Spring 2027

Introduction to Personal Financial Planning

Introduction to Personal Financial Planning covers consumer finance topics including cash flow, asset/liability management, life cycle planning, investments, taxes, retirement, and estates.

offering recorded3 credits
Recorded instructors · Spring 2027 Linda Francetic Lepe

Summary

1 / 6

Past student reviews · Melody Harvey

Quizzes were open note and not too difficult, but the student felt they did not learn much from the course content.

What you’ll be able to do

  • Describe the financial planning process, techniques and terminology

  • Explain time value of money and its importance

  • Calculate and solve for future values, present values, rate of return, net present value, and net future value

  • Apply time value of money to help consumers achieve their financial goals

  • Develop recommendations and evaluate decision making regarding budgets, assets, consumer credit, investments, insurance, retirement, and estate planning

Source: UW Guide

Grade history

↗
average GPA
letter grades
A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

All recorded terms · compare terms & instructors

Prerequisites

Course map

None

  • None
CNSRSCI 275 used by

“Used by” includes alternatives; linked courses may have other requirements. This is a best-effort interpretation; check the catalog requirements above.

Prerequisite text tree
  • None

Professors

Spring 2027

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2025: 3.14 GPA, 65.2% A/AB (n=115 letter grades); Fall 2025: 3.51 GPA, 80.8% A/AB (n=104 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.22 GPA, 58.7% A/AB (n=63 letter grades). Includes jointly taught sections.

Historical instructors & teaching patterns

LINDA FRANCETIC LEPE is recorded teaching in Spring 2014, Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Spring 2023, Fall 2023, Fall 2024, Spring 2025, Fall 2025, Spring 2026. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

MELODY HARVEY is recorded teaching in Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Spring 2023. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Calendar & sections

Spring 2027

Schedule loads here as you scroll.

SectionModeEnrolled / capacityWaitlist
LEC 001Classroom Instruction0 / 600
LEC 002Classroom Instruction0 / 550

Times are Central. Select a meeting for details; export includes recorded dates for the selected sections. Enrollment reflects scan time.

Meeting source records
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Student experience

the class

Past student reviews · Melody Harvey

One student found the class enjoyable and the instructor funny, noting a positive learning experience.

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2025: 3.14 GPA, 65.2% A/AB (n=115 letter grades); Fall 2025: 3.51 GPA, 80.8% A/AB (n=104 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.54 GPA, 76.5% A/AB (n=136 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

Past student reviews · Melody Harvey

Quizzes were open note and not too difficult, but the student felt they did not learn much from the course content.

Past student reviews · Melody Harvey

A student criticized the instructor for recycling lectures and assignments, and noted slow, unsympathetic responses to student inquiries.

Topics

  • Personal sector cash flow, asset and liability management
  • Life cycle financial planning, investment management, tax planning, retirement, and estate planning
  • Analysis and evaluation related to personal financial planning

Skills

  • Describe the financial planning process, techniques and terminology
  • Explain time value of money and its importance
  • Calculate and solve for future values, present values, rate of return, net present value, and net future value
  • Apply time value of money to help consumers achieve their financial goals
  • Develop recommendations and evaluate decision making regarding budgets, assets, consumer credit, investments, insurance, retirement, and estate planning

Grades

Historical instructor

Spring 2027 · Projected

Before grades are released

– average GPA

Approximate 80% prediction interval

About this estimate

The course’s semester-average GPA, not an individual student’s grade. The center uses 5 same-season terms, weighted toward recent results.

The range uses the finite-sample 80th-percentile rank of absolute errors from earlier same-season forecasts. Each forecast uses only records from earlier terms. At least four forecasts are required; bounds are rounded outward and limited to 0–4. This is an empirical estimate: changing instructors or grading policies can reduce its coverage.

8 earlier forecasts · 0.16 GPA average error.

Grades over time

Through Spring 2027

More grade details Grade mix, volume & source data

Where this course fits relative to

Latest available grades · Spring 2026 · all course levels

GPA

Higher than % of other courses in this group.

Course GPAs · red marks this course’s range

letter grades

More recorded grades than % of other courses in this group.

Typical course in this group: letter grades.

About this comparison

1280 courses over the same term, each with at least 30 recorded letter grades. Cross-listed courses count once. GPA is not a measure of difficulty or teaching quality. The typical course is the median by recorded grade count; tied values are not counted as lower. Grade counts describe course scale, not unique students or typical section size.

Descriptions compare GPA with this group’s average: at least 0.20 higher or lower; otherwise close to average. Section size uses median recorded enrollment: small up to 30, mid-sized 31–99, large 100+. Lectures and discussion/lab sections are described separately.

Sources & history

UW–Madison

Catalog & offerings

Descriptions, prerequisites, and recorded course offerings.

Catalog observation history

Observations at scan time; dates do not imply when a catalog change took effect.

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Selected offering source records
CNSRSCI 275 · Spring 2027

Introduction to Personal Financial Planning

Recorded 2026-10-29
Raw records 
[
  {
    "run_id": "20261029T213040-0fa85c20",
    "semester": "1274",
    "observed_at": "2026-10-29 21:30:40.248904+00:00",
    "offering_id": "1274:271:004624",
    "course_id": "CNSRSCI 275",
    "course_uid": "course_bc61e79da96215de764ee362",
    "term_id": "1274",
    "source_course_id": "004624",
    "source_subject_id": "271",
    "title": "Introduction to Personal Financial Planning",
    "credits_min": 3,
    "credits_max": 3,
    "typically_offered": "Fall, Spring, Summer"
  }
]
Rate My Professors

Student reviews

Original comments behind the course and instructor summaries.

Read original reviews
Download part 1
Madgrades

Grade history

Recorded grade distributions by term, section, and instructor.

Explore recorded grades
Dataset & model

Recorded 2026-10-29

View the dataset on Hugging Face
Model outputs & technical records
Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B
LLM outputs across runs
Download part 1
Full model traces

Recorded model configuration, reasoning, and tool conversations.

Download part 1
Model & dataset provenance 
{
  "model": "Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B",
  "model_revision": "1d4bf0f2ff6012fd82039f2fa52739d0dd7c60c0",
  "task_version": "17",
  "output_id": "c06d264f82b3e9abc540287d219f113dd2a32b72a2534ee8cda05725df99becb",
  "requirements_status": "valid",
  "dataset_revision": "c9cd06eaa45f9ddf7e69faa38b89ff3d3dd995dd",
  "observed_at": "2026-10-29 21:30:40.248904+00:00"
}