Navigation

• Canvas: important announcements, grades, calendar, etc.
• Instructor Contact and General Info:
  • Instructor
  • Office Hours
  • Textbook
  • Prerequisites
  • Class Meeting Times
  • Exams
  • Grade Calculation
• Course Description and Information:
  • Course Content
  • Homework Policy
  • E-Mail Policy
• Legal Issues:
  • Conduct
  • Disabilities
  • Sexual Harassment
  • Campus Syllabus
• Handouts (including HW and Worksheet)

Instructor Contact and General Information

 

Instructor:	Luís Finotti
Office:	Ayres Hall 251
Phone:	974-1321 (don't leave messages! --e-mail me if I don't answer!)
e-mail:	lfinotti@utk.edu
Office Hours:	TuW 11:10-12:10 or by appointment.

 

Textbook:	None. Notes will suffice.
Prerequisite:	None.
Class Meeting Time:	M 11:15-12:05. (Section 018.)
Exams:	None.
Grade:	Pass/Fail based on HWs (at least 60% average) and class participation.
	Attendance required!

 

Course Description and Information

Course Content

The main goal of this course is to provide the necessary mathematical tools for you to understand finances, more precisely, investments and loans. As such, we will begin with exponential and logarithms, which play the central roles in this context. We will start those from the beginning, even though most students should be familiar with them. But we will try to do it in the most natural way, and hopefully offer a new perspective on them.

When we have mastered exponentials and logs, we will start with finances. The central topic is, of course, compound interest. We will deal with many very concrete examples of loans and investments. In particular, you will learn how to make a savings plan, and predict future values, giving you the ability to understand and take control of your financial situation/future.

If time allows, we will also deviate into (mathematically) related topics, such as radioactive decay and carbon dating.

Since this course will happen only once a week, it is very important that you take a quick look over the notes before class, so that you don't forget all that was done in the previous week.

 

Homework Policy

Every once in a while I will assign a few problems. They should be quick and simple, with the main goal of making you practice what we've learned in class. An average of 60% is necessary to pass the course. You can work in groups, but each student has to write his own solutions and disclose the name of the other students in the group.

I will likely go over the solutions on the beginning of the class, so I can't accept late HWs, unless we've discussed it beforehand or you have a documented excuse.

Although the first two HW sets are already posted below (in the section Handouts), the HW will be done in Canvas.

Attendance is required! Every students can miss up to two classes without justification. For more than two you will need a properly documented reason.

 

E-Mail Policy

I will assume you check your e-mail at least once a day, but preferably you should check your e-mail often. I will use your e-mail (given to me by the registrar's office) to make announcements. (If that is not your preferred address, please make sure to forward your university e-mail to it!) I will assume that any message that I sent via e-mail will be read in less than twenty four hours, and it will be considered an official communication.

 

Legal Issues

Conduct

All students should be familiar with Hilltopics' Students Code of Conduct and maintain their Academic Integrity: from Hilltopics Academics:

Academic Integrity

Study, preparation, and presentation should involve at all times the student’s own work, unless it has been clearly specified that work is to be a team effort. Academic honesty requires that the student present their own work in all academic projects, including tests, papers, homework, and class presentation. When incorporating the work of other scholars and writers into a project, the student must accurately cite the source of that work. For additional information see the applicable catalog or the UT Libraries site. See also Honor Statement (below).

All students should follow the Honor Statement (also from Hilltopics Academics):

Honor Statement

"An essential feature of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, is a commitment to maintaining an atmosphere of intellectual integrity and academic honesty. As a student of the university, I pledge that I will neither knowingly give nor receive any inappropriate assistance in academic work, thus affirming my own personal commitment to honor and integrity."

You should also be familiar with the Classroom Behavior Expectations.

We are in a honor system in this course!

 

Disabilities

Students with disabilities that need special accommodations should contact the Student Disability Services and bring me the appropriate letter/forms.

 

Sexual Harassment and Discrimination

For Sexual Harassment and Discrimination information, please visit the Office of Equity and Diversity.

 

Campus Syllabus

Please, see also the Campus Syllabus.

 

Handouts

 

• Homework I.
• Homework II.

• Here are the files to compute interest: finances.ods (in Open Document format) and finances.xls (in MS Excel format). You can also access it from Google Docs here. (You cannot edit it, but you can copy to your own Google Drive.) Here are the instructions: instructions.txt (plain text: you can open it in any text editor, including MS Notepad).

  If you don't have MS Office, you can use something like LibreOffice or Gnumeric (which is just a light weight spreadsheet application). (Or you can use Google Docs, as explained above.)

• Worksheet.

• Campus Syllabus.