With the help of Ms. Goldberg, a special-occasions specialist who also does a brisk bridal business, you will discover the work of unjustly forgotten designers like Mary Ann Restivo, Bill Tice and Luis Estévez among the Vuitton and Versace. “Accessible vintage luxury,” is the goal, she said. “I want someone to be able to come in and take it home and not just wish for it.”
… “People gate-keep us,” Mr. Plotitsa said. “It’s their little secret. We’re priced fair, and they don’t want to share that. We’re not a Maxfield,” the haughty boutique on Melrose Avenue.
Daily Word Challenge
Can you correctly use the word haughty in a sentence?
Based on the definition and example provided, write a sentence using today’s Word of the Day and share it as a comment on this article. It is most important that your sentence makes sense and demonstrates that you understand the word’s definition, but we also encourage you to be creative and have fun.
If you want a better idea of how haughty can be used in a sentence, read these usage examples on Vocabulary.com. You can also visit this guide to learn how to use IPA symbols to show how different words are pronounced.
Students ages 13 and older in the United States and the United Kingdom, and 16 and older elsewhere, can comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff.
Learning to code so that you can land a job in tech can feel daunting. That’s why we’re sharing inspiring stories from Codecademy’s community — to show how people like you (yes, you!) can embark on a learning journey and end up with a totally new career. We hope these stories serve as a reminder that there’s no single path to a more fulfilling work life.
Today’s story is from Jenni Park, a 26-year-old Developer at a consulting firm, living in Chicago. Read more stories from Codecademy learners here — and be sure to share your story here.
Why I chose to learn to code
“My sister’s a nurse, and I was trying to follow in her footsteps and become a doctor. At the time, I was very passionate about it. I was volunteering at hospitals, shadowing doctors, working as a medical scribe, taking Organic Chem I and II — you name it, the whole nine yards. I took the MCAT and scored in the 97th percentile, and I got into a few medical schools. As I was reading my acceptance letters, I felt impending doom. I was overwhelmed by the idea and felt like I was making a mistake.
Throughout college, I always thought that computer science was something more I’d be more interested in. I really liked the idea of marketing, coding, programming, and building your own website. Going into my senior year, I decided to sit my parents down and I was like, ‘Don’t be mad. I’m pivoting.’ And they were very supportive, which was so nice. To have my family and friends be very supportive of that transition really helped me significantly to push myself to actually do it. I started off with my own personal research, searching what jobs can you get, and programming languages everyone should learn. I was familiar with SQL and Python, so I started off with that, and I just saw Codecademy all the time.”
Learn something new for free
How I made time to learn
“Making this career change was very important to me, because not only was I trying to make my parents and my sister proud, but I also wanted to make myself proud. In my head, I’m always thinking, If I could sit on my phone for an hour, I could sit on the computer for an hour and get my brain juices flowing a different way. So, like every morning I was learning before I had to start at nine for work.
I wake up at six anyways, I could do my morning walk, scroll on TikTok, sit for an hour, drink my coffee, read through some articles, scroll through Codecademy, and do a little exercise here and there. Everything changes so fast in programming; new versions come out like every other week. If you don’t make time to practice, you’re going to lose it. My friends are also very driven and career-oriented, so it helps to be surrounded by that.”
Looking for a community to keep you accountable?
Check out Codecademy chapters and events to meet like-minded programmers around the world who are on a similar path.
How I saved up money to switch careers
“I was making enough to buy myself a McChicken a week, but I knew this was important to me, so I needed to save what I can. Even if it was just $10 a week, or no coffee for two days, I can do that. If I could spend $100 going out once a week, I can afford to do this. That was the biggest bet that I made on myself and I’m so happy that I did, because it was a catalyst [for me] to get my first job.
I just needed something that was affordable, and in my head, it made sense to do a monthly membership before I make that investment like getting master’s or doing a bootcamp. Granted I had a scholarship to go to a bootcamp, but I thought about it for two years before I did it. I was like, ‘Is this a financial investment that I’m not going to regret?’”
Want your employer to pay for your Codecademy membership?
Everything changes so fast in programming; new versions come out like every other week. If you don’t make time to practice, you’re going to lose it.
