Word, Excel, Power Point

[lampshade]

I am not knowledgeable in all three programs. I'd really love to take a class. Possibly earning a certificate. Just so a potential employer would know I took the time and spent the money so he/she would look at me as a potential, serious employee.

I've looked at colleges, vocational schools, and libraries and have not found a single class.

Any suggestions?

 

[Ronstar]

I took an Excel course a long time ago at a junior college. It wasn't part of the normal curriculum. It was an adult learning class that wasn't advertised.

It may help to visit or call a local college for advice. Researching these things online is difficult. Maybe the admissions office or similar will have knowledge of programs that can help you.

 

[MissMolly]

There are any number of online classes available. Also many libraries teach introduction to the Office Suite. How close are you to Morris County?
https://mclib.info/computer-classes/




Or you could look into this place
https://www.certstaff.com/classes/schedule+location_id+2589.html

 

[kgtest]

I am not knowledgeable in all three programs. I'd really love to take a class. Possibly earning a certificate. Just so a potential employer would know I took the time and spent the money so he/she would look at me as a potential, serious employee.

I've looked at colleges, vocational schools, and libraries and have not found a single class.

Any suggestions?

I can tutor. Im me lol. I am a wizard in all three. It will depend on what you want to learn, but I will likely have to give you ideas.

Word is great for documents, but has its limits where I feel like XLS fills all of that void. Some never open Word, and only use Excel.

I think being proficient does not need to include putting an ivy league stamp on it.

I taught myself everything but nothing beats on the job practice. I built the most ridiculous spreadsheet...I Outta post my dashboard I made...it's all in Sheets though, I prefer the cloud over XLS hard copies.

 

[kgtest]

I also prefer google slides over MS slides. it's free and plenty of templates to get you started.

As a project, pretend you are going to present your balance sheet to the "board" and make a google slide, to accompany the financial data in Sheets.

 

[kgtest]

If you have those two artifacts, and you made them yourself. and walked in and showed them with your Resume, you would probably blow the socks off the competition.

 

[SevenUp]

I can tutor. Im me lol. I am a wizard in all three. ...it's all in Sheets though, I prefer the cloud over XLS hard copies.

If you are interested, it appears none of the folks over at MMM can get Sheets to do something Excel does.

See Any Google Sheets knowledge?

Unless Sheets just doesn't have the functionality...?

 

[GalaxyBoy]

Our local library system has classes all the time. Sometimes the county parks and rec organization does, too.

At MegaCorp, the training I got was "here." Which is a shame, because once I had really gotten good at Word and Excel I realized virtually nobody was using them "correctly," meaning using Styles in Word and Tables in Excel. So whenever someone got into my document they completely wrecked it. So kudos on taking the initiative.

That said, I learned most all I know by using The Google. There are a lot of sites out there with a wealth of knowledge, but IMHO Microsoft's ain't one of them.

 

[jwkde]

Try a local senior center

 

[exnavynuke]

I am not knowledgeable in all three programs. I'd really love to take a class. Possibly earning a certificate. Just so a potential employer would know I took the time and spent the money so he/she would look at me as a potential, serious employee.

I've looked at colleges, vocational schools, and libraries and have not found a single class.

Any suggestions?

Lynda has a bunch of great courses. Not free, but not expensive either (they're great for learning a lot of different programs actually).

 

[Midpack]

Unless Sheets just doesn't have the functionality...?

You can’t beat the price of Sheets (free in exchange for Google data mining) or its ease of collaboration, and it has all the capability 95% of users will ever need. But Excel has many more features and handles larger more complex files than Sheets for the 5% than need/want that. There are definitely things you can’t do with Sheets that you can with Excel.

 

[scrabbler1]

I have seen offerings for Word and Excel in the Adult Ed catalogs from my public school district.


I'm glad I learned Word and Excel (and Lotus before that) early in my career. Very handy tools to know in my personal life. Never learned Powerpoint, never needed it.

 

[donheff]

If you are proficient enough with computers to post here there are lots of online tutorials you could take. Employers probably wouldn't make a distinction between a certificate and a simple assertion of proficiency on your resume.

I used to teach an 18 week course that was exactly what you describe at a nonprofit named Computer C.O.R.E. in northern VA. It largely served immigrants trying to upgrade their skills but we had a fair number of native born Americans who simply never had the opportunity to learn those skills. Many of my students had never used a mouse so we also covered basic computer use, Internet browsing, and email before we tackled MS Office.

