fast I could maneuver around Excel. Calculations on excel using functions are important to determine various information. My Excel skills have been used to the max and will continue to develop.

Update: Student completed his internship in August 2006 and has been invited back during the December 2006 to January 2007 break.

March 27, 2006: E-mail message from a student who tool FIN 3450 during the Fall term and graduated in April 2005. After much searching he got a job at Aon in Chicago. His remarks: Aon is a great place to work. I am fortunate enough to work with very intelligent people that are encouraging of my going to grad school and teaching me all that as soon as possible. The learning curve is unbelievably steep, but I’ve adjusted great. I cannot believe how invaluable the Excel skills we cover in your class are. I’m sure you get students coming back to you and saying this now that they’ve had a “taste” of what it’s like. In the first week of being on the job, they informed me that I would be VBA scripting like no other, and I have been. My keystrokes could use a little work, but those will come along. My manager can key Excel faster than he types a letter, so I’ve got some catching up to do too.

March 3, 2006: E-mail message from a student who tool FIN 3450 during the Fall term 2005. Her remarks: I took your Computer Business Application in Finance class last fall. I am currently working as an intern with Kellogg in their R&D Finance division and use a lot of what I learned with Excel your class daily. But as I discover I have a lot more to learn about Excel. Currently I am trying to create a database that will allow for easy entry, storage of large quantities of data and the ability for it to be analyzed. The problem I am faced is with creating a macro that will allow me to take the entered Product A ‘02 data with data and match it up with Product A ’01 data. It is a lot easier to explain in person with the excel spreadsheets, is it possible for you to assist me with this?

January 5, 2006: E-mail message from a student who took FIN 3450 during the Fall 2005 term. His remarks: I just wanted to write to thank you for teaching the FIN 3450 class this semester. Everything that I heard about you as a teacher was true. You are very tough, but fair. I have learned a tremendous amount in your class and I don't feel that I would have learned as much if I would've had another teacher. Thank you for the effort and obvious time that you put into the course.

December 6, 2005: E-mail message from a former student. She graduated in April 2005. In September 2005 she started a graduate program in International Finance and International Economics. In the e-mail message she wrote: The workload is huge this time. I took a course called Financial Modeling. It is about valuing different companies. Most of the time I use Excel. My professor was very impressed at the way I formatted the worksheets. I was so grateful to be your student. Studying Excel from you was wonderful. I realize it is true that "practice makes perfect." You have taught us to pay attention to every single detail and to work hard. Thank you so much."

November 4, 2005: E-mail message from a former student: I was a student of yours in Fall of 2003. I graduated in Winter 2004 and took a year off before starting my career. I recently moved to Atlanta and began working as an Analyst for one of the largest consulting firms in the nation; Accenture. I am currently staffed at a Cingular Office in the supply chain management department working on the CATS(Cellular Asset Tracking System) IT Infrastructure and Technical Support SLA (Service Level Agreement). My current responsibility regarding this assignment is to collect reports/data for the metrics specified in the SLA and create a mock up dashboard in Excel for all of the related data/reports. In the past few weeks I have been on this assignment, the skills introduced in your class have proved to be invaluable. I have had to convert numerous amounts of data in Excel, create Access queries, and write SQL statements to sort/extract data, and design a multitude of reports that will be used for executive reviews. I kept the textbook and modules from your course and they have definitely come in very handy in these past few weeks. I think a lot of students, including myself a couple of years back, have the misconception that someone is going to hold your hand when you start a new job and that you will be "trained." I remember students in my own class being distraught about having to "teach themselves" how to perform the assignments in your class. The truth is that your method of teaching is merely an introduction to the real world. Expectations are high and it is up to you as an individual to persevere. When your manager asks you to have something done and emailed to him/her by EOB, you better figure out how to perform the task and get it done on time. I never had a clear idea of what type of work I would be doing when I completed my degree, but I don't think I realized the importance of technology in the workforce until I became a true part of it. Technology is huge in every workforce and I feel that students really need to understand that. I may have a degree in finance, but I am further developing my technology skills every day. In a consulting role projects are always changing; the thing that remains consistent is the demand for technology. I am just at the dawn of my career, but I know in the years to come I will become deeply technical in order to keep my job and stay competitive in the workforce. I want to thank you Dr. Balik, for teaching me some of the most important things I took away from college; not only how to use Excel, but for preparing me to meet the demands of the real world. I hope you can share this note with some of your classes, so your students can hear these words from one of their peers. I am about to turn 23 years old next month and I never thought I'd be where I am now when I was still in college. If any class was important while I was in school, it was definitely computer applications in finance. I find myself convinced that this course should be required for all business majors. It really is that important. Thanks again for everything, and good luck to all of your students.