Jenni Park
Developer
How long it took me to find a job
“It took about three total months to land an entry-level job! Right now it has been a month and a half since finishing my [bootcamp] program and I have been successful at landing interviews with bigger tech companies like Uber!”
How I got in the door
“I met a gallerist through a family friend, and he needed to hire someone to help now and then. Since I wanted to learn, I thought, let me just go and assist. It was a work-from-home job. While I was doing that and learning how to use SQL and build queries through Codecademy, I suggested creating an inventory database to keep track of our clients, artists, galleries, and budgets. I offered to build this database for him, and he agreed, but without payment. He saw it as my personal project, something I could work on during my free time. It worked out well and they still use the system I created. Being able to build that little inventory database while working on my career transition really propelled me forward.”
How I evaluated the offer
“I left the art job and got a job at a place where I used to intern, and I’ve been here for now almost three years. They were the ones who were like, ‘You should continue using Codecademy, and if you want to pursue school, we’ll support you and help pay for it.’ If you have an education budget through work, you should use it to pay for Codecademy. You get so many resources and certifications — that’s ultimately what landed me my first job, being able to say, ‘I accomplished this in this amount of time.’
I decided to go back to school at Northwestern University for their six-month full-stack programming bootcamp. Everyone was like, ‘What’s your next step? What do you want to do next?’ And I was like, ‘I’m getting back on Codecademy!’ I want to learn machine learning and my dream is to work for an AI company. I had an open conversation with my workplace, where I explained that if [coding] opens doors for me, I’m going to walk through them. They said, ‘You’re more than welcome to do whatever. We’ll support you in any capacity.’”
What I wish I knew before I started learning
“On my GitHub, I started a little beginner’s JavaScript notes that you could copy the code and put into VS Code. While I was doing Codecademy, I kind of wished I had like a quick overview first of what was coming, like basic concepts we’re going to learn. I’m working on something like that for every programming language that I’ve learned — the only one I’ve completed so far is JavaScript.
If you’re making a career change, a cover letter is really important. For every job I’ve ever applied to, I only have heard back from companies where I’ve submitted a cover letter. If we just look at my experience on paper, I have pre-medicine things and then I have very little data and programming stuff. In a cover letter I can be like, ‘Hey, I was this, I’m doing this. These are the projects I’ve worked on. This is what I’m looking forward to.’ Advocating for yourself in a professional landscape also shows confidence.”
Not sure where to start? Check out our personality quiz! We’ll help you find the best programming language to learn based on your strengths and interests.
Want to share your Codecademy learner story? Drop us a line here. And don’t forget to join the discussions in our community.
Have you ever come across a project that’s so inspiring that it just begs to be shared? I recently had that experience with Dru from The Whole Mindset! Back in March, Dru came to us with a pre-designed logo and a big dream: to elevate her brand and build a website that functioned beautifully and facilitated online sales. Buckle up because I’m about to take you on a journey of creative collaboration – a journey that resulted in something truly special!
Logo, color, and other important things
When it comes to designing anything, the first step is always to sort out your logo, colors, and general branding. If you’re going for a custom theme, it’s a great idea to invest in a custom logo too. Dru decided to create her own logo, and let me tell you, it’s pretty impressive! I was happy to give a few small design suggestions and help pick out a color palette. We had a short chat and ended up with a color scheme that we both love!
Dru was looking for a website that’s both fun and professional. To achieve this, we decided to go with muted tones that perfectly match her logo.
Let the fun begin!
After finalizing the logo for Dru’s brand, I started working on designing her website. She already had a WordPress website set up on WordPress.com, but I suggested switching to a self-hosted WordPress website as it would offer more flexibility and cost-effectiveness. Dru wanted to add a shop, podcast section, and coaching services, which could get expensive on WordPress.com.
Designing the homepage was a bit challenging as it required a lot of sections, which could make the website look overcrowded. I had to make sure that everything was included without making the homepage too cluttered.
I’m so happy with how the design turned out! Dru was fantastic to work with and made the whole process a breeze. I hope her website brings her lots of happiness and success.
