Take My Liberty BUSI 321 Class

BUSI 321 studies how the U.S. and global financial systems are organized and run, what the Fed does, monetary theory and how policy moves markets and the economy.

Madura's chapters move roughly from what markets and intermediaries do and why rates differ by term and risk, through the Federal Reserve, monetary policy and money markets, to bond and mortgage markets, stock markets and their valuation, and then futures, options, swaps and foreign exchange.

The final weeks turn to institutions: commercial banks and their regulation and performance, other lenders and savings institutions, mutual funds, securities firms, insurance companies and pension funds.

A Discussion Board Forum worth 60 points is due in every week, eight in all.

Wall Street Journal Article Reviews fall in weeks three, five and seven, worth 24, 48 and 48 points.

Every even-numbered week ends with a 100-point test.

Weekly forums are the biggest block at 480 points, followed by the tests at 400 and the reviews at 120.

BUSI 321 is taken one week at a time, since a forum is due every week. Each thread is prepared before its week opens and drafted from that week's Madura and Cowan chapters and lecture notes.

Threads connect the chapter to what is happening in markets. A thread on interest rates might explain why long-term Treasury yields moved after a recent jobs report using the expectations and liquidity premium theories; a thread on the Fed might trace how a change in the federal funds target reaches mortgage rates and business borrowing.

Threads cite Madura and fresh data from the Fed, Treasury or BLS in APA 7, with replies after classmates post.

Article reviews are built around a recent Wall Street Journal story chosen to match the week's topic. Each summarizes the article, explains it with the course's concepts and judges its implications for markets, institutions or policy, following your section's format.

If you prefer to pick the articles yourself, send the links and the reviews are written around them.

The tests are yours.

Posts and reviews reach you early; uploading them is yours.

Where a prompt asks for your own view, such as whether the Fed should raise rates, the thread takes a clear position and supports it with data, which you can adjust before posting.

Threads use current Federal Reserve data to illustrate the week's concepts.

Data are current.

A BUSI 321 writer has studied finance or economics and worked in a bank, a brokerage, an asset manager or a corporate treasury, often with a securities license or the CFA.

That experience gives the forums a practitioner's view: how a bank's net interest margin responds to rate changes, why a company might hedge with a swap, what moves the dollar against the euro.

Writers follow markets daily, which matters in a course that rewards current examples.

A second reviewer checks every figure and every explanation of a market mechanism.

Your name and account never reach the writer; the coordinator handles all contact.

If a concept puzzles you before a test, such as the inverse relationship between bond prices and yields, the coordinator can arrange a short plain explanation.

Prompts about Scripture and money, debt or lending are answered by writers at home with that subject.

The reading load is the first problem. Three or four Madura chapters a week, a Cowan chapter and lecture notes leave little time for writing.

The weekly forum is the second. Eight forums worth 60 points each means the largest share of the grade is spread across every week, and a single missed week costs six percent of the grade.

The third is abstraction. Monetary policy transmission, the term structure of interest rates and derivatives pricing are hard to explain without examples.

The fourth is finding a suitable Wall Street Journal article, reading it closely and connecting it to the textbook.

The fifth is the tests, which cover six to eight chapters each and include both concepts and calculations.

Students without an economics background often find the Fed chapters the hardest.

Integrating a biblical view of money with technical market content can feel forced without practice.

Booked early, the course begins with Forum 1 drafted.

Each later thread is delivered before its week opens; replies are drafted as classmates post.

Each review lands a few days before its week ends.

The quote has a line for each of the eight forums and the three reviews. Tests are never priced.

Students who start partway through pay only for the weeks ahead.

With 600 of the course's points in writing, handing over the forums and reviews protects most of the grade while you prepare for the tests.

Test days carry no deliveries.

A short note with each post lists the key terms it uses, a quick way to review before the next test.