Are Microsoft Office Bootcamps Worth It?

When you want to learn how to use Word, Excel, PowerPoint, or any of the other applications included in Microsoft Office, you can look for free seminars and tutorials to teach yourself, or you can sign up for a class, which means paying tuition. Microsoft Office bootcamp classes are worth paying for because having an instructor to answer your questions and help you when you get stuck makes the learning process much faster. You also get the most up-to-date information on new versions and best practices. 

What is Microsoft Office?

Microsoft Office is a collection of productivity applications for individuals, families, small and medium businesses, and larger enterprises. Tools included in Microsoft 365 include Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams, OneNote, and OneDrive, for producing documents, creating spreadsheets, preparing presentations, writing emails, and more.

Microsoft Office for Windows was launched in 1990 and included only three applications: Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. These programs were initially introduced separately for Mac OS, and the bundle was later introduced for Windows users. In 2013, Microsoft released Office 365, a cloud-based version of the software collection, which is now known as Microsoft 365.

In March 2023, Microsoft unveiled Copilot, an innovative addition to Microsoft 365. Copilot is an AI-powered assistant that helps users draft emails, update calendars, and manage chats, meetings, and contacts. With over 145,000 companies and individuals in the US using Microsoft 365, the software suite is continually developing. Signing up for a bootcamp course is a good way to stay up-to-date with the latest changes.

What Can You Do With Microsoft Office?

Microsoft Office is a bundle of applications that work together to let you accomplish your goals and make your life easier. The Family and Personal version includes Word, Excel, and PowerPoint for writing letters, tracking a budget, or creating a slideshow for the family reunion. Many Business versions are available to allow you to organize email and keep a calendar, use an AI-powered assistant, and work together with Teams. The Education version keeps you organized with a digital notebook and apps to write papers, create spreadsheets, and produce presentations.

Why Learn Microsoft Office in a Bootcamp?

A Microsoft Office bootcamp provides the training to handle any daily office tasks like writing, editing, creating financial spreadsheets, managing databases, or collaborating with a team. Microsoft Office skills can give you an edge over other job applicants and increase your job prospects. Even if you only plan to use Microsoft Office at home or school, a bootcamp course in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams, OneNote, or OneDrive can give you the advanced skills you need to get your work done faster and easier.

Bootcamps vs. Self-Paced Courses

Microsoft Office courses are offered live or self-paced. In-person classes meet just like a traditional school class in a room with an instructor. Many training programs are offering live online bootcamps that you can take online. They run concurrent with an in-person class with some students in the classroom and others joining via the Internet. 

Self-paced classes are prerecorded video sessions you can watch whenever or wherever you want. While this type of class is convenient, there is no live instructor to answer questions and no other students to interact with. Also, because you don't have to adhere to a set schedule, there is nothing holding you accountable to get the work done. One advantage of self-paced classes is that they tend to be less expensive than in-person or live online bootcamps.

Bootcamps vs. Free Training Options

You can find free seminars and tutorials online to help you learn Microsoft Office. Noble Desktop offers seminars like Top 10 Beginner Excel Tricks You Need to Know and PowerPoint Presentation Design to introduce users to these powerful applications. Microsoft also offers free tutorials to help you get started with Microsoft Office. These materials are helpful when you want to get an overview of the applications, but bootcamp courses are designed to teach you how to use them from the basic tasks to more advanced skills.

Learn Microsoft Office Skills with Noble Desktop

Whether you want to learn Microsoft Office skills for home tasks, school work, or to find a new job, you can find many course options. These 6 - 12 hour courses are available in person in New York City or live online from anywhere.