October 21, 2005: E-mail message from a former student: I had you as a professor for courses ‘Business 275’ and ‘Computer Applications in Finance’ about 3 years ago while I was attending Western. Currently I work for Quicken Loans; a part of my job is to track the lead source of each mortgage that is turned in by our loan officers. Your course on Excel turned out to be one of the most useful courses I had while at WMU

September 27, 2005: E-mail message from a former student: You may remember having me in class last year as a senior. I am currently working as an analyst for Comerica Bank in their Commercial Lending Program. As you already know, you were correct when you spoke to us about the knowledge necessary to serve effectively in a finance career. I have learned nearly as much in the past few months as I did throughout my four years in college, and I have made enough mistakes as well. However, I am definitely enjoying the challenges as well as the benefits of this career path. I want to thank you now for being one of the few professors who actually challenged us to the point that 'real life' soon would.

September 20, 2005: E-mail message from a former student: I had you for a professor two years ago this semester. You tipped our class off about an internship that Charles Zhang and American Express was offering and I applied for it and got it…that in turn ultimately got me my job with National City Corporate Banking Group upon graduation. I really just wanted to touch base with you and tell you that the class I had with you, FCL 345, was an amazing class and helped prepare me for the real world. Although now that I've been promoted to our Capital Markets Syndications Division, I wish we had done more financial modeling! I hope all is going well and that you still keep giving the students difficult assignments and make them work, it definitely pays off.

July 6, 2005: E-mail message from a former student: I was a student of your FCL 345 class in the Summer I semester of 2002. After graduation I went on a 5 month vacation to Canada and then in May of 2004 I left for Bangalore, India, my hometown. Its feels good to be home after almost three years and since then I have been busy polishing the skills I learnt at Western and especially in your class, I have put them to use in two projects that I initiated and managed, one was to do with streamlining our public transport system, buses especially; the other project was more directly connected with my major i:e finance; I revised a quality system based on the Indian accounting practice and new management procedures for the medical industry here in India and have applied them in 2 hospitals thus far. I just wanted you to know that you have made an everlasting impact on my life, I have never seen another person with so much passion for their work, the amount of detail you give to your class is simply phenomenal and I guess I just wanted to tell you that I try and use that attitude in everything I do.

June 1, 2005: E-mail message from a former student: I was a student in your class this last spring semester. I have since started a new job at Michigan Braille and Transcribing. I work within the walls of the Michigan State Prison located in Jackson, MI. I am working with both offenders and employees of the state. I have met a person who works for me who is having trouble with a macro program that he is attempting to complete for our business process. He is far past me in this field but I thought of you when he started asking questions. I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions about his problem. I don't mean to bother but I know you know your stuff and I thought he would like it if I could help with your assistance.

May 7, 2005: E-mail message from a former student: I am a former student of yours asking for some help with Excel. I'm currently working with Sanford Financial Services in Portage as their intern. In this model I'm working on I need to hide rows but the rows I need to hide change with each new iteration of the model. I remember you telling us in class one time that you had your MBA class do this sort of thing in one of their projects. I was wondering if you could send me a file of whichever project that is so I could look it over and figure out how to allow for various rows to be hidden based on user input. Thank you so much for your help. I also wanted to tell you that everything I learned in your class has been VERY helpful in my internship. The people I work with are continually impressed with what I can do for them using Excel.

April 7, 2005: E-mail message from a former student who got a job at Whirlpool: I accepted a position in their Trade Partner Support Team for Lowe's which was more fun and lucrative. I'm one of about 16 people that handles orders, returns, and special needs. The atmosphere is great, but I think a desk job would get old real quick. From what I can see, SAP is fully integrated in the company and I'm quickly learning as much about it as I can, so I guess I'm getting the training I wanted. I'm also learning more about Excel macros to print large reports. It seems no one else in my dept. has much Excel knowledge so I'm quickly becoming an asset, or so I hope.

