St. Clair Today

St Clair County Community College issued the following annoucement on Aug. 18.

If you’ve taken a basic microcomputer applications course, you understand the value the training provides in your daily academic, personal or professional life.

You can take your computer skills to an advanced level this fall by enrolling in SC4’s Spreadsheets CIS-200 course with Professor Colleen Forsgren. Through a combination of lecture and hands-on experiences, students will learn the skills needed to make effective use of spreadsheets, including worksheet design, problem organization, use of advanced functions, data analysis, advanced charts and graphs, spreadsheet automation and presentation of results.

“Intermediate and advanced Microsoft Excel skills are incredibly valuable,” said Forsgren. “This technology proficiency is required in a vast range of industries and occupations, and it is the most common software competency listed in job postings.”

In Professor Forsgren’s class students start with a quick overview of basic spreadsheet skills, then embark on a deep dive into skills which are most valuable in the workplace, including:

• Accurately utilizing advanced functions, such as lookup and financial functions
• Analyzing data, including the use of pivot tables and pivot charts
• Creating meaningful charts and graphs to explain data
• Grouping, sorting, and filtering data
• Validating data
• Automating work with macros by creating computer code to execute a series of instructions and actions

At the end of every semester, students are asked “What was your best learning activity in this class?” Professor Forsgren stated, “The most common answer every semester is the Professional Project.”

The multi-week project takes students into a real-world work scenario where the accuracy, efficiency and professional presentation must be perfect. “The project uses skills taught in class and aligns with workplace expectations,” continued Forsgren. “While the need for a final product without error is required, this is more like a work assignment with review, feedback, and revision to get to the end goal.”

SC4 faculty love hearing from former students about the impact they had in their educational journey of success. These stories are often shared with current and future students as encouragement to keep going after their goals.

“I love teaching this class because students write me after the course telling me how they used the skills in their current position or how their advanced proficiency with Excel helped them get a job,” Forsgren said with pride.

Original source can be found here.