Welcome to the world of finance! Each semester when we welcome our students to class, we receive a bag of mixed emotions. Some students are excited with the thought of learning the technicalities of finance. Others have heard finance is hard and wish they were in a PE class instead. Finance is kind of like spinach—it's good for you, but not everyone likes it.

As we wrote this text, we realized that not everyone is as intrigued by finance as we are. We've done our best to make it as readable as possible, with a focus on applying the theories to everyday life. Many of the students who use this text are not finance majors, but a lot are. We've written it for everyone to understand.

In this first topic, we discuss three major issues that are important to understand prior to diving into the details of finance. First, we discuss the various disciplines within finance. In upper level finance classes, the texts are written specifically for the various sub-fields. We have intentionally written this text as a principles of finance text, laying the foundation for all of the finance sub-specialties. Second, we discuss the possible careers within the finance sub-fields. The finance universe offers many diverse job opportunities. Third, we discuss how corporate finance fits into business management in general.