Great course

Pretty good

Sensational

fantastic!

fenomenaal

Excellent

Valuable!

neat

.

This course has amazing value for its price.

Professor Hans Smit managed to pack a lot of content into only about 3 hours of videos.

You will still have to supplement the videos with reading and/or online research. In this regard, I suggest reading Chapters 1, 2 and 3; plus, the first parts of Chapters 4 and 5 of the Professor’s “Strategic Investment: Real Options and Games” for a more complete grasp of the theory and concepts discussed in the videos. For more practical examples, I suggest resorting to recent editions of “Principles of Corporate Finance” by Brealey et al. Brealey is especially relevant for those that, like me, never priced options in college or in a professional setting. I have not touched Game Theory in 10 years, but the Professor’s explanations, plus the practice exercises (and some parts of Robert Gibbons’ “Game Theory for Applied Economists”) were enough. Google will also yield decent tutorials.

The course is scheduled for completion in 5 weeks – but I managed to conclude the course in 2 weeks (I skipped the honor assignments), by studying at nights and during my weekends.

The quizzes can be infuriating, because of the rounding criteria – you will get all the exercises right, but the application will rate you with a lesser score, because your rounding is different from the rounding of the instructor. This is especially true in the NPV and ROV quizzes.

The first quiz is incredibly stressful and should not be used as a prelude to the rest of the course. The course is rigorous; but because of the videos, and if you “do your work” (as the Professor says in one of the videos), you will successfully understand the content and how to apply it. So, if the first quiz seems intimidating – do not worry.

In summary – if you love valuation, you will greatly enjoy (and benefit from) this course. The only problems are the first quiz and the rounding problems in the following quizzes.

The course materials were very good and the course was very well structured. The content was very relevant and well shared, with multiple videos, relevant additional readings and practice exercises. This is a course I will for sure recommend.

There was, however, a discrepancy between material delivered and exam questions, i.e. learning material was not sufficient to answer many questions in the final quizzes. I found myself researching a lot and reading further to be able to answer quizzes. While this is great on the one hand, as one learns more and develops, on the other hand I am not sure this is exactly what should happen in this online setting.

It was surprising to see that the honors assignments were a lot easier than the regular assignments.

The course was interesting and enjoyable. The DCF section was relevant and the excel exercise was helpful for someone building a DCF. The Real Options and Game Theory sections felt more theoretical, and would have been helpful to see more real-life applications of these concepts, but were still interesting nonetheless. The professor gave clear explanations though would have been helpful to have slides on the content (as opposed to reading the transcript / subtitles and pausing the videos to take notes).

The course introduces the amalgamation of basic game theory concepts and real options to provide an alternative framework for evaluating strategic investment decisions in uncertain and high stake situations. It is an excellent basic course to get started with understanding this framework. While mastering this framework for practical application would ideally require a lot more effort and resources, this is a good first course to get started.

It is a great course to grasp the underlying idea of how to do advanced valuation of investments. Given its short length, it is great. I would have loved to see more underlying explanations as I know the concepts here are provided in a very simplified fashion, with underlying assumptions, math and statistics are significantly more complex to dominate and hence apply in real situations. Great course whatsoever, it will not disappoint you!

I felt that while this course is overall very helpful and well structured, it assumes pre-acquired knowledge about some things on part of the student. For example, in a quiz, there was a question about the winner's curse while this topic wasn't covered in any of the lectures. I could do well cause I have studied Strategic Management under my MBA curriculum. Overall, there's been a steep learning curve for me through this course.

Course is one of the most professionally but together ones I've participated in. Occasionally it is a bit superficial, but it is a very good refresher for certain concepts and it does teach you a few things you wouldn't expect.

Sometimes you have to look for answers as you feel like the things asked in quizes aren't mentioned in the course, but overall I am satisfied with it. I would've regretted not completing this course.

Loved the depth of the course, great explanation videos and sometimes challenging exercises which required some thinking!

Main point of feedback is that I would have preferred to spend some more time on understanding some of the formula. Usually a fundamental understanding helps me in applications and understanding its limitations as well.

Great content. I would suggest providing the slides with the information in the animations. It's very important for following class and further reference. Also, additional reference material would be helpful, as some questions on the test are not covered in the videos.

Good course with great insights into valuation, game theory, and corporate strategy. Certain explanations were lacking at some points, which had to be looked up online. However, they were included in the certificate tests.

The course was of very high quality and the reaching by Professor Smit was excellent. Only thing, few of the explanations could have been more elaborate which might have helped me a lot (being from non-finance background)

An interactive overview of advanced valuation strategy. Classes webcasts are excellent and most assignments are challenging. Would like to see an extended class with more in depth examples and case studies.

More nuances with respect to in-depth calculations of certain metrics used ( beta values , factor values of u and d ) for example should be explained more explicitly with course work to compliment it .

If the screen had subtitles, it would have helped a lot. The course was compact but relevant. Some more and detailed explanation would have helped in better understanding of key concepts.

Really enjoyed the course! Technical, and testing it pushed my to properly understand the videos and readings, and for me to further my understanding in certain areas.

The course was quite good and unique and also very helpful for looking at things from a wider perspective. Helped me in understanding valuation and options concepts.