The Microsoft Office Fundamentals Bootcamp from Noble Desktop helps you gain the skills you need in essential Office applications like Excel, PowerPoint, Word, and Outlook. These four applications are used every day by businesses all over the world, and learning how to use them efficiently and effectively can help you start a new career. Instruction includes an overview of the Excel workflow, how to format worksheets and add visual effects, and how to create graphics. The course also covers creating PowerPoint presentations by choosing layouts, adding content, and running a slide show. In the Word class, you will learn how to navigate through documents, add images, and create tables, lists, and notes. Finally, the Outlook class will cover automated email searches, managing a calendar, scheduling, organizing contacts, and tracking correspondence. You get a 15% discount when you sign up for the 4-day bootcamp instead of taking each class separately. 

Microsoft Office Intermediate Bootcamp from Noble Desktop takes up where the Fundamentals class stops. You will learn about Excel Pivot Tables, advanced functions like VLOOKUP, and how to make your workflow smoother and faster with automation. The PowerPoint module covers creating reusable templates, how to import files from Excel, use multimedia and layered objects, and record a slideshow. The Word section covers automation tools, custom document styles, and productivity features. Finally, the Outlook class shows you how to configure email accounts, perform advanced searches, control spam, and manage calendars and contacts.

The Complete Microsoft Office Bootcamp from Noble Desktop will make you an Office expert. This advanced course offers 54 hours of instruction in PowerPoint, Outlook, Word, and Excel. The course goes from introductory material through advanced to give you comprehensive training in these important business skills.

Noble Desktop offers Outlook Bootcamp for new users who want to understand how to use this Office application for sending email and scheduling appointments to increase productivity. Learn about customizing, automating, and managing your email accounts, plus optimizing your calendar and organizing your contacts.

If you want to build confidence in your document preparation skills, Word Bootcamp from Noble Desktop can help you get there. This comprehensive class can take you from beginner to expert in as little as two days. Learn how to navigate through Word and format documents; work with text at the sentence and paragraph level; insert images, tablets, lists, and citations; track changes; customize document style; and use forms and mail merge features.

Noble Desktop's three-day Excel Bootcamp will take you from absolute beginner to expert in a few days. The course starts with the basics like performing calculations, creating graphs, formatting, and printing. Move on to more advanced features like pivot tables, VLOOKUP, SUMIFs, and advanced database functions like INDEX and MATCH. This course is available in person in NYC or live online from anywhere.

PowerPoint Bootcamp is a two-day course from Noble Desktop to help you learn PowerPoint basics like creating layouts, adding text, images, shapes, SmartArt, and more. Work with tables and charts to organize information in your presentations. Day two delves into more advanced features like how to create a reusable PowerPoint Theme/Template to make an easily updatable, engaging, consistent presentation. Add excitement with animations, add video, and learn how to manage large presentations with sections and custom shows.

Excel Level 1: Fundamentals from Noble Desktop covers the basic concepts of Microsoft Excel. This course covers how to do calculations, create graphs, format worksheets, and print or share them in Microsoft Excel. Class assignments are designed to help you practice concepts based on real-world examples as you learn them. Students also receive exclusive reference materials as part of the class. This course is available in person in NYC or live online from anywhere.

Noble Desktop's introductory PowerPoint Level 1 course covers the fundamental concepts of this popular presentation software. Learn how to create new presentations, choose slides and add content, add pictures and graphics and learn to adjust them, how to use SmartArt, draw lines and shapes, align objects, insert tables and charts, add transitions, and learn to run the final presentation. This course is available in person in NYC or live online from anywhere.

Microsoft Word is one of the world's most popular word-processing programs. This introductory Microsoft Word Level 1 course from Noble Desktop covers the fundamental concepts and skills, including preparing and sending mass letters, labels, and emails with one click, introductory formatting, and shortcuts to save time on routine tasks. This course is available in person in NYC or live online from anywhere.

Noble Desktop's Microsoft Access Level 1 will help you keep your Microsoft Office work organized. Access is a database program that can organize and manage data. You will learn to join, sort, and filter data from different tables, use forms to view, access, and input data, and create and format reports. The class will also cover designing a relational database, joining tables, validating data, using advanced queries, and organizing and customizing your database.