I asked her about short testimonials for this post, and it is what she wrote:
Handling big projects, especially those with a shop and several other features, can be quite overwhelming. So, it’s not surprising that Dru was a bit confused about the costs. But hey, that’s alright! I appreciate the feedback as it helps me understand how we can communicate things better. My top priority is to keep you informed of any additional costs well in advance, so you don’t have to pay for things you don’t need or won’t use.
Let me know what you think about this WordPress makeover. Would you change anything in it?
Cheetahs are the fastest animals on land; they can also stop and start with extraordinary agility. Dogs are really good at reading our emotions, and they have a keen sense of smell. Bats can produce echolocation calls at a rapid rate — up to 190 calls per second — to help them fly in the dark. And whales can communicate over thousands of miles using complex vocalizations.
Ever since the discovery of whale songs almost 60 years ago, scientists have been trying to decipher their lyrics. Are the animals producing complex messages akin to human language? Or sharing simpler pieces of information, like dancing bees do? Or are they communicating something else we don’t yet understand?
In 2020, a team of marine biologists and computer scientists joined forces to analyze the click-clacking songs of sperm whales, the gray, block-shaped leviathans that swim in most of the world’s oceans. On Tuesday, the scientists reported that the whales use a much richer set of sounds than previously known, which they called a “sperm whale phonetic alphabet.”
People have a pho-ne-tic alphabet too, which we use to produce a practically infinite supply of words. But Shane Gero, a marine biologist at Carleton University in Ottawa and an author of the study, said it’s unclear whether sperm whales similarly turn their phonetic sounds into a language.
“The fundamental similarities that we do find are really fascinating,” Dr. Gero said. “It’s totally changed the way we have to do work going forward.”
How much time do you spend with, or near, animals? Do you like to watch shows or read books or articles about them? In general, are you someone who is fascinated by animals and the things they can do?
What questions do you have about animals’ characteristics and capabilities? Would you want to be an animal researcher, like the scientists discussed in the article? Why, or why not?
How much did you know about whale communication before reading the article? What struck you as most interesting about it? What questions do you still have?
Students 13 and older in the United States and Britain, and 16 and older elsewhere, are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public and may appear in print.
You knew when you graduated from nursing school that your educational journey wasn’t over. Continuing education is as critical for nurses as the original degree you received. Given the ever-changing landscape of the medical field, it’s vital that nurses constantly update their knowledge base.
As a busy career nurse, you know that finding time to take continuing education courses is not easy. The idea of leaving a twelve-hour shift to race to class is understandably overwhelming. Luckily, attending courses in person is not the only option.
Modern technology has created opportunities for professional development and growth that don’t require anything more than a computer and an internet connection. If you have those tools, you can take continuing education courses online. This way, you can stay up-to-date on everything you need to know to be an excellent nurse and do it at your convenience.
The Evolution of Online Learning in Nursing Education
Obtaining additional education and even certifications online is easy and accessible, but it hasn’t always been that way. Nearly thirty years ago, Duquesne University, USA, offered the first online doctorate in nursing, and ever since, nurses have used online tools to support their career growth.
As the healthcare industry experiences major nurse shortages, online learning offers a way for more prospective nursing students to begin their careers. Of course, at their inception, virtual nursing education programmes were controversial. However, after decades of results, the consensus is that there is a definite benefit to offering some nursing education online.
Even nurses who prefer to complete their degrees at a brick-and-mortar university can benefit from online learning, as many of the required continuing education courses can be found in virtual form. Thanks to advances in technology, these courses can include everything from simple slideshows to live lectures and even interactive programmes.
The pandemic taught the healthcare industry that quite a bit of medical work can be done virtually. Research by Wolters Kluwer revealed that 93% of surveyed nursing schools used virtual learning in some way, reflecting the growing prominence of online education in the healthcare sector.
Advantages of Online Education in Nursing Professional Development
Flexibility in Scheduling
While clinical courses need to be in person for hands-on learning, much of the information that nurses are required to learn can be delivered online to allow for a self-paced educational experience. Research into self-paced learning models published by Jonathan G. Tullis and Aaron S. Benjamin in PubMed Central shows that this method is highly effective and supports better retention.
