Courses

Fintech Scholars offers free courses and offers certificates that are free upon completion. Fintech Scholars is a student-led nonprofit academy that has cohorts, student-led clubs, and competitions. These free self-paced courses was created by Nick Chen after he realized that getting a cerficate that was free was quite impossible. Contact nick@fintechscholars.org for the free certificate with the capstone project.

Excel for Finance

• Data Handling: sorting, filtering, tables

• Charts & Visualizations: line, bar, combo charts

• Pivot Tables & Dashboards

• Financial Functions: NPV, IRR, PMT

• Scenario Analysis, Goal Seek, Solver

• Advanced financial dashboards

• VBA basics for automation

• Capstone Project: Build a full company financial dashboard including KPI metrics, scenario analysis, and automated reporting.

Powerpoint for Finance

1. Basic slides: text, images, simple charts

2. Formatting and layout

3. Summarize a company in 3 slides

4. Designing slides for finance reports

5. Visual storytelling with charts, tables, and infographics

6. Investor/board-ready presentation design

7. Advanced charts: waterfall, bridge, KPI dashboards

8. Presenting complex financial models clearly

9. Capstone Project: Create a pitchbook or executive presentation based on Excel or Financial Modeling capstone data, telling the story of a deal or company analysis.

Financial Modeling

1. Introduction to financial statements: Income, Balance, Cash Flow

2. Linking 3 statements

3. Mini forecasting exercises

4. Build a simple 3-statement model

5. Basic DCF & comparables valuation

6. Sensitivity analysis

7. Full professional 3-statement model with multi-scenario forecasts

8. Advanced valuation: DCF, precedent transactions, LBO basics

9. IB Deal-Level Capstone: Simulate a full transaction (M&A or LBO) including:

   1. 3-statement integration

   2. Scenario and sensitivity analysis

   3. Valuation with DCF, comparables, and precedent transactions

   4. Executive-level pitchbook summarizing the deal