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 No instructors listed

Summary

1 / 6

Past student reviews · Melody Harvey

Quizzes were open note and not too difficult, but the course relied on posted slides and older videos rather than live instruction.

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

No instructors recorded for this selection.

Historical instructors & teaching patterns

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 / 600

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

Student experiences with Professor Harvey varied widely, with one student describing her as funny and effective, while another found the online delivery lazy and unengaging.

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 course relied on posted slides and older videos rather than live instruction.

Past student reviews · Melody Harvey

A student felt the instructor made little effort, recycled past materials, and responded slowly to student inquiries without showing sympathy.

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.

Download part 1
Selected offering source records
CNSRSCI 275 · Spring 2027

Introduction to Personal Financial Planning

Recorded 2026-10-14
Raw records 
[
  {
    "run_id": "20261014T203208-0851c9a1",
    "semester": "1274",
    "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+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 2026-10-14

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": "047f0a94d63586db1f70166acdeb82d92e646ee96ef03f713ac738048389a99b",
  "requirements_status": "valid",
  "dataset_revision": "fc1811fa52e581ea57a35c0cf3343f8740a8ffbf",
  "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00"
}