Excel Training for Veterans

Are you a veteran returning to civilian life or a member of a veteran’s family aiming to avail yourself of entitlements and benefits? This article is designed to help you navigate your options for taking advantage of these services to enter a professional skills training program and study the Excel skills you’ve always wanted to learn. Spreadsheet skills increase your value on the job market because they are an asset to employers who understand the many ways Excel knowledge can be leveraged. Advanced Excel knowledge is a great way to distinguish yourself from other job candidates and demonstrate to employers the many ways you will contribute to their organization.

What is Excel?

Microsoft Excel is a spreadsheet application created by Microsoft in 1985. Excel is a powerful and valuable resource for organizing data and numbers using functions and formulas. It also comes with graphing tools to help visualize data findings, a programming language known as Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) used to create macros, and advanced calculation capabilities. Excel works on both Mac and Windows operating systems. 

The cells within an Excel spreadsheet each contain data, like formulas, numbers, or text, which can be organized and analyzed. Excel is a useful tool for performing various calculations on spreadsheets. It can calculate statistics, perform repeated and advanced calculations, analyze data, and create graphical representations of the data, such as graphs, charts, and PivotTables. 

Read more about what Excel is and why you should learn it. 

What Can You Do with Excel Skills?

Excel has hundreds of features and tools that help users organize, manage, analyze, and visualize data. The following are just a few of the tools and features that make Excel the go-to for professionals around the globe:

• In Excel, users can add or average numbers in cells, locate high, median, or low values, count cells containing numbers, and find a product by multiplying cells. It’s also possible to delete extra white space and truncate numbers by removing fractions.
• Excel can learn your patterns the more you use it so that it can organize your data and ultimately save time. 
• Users can share workbooks with others in real-time to ensure that all collaborators have the most up-to-date version. 
• It’s possible to work on Excel files from the web and mobile and desktop devices.
• Users can now add data right into Excel from a photo. The Excel app enables users to take a picture of printed data with their iPhone or Android, then convert this image into an editable Excel table. This helpful trick helps users avoid manually entering hard copy data and is made possible through Excel’s image recognition capabilities. 
• Financial transactions can be imported into Excel so that users can organize and review their financial information and receive helpful insights toward making more informed financial decisions.
• Excel’s PivotTables help users perform analysis and summaries of datasets, regrouping spreadsheet data for more effective comparisons. By seeing data from different perspectives, it’s possible to get a more comprehensive picture of revenue sources and other vital information.

Support for Veterans

If you’re a veteran looking to learn Microsoft Excel, several avenues of support are available to help you with your educational endeavors. One of the most well-known is the GI Bill. This bill, also known as the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944, was created so that World War II veterans would be able to take advantage of a variety of benefits. Through the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs, The G.I. Bill provides benefits, such as tutorial assistance, funding for distance or independent learning, test fees, foreign programs, and undergraduate or graduate study. These educational grants and stipends are provided to veterans, active-duty service members, and their dependents.

Those who wish to use the G.I. Bill can do so to support a variety of training options. Non-college degree programs like technical or vocational training are covered under this bill. Additionally, G.I. Bill benefits can be applied to other professional and educational pursuits, such as apprenticeships, on-the-job training, certifications, and licensing. Funds can also be used for work-study programs, flight training, and correspondence training.

Another program available for veterans and their dependents is VET TEC. This program was created to assist veterans as they begin technology careers, as well as to learn computer skills. Those enrolled in this program are eligible for a range of funds that can be used for media applications, computer programming, data processing, computer software, and information science. Although Noble Desktop’s programs do not currently qualify for VET TEC funding, it can be used for other educational pursuits.

In addition to the G.I. Bill and VET TEC, the Forever GI Bill is also available for veterans to use for their education. This bill eliminates the former 15-year limit that had been placed on veterans for using educational benefits. As its name implies, the Forever Bill never expires. It offers those who qualify indefinite access to many educational benefits.

If you’d like to find out more about the range of VA-supported programs available, Noble Desktop’s Veterans Support Page provides a great way to search for Excel classes for veterans. Interested veterans can select from course offerings in various topics, like full stack web development, data analytics, and Python. VA-supported in-person learning options are provided by Noble in New York City. Full-time study options are generally supported by the VA.

Why Learn Excel

Microsoft Excel is the industry-standard spreadsheet software used by millions of people around the globe. This tool has a range of uses across industries and professions, which makes Excel knowledge important if you’re on the job hunt. Those who work in finance rely on Excel to perform what-if analysis on data, create reports, and design charts. Sales professionals use it to calculate averages and margins, perform basic calculations, and report totals. Engineers use spreadsheets for projecting quantities and figures, designing charts, and visualizing data findings. Regardless of which profession Excel is used in, spreadsheet skills can help boost employee productivity many times over with the help of keyboard shortcuts, filtering and sorting features, and its compatibility with other Office applications, such as PowerPoint and Word. Those with the training to perform statistical analysis in Excel not only help their organization more effectively use data but also provide insights into the relationship between certain values, which can lead to important conclusions.

