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Back to Excel/VBA for Creative Problem Solving, Part 1

Learner Reviews & Feedback for Excel/VBA for Creative Problem Solving, Part 1 by University of Colorado Boulder

4.8
stars
4,131 ratings

About the Course

"Excel/VBA for Creative Problem Solving, Part 1" is aimed at learners who are seeking to augment, expand, optimize, and increase the efficiency of their Excel spreadsheet skills by tapping into the powerful programming, automation, and customization capabilities available with Visual Basic for Applications (VBA). This course is the first part of a three-part series and Specialization that focuses on the application of computing techniques in Excel/VBA to solve problems. In this course (Part 1), you will: 1) create macros to automate procedures in Excel; 2) define your own user-defined functions; 3) create basic subroutines to interface with the user; 4) learn the basic programming structures in VBA; and 5) automate Excel’s Goal Seek and Solver tools and use numerical techniques to create “live solutions” to solve targeting and optimization problems. New to computer programming? The extremely intuitive and visual nature of VBA lends itself nicely to teaching and learning - what a fun way to learn to code! No prior knowledge in programming nor advanced math skills are necessary yet seasoned programmers will pick up new and creative spreadsheet problem solving strategies. After you have learned the basics of VBA, each module will introduce foundational and broad problems inspired by situations that you might encounter in the real world. To pass each module, you'll need to pass a mastery quiz and complete a problem solving assignment. This course is unique in that the weekly assignments are completed in-application (i.e., on your own computer in Excel), providing you with valuable hands-on training....

Top reviews

MS

Jan 26, 2018

Great course! I like it goes straight to implementation and is practice-oriented. What could be improved maybe is sound quality of lectures. And maybe it would be great to have some VBA notes in pdf.

JH

Apr 2, 2020

Very good course with clear examples throughout to help you develop. The online format of the course is great as it allows you to pause and work through the activities presented at your own speed.

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26 - 50 of 1,182 Reviews for Excel/VBA for Creative Problem Solving, Part 1

By Joshua F

Jan 4, 2019

The couse is really good. It is just lacking a little more practice exercises :D

By Humam T

Sep 29, 2020

I will come back to why three stars in a bit, but first the instructor is good and the course is excellent. I learned a lot, and at some point I will take part 2. The instructor is too hard. The quizzes are, and the assignments are hard. In fact, they are so hard that it was such a turn off. I was going to cancel the course. We all had classes where the class and the teacher was so hard, that made you hate the material. Even though the instructor was good, if I were in a university setting, I would avoid the teacher. Does it sound like I am contradicting myself... I am not. I enjoyed learning what I learned. There was too much to learn (by the nature of the material). There's no need to make it harder and get us discouraged. Should have been easier to allow us some success that we can build on.

Humam

By Benjamin M

Jun 4, 2020

A very average course for learning the foundations of VBA. Charlie is obviously self-taught with experience pertaining to only his own creations, and his first course is needlessly math heavy. There are far better courses to learn the fundamentals out there. Don't get a Coursera sub for this course alone.

If, like me, you know a bit of VBA already and want a qualification to put on your CV and (maybe) fill in some knowledge gaps then it's OK, but the lack of teaching even basic conventions such as code indentation will irk you. The assignments even rely on the fact that you won't fully qualify your writes to the spreadsheet.

By Heidi B

May 17, 2018

This a a good class for learning the basics of VBA. It would have been nice to have some reference material to look back on other than the screen casts/transcript.

By David L G L

Feb 27, 2021

its more suitable for engineering

By Cameron S

Dec 19, 2020

The course needs to cater for the general public instead of engineers or professionals. Many learners are people looking for solutions to improve and make their daily tasks more efficient, not learn how to write lengthy formulas. I would highly recommend to extend the duration of the course and start from the real basics including VBA terminology, structure and requirements. There is not enough video content with examples to explain the reasons for writing code in a specific way. Harsh reality is that I would not recommend this course to anyone.

By Pete

Apr 29, 2023

why do you lock the rest of the class when your macro grader files bomb without any helpful explanation as to how to fix my macro. Week five works on one row or thousands when I test it yet your macro grader says it doesn't work on a different data set. I cant see that data set, I don't understand what its talking about and i cant continue the course without fixing it. This is what drives people away from your platform.

By Lemuel B

Jan 28, 2022

I am using the Office365 version of Excel on a MacBook Air. I couldn't get through the first week's assignment because of bugs. When I looked at the discussion forum for help I saw a thread started by someone who has the exact same problem as me from six months ago. There was no reply by anyone. That lets me know nobody is paying attention to the forums so I can't expect any help there.

