Excel Courses

dirtychinchilla · 8 Aug 2014 at 08:20

Morning all,

My girlfriend's wanting to do a course in Excel. I could teach her most of what she needs to know, but I'm not a very good teacher and it wasn't terribly successful in the past.

So, has anyone got any recommendations on books or relatively cheap courses (the one she was looking at was 1 day and £250+vat!!).

I can look up books etc, but I've got no real idea if any will be any good.

Thanks

dirtychinchilla · 8 Aug 2014 at 11:30

Thanks guys, I really appreciate the suggestions.

A one day course doesn't sound like it's going to be that comprehensive, to me. I think you're right, Mr. Nelson; when they say basic it'll be extraordinarily basic, and I think she's probably past that stage and will be wasting her money.

I learnt as I went over the years, but unfortunately she's about to be unemployed, so is looking to do this course to help her find a job, which means that she won't be able to learn as she goes.

I'll pass your suggestions onto her. I really appreciate them, thanks again chaps.

dirtychinchilla · 8 Aug 2014 at 11:37

Unfortunately, she doesn't have the opportunity at the moment to learn through experience because she's about to be unemployed. I would advise the same thing to her, though. I've learnt everything through experience. I think that setting some goals would be great, but I'm terrible at that - perhaps we'll be able to find some online.

Thanks for the advice

dirtychinchilla · 8 Aug 2014 at 11:45

Yeah I know what it's like "doing stuff", you never get anywhere. I learned a lot of what I know now from working for Skidder, actually. Though thinking back, if I'd known VBA then like I do now, I would have been a lot more efficient.

dirtychinchilla · 8 Aug 2014 at 11:46

anticonscience said:
So what exactly does she want to do with these new skills once she has learnt Excel?

I think she's lost a couple of job opportunities from not being able to use Excel as well as they'd like. She'd like to do some sort of account management, I think, so basic Excel skills would be useful for that.

dirtychinchilla · 8 Aug 2014 at 13:34

Thanks for the link, I'll take a look tomorrow

and for all the other suggestions, guys. I'll try and create some scenarios for her to work through, as that seems to be key from my experience and yours.

Fortunately, she's taken my advice and isn't going to go on the course. It turns out that some people she works with (though won't be on Monday), have just been on exactly the same course that she was looking at, and it was basically things like add cell a1+a2...!

dowie, she will indeed have time, but it always helps if you're in an environment where your only aim is to learn.