Tulane University Freeman School BLOG

I received the following question from a recently admitted Freeman MBA:

I have just been accepted to Freeman and plan on attending this fall. My
question involves my lack of experience with Excel. Would you recommend a
particular book or class that I might be able to dive into before I get to New
Orleans so that I'm not completely helpless at first? Or possibly someone at
Tulane that I should contact to discuss this. I do not currently use Excel at
my job and have limited knowledge of the program.


Good question! Throughout my MBA I often wonder if it shouldn’t be called a TMFA (Two year Masters of Finance). Finance is so important for many graduate jobs being able to navigate your way around a spreadsheet is essential.

I reached out to Professor Russ Robins, who teaches the introductory stats class at the Freeman School. Professor Robins writes:

Excel for Dummies by John Walkenbach is probably a good FIRST step.

Russ


Thanks, Professor. Off the top of my head, a few of the things you probably want to focus on in Excel include Solver, Monte Carlo simulations, regression analysis, inserting and nesting formulas and random number/seed generation.

I’ll try to dig up my final exam from my stats class and post it here later in the week.

Have a great week,
Joel Yarmon
joel@tulanemba.org

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