By John K

Aug 8, 2020

Not what u was looking for

I want to withdraw from the course

Please advise soonest how to cancel

Thank you

Regards John Keszler

By R_D

Aug 30, 2020

Help is very poor and one way or high way is the approach.

By Ali U

Jun 16, 2020

Very Bad explanation of things and quizzes to

By Khoo H M S

Jun 30, 2021

Glitchy, instructors are not responsive

By Jess H

Nov 19, 2021

Note: This review covers the entire Specialisation, not just Part 1. Thank you to the course creator/lecturer, Charlie Nuttelman. This Specialisation was incredibly useful to me as a novice programmer. Unlike some of the other free/low cost online content out there on VBA this course is well-structured and rigorous enough to actually gain a solid foundation in programming concepts, and more importantly to be able to apply the material to real world situations. I've only just completed the course but have already created a couple of macro-based report collation tools at work that have been very well received since they save time and improve accuracy. I have a couple of other bigger projects I'm now planning at work, which have long been an ambition of mine but out of my league until now.

The course really is quite challenging (if you have experience in another program it will probably come much easier for you!) and one really does have to think and try things out in the assignments and later projects to get an outcome - which is important since that's what it'll be like writing VBA in the wild!

The video content is very well presented and well-thought out and Charlie's passion for maths, programming and creative solutions really shone through. The content is structured logically, with a good progression in difficulty moving along the weeks and parts.

Another great thing about this course is that rather than get bogged down in the minutiae of every VBA term/syntax it focuses on broad programming concepts such as loops, iteration, arrays and debugging/problem solving. So I'm now feeling much more confident to get into learning other languages I have in my future learning goals

By Xinyu Z

Jul 22, 2022

This course is a little challenging for beginners with no programming experience. The content is fast-paced I highly recomemend everyone to acquire some programming data structure and algorithm basis before enrolling.

Everything taught in this course is worthwhile. It will enhance your understanding of Excel spreadsheets, finding creative solutions to many routine time-consuming excel tasks, and practicing your coding skills. You will understand different kinds of VBA loops and functions. Moreover, the course also teaches debug methods to enhance your coding experience.

This course is not just about VBA but introduces many useful advanced excel functions and problem-solving methods. Methods like Golden Search and Bisection Method can be extremely useful to solve complicated optimization problems in Excel.

After this course, I am much more confident about excel and amazed by the fact that I can automate many repetitive process in my job using VBA.

By Alexander B

Oct 30, 2022

I have taken both introductory and intermediate programming classes as part of my undergraduate degree in engineering though Excel and VBA were not a part of the curriculum. Professor Nuttleman does a great job of teaching and demonstrating VBA and Excel with practical examples while also tying the language to fundamental concepts and methods of programming that helps an experienced programmer make the connection to prior experience and training in computing fundamentals.

This is a great course for the price. Things that might make the course more impactful on an individual level are student-conceived projects, team projects, and more effective student-student and student-teacher interactions. That might be asking a lot of an inexpensive course though and I think that, as is, the course is great in how accessible it is. Perhaps projects would be more appropriate for more advanced courses.

By Adrian V V

Sep 4, 2022

Opinión en Español:

Me encanto este curso por lo temas que ha llevado dentro de las semanas. Donde lo más importante no fue tanto aprender los comandos o palabra claves del VBA Excel, sino aprender a desarrollar la lógica en el código a través de VBA Excel. Lo cual, mediante tareas practicas y mini-proyectos pudimos aplicar, potenciar y desarrollar dicha lógica. Muchas gracias al profesor y a la universidad que nos permite aprender este curso.

Opinion in English:

I loved this course because of the topics it has covered in the weeks. Where the most important thing was not so much to learn the commands or keywords of VBA Excel, but to learn to develop the logic in the code through VBA Excel. Which, through practical tasks and mini-projects we were able to apply, enhance and develop said logic. Many thanks to the teacher and the university that allows us to learn this course.

By Istvan K

Sep 12, 2021

I am giving this course 5 stars, because it is really in depth. I have studied vba before, did other online courses, but this one stands out. Thanks to the quizzies and assignments the material in the lessons gets stuck in ones head a lot easier, than in other courses I have done. One criticism though: I have only completed the mandatory 4 weeks from part 1. I intend to do week 5 as well, though I am not certain I will make it until deadline. I checked the other two parts of the specialization and as far as I can tell, EVENTS are completely neglected/left out, eventhough they are a very importnat part of automating things with vba. So if I am not mistaken and they are not inculded, the whole specialization only will get 4 stars. Part 1 has earned 5 though, they are well deserved.