November 30, 2004: Personal conversation with a student who took FIN 345 during the Spring 2004 term. The student is graduating in December 2004: During the Spring 2004 term he used his Excel skills learned in FIN 345 to update an Excel workbook that he sold online. This Excel workbook kept information for high school baseball teams. He recently received a phone call from someone who had purchased this Excel workbook. The person calling ran a business with approximately 100 employees. This conversation lead to the former FIN 345 student being hired to create and maintain electronic records for the firm. Currently the firm is doing virtually everything using paper and pencil.

July 30, 2004: E-mail message from a former student: Student works at Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Chicago office. "Hope things are going well for you at Western. Continue teaching the value of computer skills. I've impressed some people with Excel applications that I considered to be elementary. You are a great professor and an asset to Western's program."

June 17, 2004: E-mail message from a former student (Spring 2004). Student got an internship at Holland USA: I was recently accepted as an intern at Holland USA and would not have got the position if it was not for my knowledge of Excel and SAP. In other words it was your class that was the most helpful in landing myself a job/internship.

June 14, 2004: E-mail message from a former student (Winter/Spring 2002) who is a Financial Analyst at Cutler-Hammer, Lincoln, IL (See April 25, 2003, message below): Thank you very much. I was referencing the wrong column in the match formula (Reply to assistance for using Index function with Match function). I must say that your class was and still is the most useful tool I took my whole college career. I felt the other classes gave me more of a vocabulary.

May 28, 2004: E-mail message from a former student (Fall 2003): I recently started a new internship at Kellogg, in Financial Reporting/Planning, and I can't tell you how many compliments I've had on my Excel skills. They are amazed by some of the little things you can do to be more efficient when building spreadsheets (especially complete brand P+Ls and forecasting models) and making them work for you. Just thought I would say thanks for being so persistent in class on details, in the real world it matters. Although some students may say 345 is too hard, it's the right way to teach the class (and all the rest of the finance classes in my opinion, many are much too easy).

May 5, 2004: E-mail message from a former student who is now a financial analyst at Kellogg: Much appreciation from myself and the other students that went through your class. You really went out of your way to spend extra time helping us and really pushed the application aspect of our education there and set high expectations, something I really wish more professors would do.

May 3, 2004: Prior e-mail message from the former student who also send the May 5, 2004 e-mail message. This is one part of that message. The message provides information about an internship position at Kellogg. The following is information about the skills needed for this position: The position would most likely work heavily with Excel (not necessarily Macros), possibly some Business Objects or other data query tool, SAP (the whole Order Management side of things), potentially Access, and possibly Hyperion (financial database/planning tool). It's not expected they would have strong SAP/Business Objects/Hyperion experience, but they should absolutely have strong skills in Excel (I think an A in Dr. Balik's class certainly meets this criteria) now and Access/database experience would be helpful. Finance, ISM, Accounting or IT majors would probably be choice. A GPA of 3.3 or higher would also be preferred, but not required.

March 15, 2004: E-mail from former student: I was in your FCL 345 class last fall. I just successfully interviewed for a Financial Analyst position here at National City. The interview process was competitive and we had to solve several problems. I want to thank you for what you taught me in your class as without it I would not have been offered this opportunity. For your review and to help other students I copied some of the questions into this email.

Explain the financial concept of NPV. Why is this a better measure than ROI?

Bob has a credit card with National City. The annual interest rate on his credit card is 9.9% fixed. Bob owes $3,500 on his credit card. a) If Bob pays $100 a month and makes no other purchases, how long will it take Bob to pay off his credit card? b) What amount should Bob pay monthly to pay off his credit card in 24 months? If Bob makes a new purchase of $1,000 in month 15, how long will it take him to pay off his credit card, assuming the $100 payment per month from a above?

Bob just received an offer from Bank X. He can transfer his balance from National City to Bank X and have an annual interest rate of 7.9% fixed. There is a 3% balance transfer fee. Should Bob take Bank X's offer?

Using Excel, graph the cumulative principal paid and interest paid for the first 6 months of Bob's loan on the same chart with two y-axes. Label and title the chart appropriately.