 

[Aerides]

Sheets is nice, but some corps will not use it for their data, period. Google docs, same.
And proficiency in MS Office products lends to easy conversion of skills to google suite.

Double check your libraries, particularly larger county ones, you'll be sure to find something. Might be bundled in with Computer skills courses.

 

[jim584672]

If you really want to impress learn VBA (Visual Basic for Applications). It can make Office do ANYTHING.

Also learn Access and SQL.

 

[tmm99]

I use udemy.com if I want to learn something. You have to pay, but they have a sale going on all the time, so you really don't pay much ($10-$15)

 

[zinger1457]

Most community colleges offer computer classes, often part of their extended learning program, and usually fairly cheap (~$50 at my local CC).

 

[Rich]

For starters, go on YouTube and query each of the programs. Loads of stuff showing you how to do things with each one.


Rich

 

[Jerry1]

As a project, pretend you are going to present your balance sheet to the "board" and make a google slide, to accompany the financial data in Sheets.

This to me is critical. Define your intended use and either mock up a project, or actually perform one. Then do more. A class is a good way to begin, but to say you're proficient, you will need to use the programs and to do that, it was best for me to actually have a defined need or project to accomplish which caused me to get into the program and learn how to make it do what I needed.

Typing a basic letter in Word, no problem. Same with doing a simple spreadsheet in Excel. PowerPoint is a little more difficult (at least for me) because by it's nature, you get into a lot of formatting and inter-workings of the program if you want to make a slick presentation.

 

[greydog17]

As others mention, take classes at local community college or adult ed.

But, I recently saw an article from a recruiter about what not to put on resume; "skills; Word, Excel, Powerpoint…" employers now assume everyone has these skills and listing it will make them actually question the skill of the resume owner.

 

[tmm99]

As others mention, take classes at local community college or adult ed.

But, I recently saw an article from a recruiter about what not to put on resume; "skills; Word, Excel, Powerpoint…" employers now assume everyone has these skills and listing it will make them actually question the skill of the resume owner.

I still see people mentioning MS Office Suite without mentioning each one separately. I personally wouldn't mention certificates and such for these though since I think that would make you look like an amateur and inexperienced. If you're an advanced Excel person, I would definitely mention that fact.

 

[wmackey]

I've been using Excel and Word since they came out for MS-DOS. I also taught Excel and Access for the local community college for a number of years. Honestly, the best way to learn is to pick a personal project you are interested in and have at it.

Additionally, I've played with Google doc's and a number of other open source tools. They are OK for home use. In a business environment, there are little discrepancies that limit moving back and forth with Office.

Finally, have to agree with previous post. If you really want to stand out, get one of the VBA books and work through it. I like Excel 2013 Power Programming with VBA, but any of them would probably work.

 

[jimbee]

I don't think there was a version of MS Excel for MS-DOS.

 

[copyright1997reloaded]

I am not knowledgeable in all three programs. I'd really love to take a class. Possibly earning a certificate. Just so a potential employer would know I took the time and spent the money so he/she would look at me as a potential, serious employee.

I've looked at colleges, vocational schools, and libraries and have not found a single class.

Any suggestions?

I teach full time at a community college, and have taught both Excel and Access credit classes (as well as all four products in the suite in an intro class). So, you need to look further. If you message me with your location I will look into it to see what I can come up with. If you want to go further, consider the MOS (Microsoft Office Specialist) certification tests (there are expert" and "master" certification levels). The Excel and Access classes we teach use test banks and methodologies (for better or worse) that are used on the certification exam.

[For the first time in over five years, I am not teaching any Microsoft office classes this fall, instead just doing higher level computer science classes.]

 

[DatumPoint5]

JimB is correct, it was never offered for the DOS OS. The original MS Spreadsheet program prior to the first version of Excel was entitled "Multiplan"

Interesting factoids: The "first version of Excel was entitled Excel 2.0" There never was a "1.0" Also, other spreadsheet programs were dominated by MS Excel such as Lotus 123, Quattro Pro, VP Planner, The Twin, Ashton Tate's - Full Impact (Wow, That reminds me of programming in DBase)!!!!!!