By Darren R

Apr 10, 2019

This is an excellent course. One of the best I've taken. The pacing and level of challenge are perfect. Not too easy, not impossible. There are no surprises in the quizzes or assignments. You will have everything you need to excel by watching and following along with the videos. Even though there is an engineering bias in the course, and I don't have an engineering background, Dr. Nuttelman ensures you'll have enough explanation to follow along and complete assignments.

Dr. Nuttelman has done a fine job in creating this course. It goes to show that all you need to create a great course is a great teacher, simple videos, clear audio, and engaging and appropriately challenging material. No gimmicks, no nonsense! This course delivers!

By Hui L H

Sep 8, 2019

This is an awesome course for me. I love the way Dr. Charlie teaches the course. He always goes through material step by step and re-cap a couple of important concept in the pop-up quizzes at the end or in the middle of the video to refresh your memory. You can see how the course is well thought-out by looking at the course schedule and after taking the class. For the function of my job, I need to use excel including formulas, optimization tool, VBA...etc. extensively but I have never been exposed to a complete training for it so this course is totally a livesaver for me. I highly recommended this course to people who need to excel for their job or people who are just interested in advanced excel skills. Thank you Dr. Charlie!!

By Matt F

Feb 27, 2018

Great class! I have been looking at increasing my Excel skills and wanted to learn VBA, however, I really could find a class that had what I needed. This class was what I was looking for, even though it is more engineering based. I highly recommend it for getting into VBA. I liked the mini quizzes and the assignments. They both help you learn and retain the material. Dr. Nuttelman was also very responsive. Had been staring at my VBA code too long and wasn't able to figure out why my code wasn't working correctly on one of the assignments. I sent it to Dr. Nuttelman and he was able to look over my code and point out the problem. Very quick turnaround on getting an answer too! I will be signing up for Part 2 of this course.

By Sanjeev B

Aug 17, 2018

I love how this course has been structured. VBA being a very expansive programming language can get very intimidating for beginners and there are plenty of course available about VBA where students quickly get overwhelmed or loose interest right from start. This course has been structured perfectly in getting rid of these two common issues.

Also, I love the solving/grading section (post quiz). It just allows the student to apply the knowledge gathered in a practical way, in order to pass on to the next level. Makes it fun and keeps the student interested in the course, needless to say that it inherently allows strengthening the fundamental concepts of VBA.

Great work professor Nuttelman, full marks to this course!

By Celso C F

Sep 1, 2019

Excellent course. This course teaches the mechanics of how to create macros/VBA subroutines, key concepts related to programming and very interesting examples on how to apply everything that was learned are given throughout the course. The explanations are clear, precise and easy to understand.

I have to confess that I was afraid about how challenging this course would be, because learning how to create Excel macros has always been a big deal for me. Professor Nuttelman does and excellent job in this course, even though the course is supposed to last 5 weeks, I was able to finish the 5 modules in 2 weeks.

I am now taking Part 2 of this course and, as soon as I finish it, I plan to start working on Part 3.

By Valerie W

Oct 17, 2020

This course is very comprehensive, and the hands on assignments give us plenty of opportunity to research and practice to fully comprehend what had been taught.

I had attended a 1 day basic VBA course previously with the professional body I was with before. It had been a confusing experience. Hence I really appreciate how each video gives bite size information from basic operators and logic of VBA, to the structure of the subroutine and functions, the flowcharts to guide the analytical planning of the codes for problem solving. I totally enjoyed this online course!

Highly recommended even if one has none or limited programming background. Some Excel knowledge would be helpful I feel. Awesome course.

By Nicolas M

Apr 27, 2020

First of all, I want to thank Professor Charlie Nuttelman, an excellent instructor who guided us in the first steps, of learning VBA, I liked the course, because it was orientated to engineers, the way he explained the algorithm. I have been programming for almost 3 years, but I learned other loops, like do until loop, do loop. and The final week, was so interesting. Because in my career civil engineering not only we have to optimize costs, but also we have to build strong and resistance structures. Also, it was very was useful in the bisection method, because we deal with a lot of non-linear equations, and we have to solve them numerically.

By Talal F

May 10, 2022

When i first saw this course on coursera i was not sure whether to take this course or not. Consequently I wasted my 3 months in surfing google and other websites but nowhere found any better and organized way of teaching VBA programming than this course. Today I completed Part 1 of this course and without any exaggeration it gave very much exposure towards VBA. Now I am willing to take Part2 and Part3 as well. The teacher is also very good in teaching, explains every concept in depth. Some topics were quite advance however it was a very good learning experience. Thanks to the teacher "Charlie Nuttelmen" and Coursera for amazing course !