Question 8: Bank X has a $50MM credit card portfolio with a weighted-average annual percentage rate of 13.9%. Bank Y has offered to purchased bank X's loans for a 20% premium. What should Bank X consider when decided to accept or decline Bank Y's Offer?

February 20, 2004: E-mail from former student: I graduated from Western in December, and had your class during my junior year. I have received a job as a financial advisor for First Investors Corporation, and would like to extend a thank you for your help in me getting my new job. I was the only applicant that could tell them even the basics about Excel such as Report Manager. I actually still refer to your homepage if I'm confused on something. Even though your class was tough, I'm glad I took it, and would recommend it to anyone. Thank you again.

November 25, 2003: E-mail from former student: I graduated in August and now work as a Mortgage Banker for Quicken Loans. I hope everything is going well at WMU. I learned a lot in your class. I know Microsoft Excel better than anyone I work with.

October 21, 2003: E-mail from former student: I am trying to learn Access XP before I start my job at the SEC. I was told that I would need to know it, and that they would train me, but I would like to get a head start. Which book would you recommend? I looked at MS Access Version 2002: Inside and Out, MS Access Version 2002: Step by Step, MS Access Version 2002: Bible, MS Access Version 2002: For Dummies. Which would you suggest I purchase, or do you have a better suggestion? I have about a week and a half to learn the basics, but I could put 6 or 7 hours a day into it, if necessary. Your input would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

August 19, 2003: E-mail from former student: I just wanted to let you know that I have already put my newfound Excel skills to use. Basically, I was able to save one of my mentors (at The Fidelity Group, Troy, Michigan) countless hours calculating (and recalculating) sell recommendations (pertaining to both qualified and non-qualified retirement plans) by effectively using absolute values (F4 key) and various referencing functions. I always knew what you taught me would eventually come in handy, but not on the second day of work! Thanks!

April 25, 2003: E-mail from former student. Financial Analyst, Cutler-Hammer, Lincoln, IL: I would have to say that I use stuff from your class the most. Here are a few of the functions I use daily: VLOOKUP, IF, and HLOOKUP. I am surprised that I don't use any TVM calculations. It seems like that is the central idea to finance and I don't even use it. My position is really an accounting position, and I use Oracle Financials. Do you have any suggestions on books that could get me into VBA? It is not a requirement but I work with so many different spreadsheets and stuff that it would really help and speed certain processes up. I use a little but I would like to know more.

September 16, 2002: E-mail message from former student: I was in your FCL 345 this past winter semester (January - April 2002). I would like to take this time to thank you. I did not realize it at the time how much that class would accelerate me as a Finance major. Before taking 345, I really was clueless about finance. I had done well in 320 but I really didn't know very much. I could crunch numbers into a calculator. Reading the Wall Street Journal was like a foreign language. I was not forced to think. I never forget the first day of 345. You put a loan amortization schedule on the overhead and told us we would have to make one later on in the semester. My heart dropped. All I knew on Excel was how to add and multiply numbers. Now that project doesn't seem like much of a challenge at all. I truly respect the fact that you would not let 345 be another computer class and that you would not let us leave your class without knowing important people, events, and theories in finance. I especially appreciated the final exam. While other classmates were complaining, "Why do we need to know statistics, it is a computer class", I understood that you were making us learn where the numbers come from, and pushing us to be more than just number crunchers. In the spring, I took 351 and our professor made us calculate beta. Many students sat there like deer in headlights, they always thought beta was just given to you. No sweat for me, I could calculate it with Excel or, if you really wanted me to, use statistics. Lord knows many of my classmates wouldn't have the slightest idea what a residual is. Even though this semester is young, I already have been able to understand certain concepts in my finance classes because I have already seen them in my "computer class." I'm not sure if my other classmates haven't taken 345, didn't have you, or just didn't listen, because I feel as though I have an advantage over them. I have you to thank. FCL 345 was the hardest class I have had at WMU, and the A I earned in there is my proudest. Too many professors here appeal to the least common denominator in their classes. You force your students to their full potential. It is professors like you that make me a better student and future employee. Thank you again for all you've done.

Last Update on January 06, 2007. E-mail any comments to: robert.balik@wmich.edu