Pre-MBA Excel training

[rustjs1]

I'm starting business school this fall and desperately need to work on my Excel skills. Any ideas on classes/certification that I can take to prepare me? Thanks

 

[Cluck]

go online, buy the Excel Bible, read the whole thing cover to cover while actually in Excel and start memorizing shortcuts. I am in Excel probably 6 hours a day and it helps tremendously.

 

[Palladio]

I recommend you go to Microsoft's Office Online Site and click on the Demos and Training links in the left column. From there, you can select Excel 2003 or Excel 2007 (depending on which version you have), and either watch demos of various actions, or go through interactive training modules. Both are free and on-demand.

I recommend you develop the following Excel skill areas:
1. Creating formulas and using functions, particularly financial functions
2. Keyboard shortcuts
3. Formatting spreadsheets, at least at a basic level - merging cells, underlining, turning on/off borders for cells and different sides of cells. This is important when creating accounting documents like Balance Sheet, Income Statement, etc.
4. Pivot Tables
5. Creating charts and customizing them - changing colors, resizing, removing unnecessary parts, etc.. You will likely be copying and pasting these into PowerPoint and Word.

Regarding keyboard shortcuts, they will save you TONS of time. This knowledge will come in handy when you're crushed with assignments. I recommend learning these kinds of keyboard shortcuts:

1. Moving around in the workbook, worksheet and ranges of data
2. Selecting certain ranges of data
3. Manipulating the selection of data - Bold, Underline, Italicize, Change Font Size, Copy/Paste, Insert Row, Insert Column, etc.
4. Working with formulas and functions

As an aside, I would also learn some keyboard shortcuts for Outlook. If you're using Outlook as your mail client, you will spend a good amount of time in that. Learning more keyboard shortcuts in Outlook means less time doing mundane tasks like replying "Thanks" or accepting meeting requests.

I'm a tech trainer - I teach MS Office skills. PM me if you want more info or have questions.

 

[txangel03]

Does your school offer pre-MBA prep work? Mine offers "refresher" classes during the summer to get people who've been out of school for a while a reminder, or non-math majors a basic understanding.

 

[txeconomist]

i have a good book for you.

 

[PacSER]

The Link
The Link

 

[MGS]

I'm an engineer, and went into SMU's MBA school without knowing anything about Excel. I did ok. They teach what you need to know.

 

[ghost]

PacSER - You have an MBA account at UT so the rest of us can download the training materials?

 

[rustjs1]

Good info. Thanks.

There are summer classes, but nothing is offered on Excel

 

[PacSER]

In reply to:

---

---

 

[ghost]

I was talking more about the training materials below the video.

 

[soonerinatlanta]

videoprofessor.com offers 99 hrs of training for $1. I went through excel, word, powerpoint and access and still have plenty of time left on my account.

It has easy to follow videos. I started this last summer with my stepson and had him learn powerpoint. I then gave him an assignment to give a presentation about our vacation.

The commercials are kinda cheesy but I find that I can do stuff in excel that others can't. The videos cover all the basics mentioned above as well as how to import and export data.