Not only does learning Excel make you a more productive employee, but it also can improve your work quality. Those who are familiar with the Excel interface and know how to perform functions and calculations can easily and quickly format data, create engaging dashboards, and visualize data in the form of graphs or charts. This information can then be shared in meetings with managers by pasting it into a PowerPoint presentation or Word document. Because Excel performs all necessary calculations, this leads to better data quality and more accurate formulas. It also greatly reduces the chance of human errors like miscalculating or miscounting, which are much more of a concern when executing calculations manually.

Excel is also a useful tool for collaborative endeavors, such as team projects. Excel’s range of collaborative capabilities allows users to share their spreadsheet with other team members or managers, who can then perform edits or data manipulations, such as changing existing cells, adding data, modifying formulas, or incorporating formatting changes. All changes made to an Excel worksheet can be tracked, as well as approved or rejected. In addition, you can even add comments to specific data cells. For all of these reasons, Excel is a useful tool for group work, even when team members are located in different offices or work from home.

Why Choose a Skills Bootcamp?

Veterans who are interested in studying Excel may not be certain which learning format is best. Excel coursework is offered at many colleges and universities. However, Excel isn’t offered as its own major since this tool is often used in other professions, such as financial analytics or data analytics. In addition, you may not wish to commit four or more years to college study. Not only does it cost tens of thousands of dollars a year, but this learning format also requires that students take a range of other coursework, such as general education requirements, which may not be related to Excel. Studying Excel in a college or university, therefore, is not the most efficient way to learn to work with spreadsheets since only a portion of your studies will be devoted to learning this tool. 

Certificate programs are a great alternative to four-year college study. Certificates are typically much shorter in length than college; most span just weeks or months. They are also significantly less expensive than college study. Pursuing a certificate in Excel also offers a more focused format for study than university work provides. It offers hands-on training with this spreadsheet tool, as well as how it can be applied in various fields. This allows you to choose a class most aligned with your professional aspirations and the skills you’ll need to succeed on the job. Noble Desktop’s Data Analytics Certificate offers instruction in Excel, as well as other tools and skills needed to work with data, such as Python, Tableau, and SQL.

In addition to college and certificate study, another great option for learning Excel is by enrolling in a bootcamp. Whereas college study requires that you complete a range of coursework unrelated to Excel, a bootcamp offers skills-specific training in Excel or one of its functions, such as VBA. An Excel Bootcamp is a much shorter study option than a certificate or college degree; instead of taking months or years to acquire the necessary spreadsheet skills, you can do so in just days or weeks. This makes bootcamps a popular learning option for veterans who wish to focus their studies entirely on Excel for professional reasons. Another benefit of bootcamp study is that it generally costs much less than certificate programs, ranging in price from several hundred to several thousand dollars. 

Learn Excel at Noble Desktop

Are you looking to learn how to use Microsoft Excel, the industry-standard spreadsheet application? If so, Noble Desktop currently offers a variety of Excel courses in NYC and live online. Classes are available for those new to Excel and for learners who regularly work with this spreadsheet application and wish to improve their skills. In addition, in-person and live online Excel courses are available through Noble Desktop or one of its affiliate schools. A variety of course options are offered, ranging in duration from three hours to two days and costing between $229 and $1,099. 

Noble Desktop’s Excel Bootcamp provides an excellent option for those who want to master core Excel concepts, such as working with PivotTables and What-If Analysis. Students who enroll in this rigorous, 21-hour course can elect to study in person in Manhattan or learn in the live online environment. This small class comes with the option of a free retake and covers a variety of Excel concepts applicable to the business world.

Key Takeaways

• Learning Excel can make you a more productive employee, improve the accuracy of your calculations, and help you contribute in a range of meaningful ways at work. In addition, those with spreadsheet skills are in-demand in a range of professions since Excel remains the industry-standard tool for data management.
• Veterans interested in learning Excel can take advantage of programs like the G.I. Bill, the VET TEC program, and the Forever G.I. Bill, which provide funding for professional training and development. Many veterans, active members of the service, and their dependents qualify for these programs.
• When deciding which Excel learning format is best for you, there are many options available. College study is the longest and most expensive. Certificate study is shorter in duration and offers a more focused study of Excel, as well as how it can be used in a field such as data analytics. For those who want to study Excel only, a bootcamp is a great option because it’s generally more affordable than a certificate program and only takes days or weeks to complete.
• If you’re a veteran interested in comprehensive Excel training, Noble Desktop offers exciting educational options that can help you master spreadsheets.