When I started my career in finance, just like many of you, I got super excited about Investment Banking. I mean, who doesn’t? High-paying job, suits, Excel, all that jazz.
So naturally, I googled “how to get into investment banking” — and boom — everywhere I read, one thing was clear:
👉 You NEED to know financial modelling.
So I thought, okay, let’s do this. I went ahead and bought a very expensive financial modelling course.
It was a good learning experience — I won’t lie — but here’s the thing I realised later (and trust me, I wish someone had told me this before):
It doesn’t matter where you learn it from.
No interviewer is going to look at your resume and say,
“Oh wow! You learned modelling from that famous XYZ institute?”
No.
They’ll ask you questions. They’ll test how good your models are. That’s it.
And today, with so much free (and good) content available, and even tools like ChatGPT, paying ₹30,000–50,000 for a course just doesn’t make sense (unless you’re doing it for structure or mentorship).
My Honest Opinion:
👉 Don’t buy an expensive course.
👉 Buy a cheap and valuable one if you really need a push.
👉 Or even better — start learning for free.
Here are some genuine free resources that can help you get started:
✅ Free Financial Modelling Resources:
- Wall Street Prep – Free Resources (Good for understanding concepts with free articles & examples.)
- Aswath Damodaran’s Valuation & Corporate Finance Courses (Absolute goldmine from NYU Professor. He’s the GOAT in valuation. Also has an youtube channel)
- YouTube Channel – Corporate Finance Institute. (Tons of free content explaining real-world models.)
- Khan Academy – Accounting & Finance (Great for beginners who want to build solid basics.)
- Excel Modeling Practice – Excel University. (Practice modelling with Excel exercises.)
Final Advice:
You become better at financial modelling not by watching videos, but by actually building models — Balance Sheet, Income Statement, DCF, Valuation models, etc.
Start small, practice daily. That’s how you’ll improve.
Happy Learning 😊
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