Embarking on a career in finance? This article highlights the technical skills required, including proficiency in Python, SQL, and Microsoft Excel, and the rewarding career paths that await you after mastering these skills.

How Difficult is it to Learn Finance?

Are you curious about learning finance but worried it might be too hard? The challenges of learning finance depend on factors like data volume, being financially literate, and needing various skills. A new skill's difficulty is somewhat subjective.

Whatever your current schedule or comfort level with finance, various tools are available to make learning easier than you might think.

What is Finance?

In its most basic definition, finance is the management of money. Finance includes investing, lending, budgeting, borrowing, saving, forecasting, and studying money. There are multiple areas of finance, including personal, corporate, and public finance. 

Personal finance deals with keeping your debt down, budgeting, growing your assets, and increasing cash flow, among others. The three main types of corporate finance are capital budgeting, capital structure, and dividend policy. Among the significant concerns of public finance are the budgeting process and an entity’s revenue source. 

Read more about what finance is and why you should learn it. 

What Can You Do with Finance?

At its root, finance deals with managing money. This includes investing, saving, budgeting, forecasting, borrowing, and lending. Here are three solid career paths to follow with a firm understanding of finance.

• Accountant - This lucrative field is ideal for anyone with a love of numbers, though it is not necessary to be successful. Within a company, an accountant often creates, interprets, and analyzes a wide range of financial statements. Company accountants and management come together as partners to create budgets. Finally, accountants handle the tax matters of a company, including filing returns and planning out tax liabilities.

• Business Development Officer - Companies hire Business Development Officers to develop and execute strategies that lead to increased sales and higher profits. These officers also seek out business opportunities and secure the best business deals. They are responsible for negotiating deals and meeting with potential investors.

• Financial Data Analyst - These professionals analyze data to assist financial institutions in making better business decisions. Among their numerous responsibilities is compiling information from different divisions of a company. These analysts also look for ways to improve the company's current methods of data collection.

What Are the Most Challenging Parts of Learning Finance?

Some concepts will come easier to you than others when learning new skills. Finance is no different. Since every individual has different abilities and strengths, the concepts they find most difficult are subjective. Financial ratios, for example, may be easier to understand for someone with a finance background. However, here are some of the most common challenges in finance. 

• The volume of data: When starting a financial career, you may become overwhelmed with the amount of data that requires input into various databases. Regarding financing, various aspects need to be tracked, which can lead to high amounts of data. To make this less challenging, you can learn various data science programs to learn how to automate various parts of the process. 

• Being financially literate: While this is the main part of finance, it is also one of the most difficult parts of the process, as many individuals struggle with basic financial formulas. To make this easier, take your time with each formula you come across to ensure you have them locked down. 

• Needing various skills: Finance requires more than just financial literacy to be proficient at your job. You will need to know programs like Python and Microsoft Excel to be able to do your job. To minimize this challenge, take the time to learn these skills while learning finance. Doing so will allow you to learn how to use these skills in the financial world.

How Does Learning Finance Compare to Other Applications/Languages/Fields?

The field of finance is vast, offering gainful career paths in several industries. Careers in FinTech, banking, investment, insurance, corporate finance, and financial planning and advising all require a strong understanding of finance. It is important to note that learning finance for financial planning will differ considerably from that of an insurance professional.

Top finance roles include anything from Financial Analyst to Investment Banker, to roles in FinTech like Data Scientist. To get ahead in finance and FinTech careers, one should train in Python, Java, SQL, and other in-demand skills. Some of these areas are certainly more challenging and rewarding to learn. Enrolling in a comprehensive bootcamp or certificate program can deliver the foundation you need to succeed.

Read more about how finance compares to other fields.

How to Make the Learning Process Easier

Unfortunately, some aspects of learning finance are challenging; however, these challenges are rewarding when you tackle them. Thankfully, there are some ways to make those challenging concepts easier to learn. 

• Consider your learning preferences. When learning finance, take the time to consider the ways you learn best. Take the time to practice the skills you need more time with. Doing so will ensure you are set up for the best success when learning these new concepts. 

• Work with and understand your finances. Before jumping in and working on the finances of a company, you should apply your knowledge on a smaller scale. Not only will applying financial principles to your finances help grow your finances, but it will help your understanding of different financial concepts. 

• Connect with a mentor. There are thousands of people in the financial industry with the knowledge that can help you. Connecting with someone with more experience in the field can help you find positions that would be right for you and help you understand concepts you may be struggling with.

Know Your Area of Study

To help minimize any stress or challenges that may arise later in your career or learning process, take the time to decide which area of finance you wish to enter. Taking the time early in the process to narrow down which area you want to focus on will help minimize some of the struggles later on.

If you want to enter into investing, you can spend less time learning Python or SQL but more time learning the stock market. For accounting or financial planning, put more focus on Python and SQL. You can maximize your training without overwhelming yourself if you narrow down what you need to study. 

You can check out What is Investing and What is Accounting to find more information on these areas of finance to find out which one may be right for you.

Learn Finance with Hands-on Training at Noble Desktop

Some believe the only way to learn finance, whether for a career or personal benefit, is through a lengthy, time-consuming degree program. Luckily, there are many alternatives. Many people feel the bootcamp or certificate training model is the superior path.

As a premier provider of online education, Noble Desktop provides multiple ways to learn finance. They offer numerous thoughtful educational options to expand your finance skill set quickly, whether you're new to the field, already working in finance, or in a position that requires a deep understanding of it. Here are some of Noble Desktop's most popular programs.

• FinTech Bootcamp - Taught by expert instructors, this extensive FinTech bootcamp is intended for beginners. You can complete this course in four weeks full-time or four months part-time. Among the topics covered are the fundamentals of Python, data structures, and how to use SQL to query databases.

• Python for Finance Bootcamp - This 18-hour detailed Python for Finance Bootcamp is designed for Risk Managers, Financial Analysts, Portfolio Managers, and those seeking a career in finance technology and data analysis. Students will learn the major Python financial libraries, how to analyze financial statements from the SEC website, and how to apply statistical measures.
  
  
• Financial Analyst Training Program - While some knowledge of accounting and finance is helpful for this seven-day Financial Analyst Training Program, it is not necessary nor required. If you're looking to carve out a career path at a top financial firm, this bootcamp is the most effective and affordable course to learn these skills.

Other Noble Desktop courses to consider are the Premiere Pro Bootcamp, Video Editing Certificate, and Premiere Pro classes and bootcamps.