Many nurses lead extremely busy lives, balancing professional careers and families at home. Being allowed the flexibility of online learning for continuing education gives them the freedom to take care of those courses when it works best for their schedules.
Accessibility from Anywhere
Online nursing education has also added an element of accessibility that was lacking in traditional models. No matter where you are or what physical limitations you might have, you have the opportunity to access a world-class education thanks to online options.
Cost-Effectiveness
Quality online learning options are often much more affordable than traditional schools, which provides learners with more access than ever. Given the dire need for nurses across the globe, this is an advantage that will bring more nurses to the trade.
Overcoming Challenges: Maximizing the Benefits of Online Continuing Education
There are challenges with online learning. Some students find self-paced programmes to be difficult because they struggle with motivation. Others prefer an in-person setting where they can access real-time support from peers and instructors.
Technical Hurdles
For students who are not as technologically inclined, it can be daunting to manage all of their coursework online. There are often software programmes and websites that need to be navigated to complete online work.
Social Stigma
There is sometimes a stigma associated with online learning that suggests it is inferior to brick-and-mortar alternatives. This outdated notion is simply untrue, and many online programmes for both continuing education and full-length degrees are hosted by prestigious institutions.
Time Management
If you’re not able to properly schedule time for schoolwork, it’s easy to fall behind with online learning. Figuring out how to balance your time well to include plenty of time for classes — even when you don’t have to physically attend them — is critical to success.
Motivation and Engagement
Often, the social aspect and peer connection are a valuable part of the learning experience. This can be lost with online learning, making it difficult to engage with the course. Feeling isolated in your journey can make it difficult to stay motivated.
These challenges are not insurmountable, however. Today, online continuing education options for nurses are equipped with incredible systems for support and collaboration. As more nurses opt for online learning to meet their needs, more data is available showing how effective these options are.
The Future of Online Learning in Nursing
Going forward, the overwhelming expectation among experts is that online nursing education will continue to grow in availability, accessibility, and opportunity.
Integration of AR and VR Technologies: Innovations in the curriculum will allow for more courses to take place virtually using artificial intelligence and augmented reality.
Expansion of Mobile Learning Platforms: While so much of today’s nursing curriculum is hands-on and requires in-person attendance, technological advancements may soon provide ways for nurses to perform procedures virtually from anywhere.
Utilisation of Artificial Intelligence: Some programmes are already using simulations to supplement their nursing education programmes, saving time and money on equipment. Virtual reality allows nurses to practise and learn new skills with zero risk, thereby decreasing mistakes.
Conclusion
Nurses around the world utilise online learning to advance their careers, and the most educated nurses are also the best compensated. In Australia, for example, nurse salaries reflect the importance of ongoing education. Whether aiming for career advancement, skill enhancement, or keeping pace with industry trends, accessing the appropriate online education platform is pivotal. That’s where we come in!
Alison’s free online nursing courses provide high-quality training – from experts like NHCPS and the US Army Medical Center of Excellence (MEDCoE) – to support your continuous learning. All the courses are self-paced for completely flexible study and cater for nurses at every stage of their career, from enrolled and registered nurses to nurse managers. Enhance your training in everything from basic clinical skills to nurse leadership and from patient care to medical specialisms. Enrol today and discover for yourself the impact online training can have on your continuing education and career advancement.
Why not join the ranks of nurse educators offering their courses online? If you are a fully qualified professional nurse, you can apply to create nursing courses with us. Apply today!
Over the next six weeks or so, a trillion cicadas will emerge across the Midwest and Southeast for a brief, raucous, once-in-a-lifetime bender.
Joseph Yoon is a chef who promotes an appreciation of edible insects through his business Brooklyn Bugs. Here is how a recent Times article describes some of the meals he makes with these creatures:
For his ramp and cicada kimchi, he leaves the insects whole and intact in their crackling shells so they’re slowly permeated with a spicy fermenting juice, and serves it with a wobble of soft tofu and warm rice. He fries cicadas to make tempura, folds sautéed cicadas into Spanish tortillas with potato and onion, and bakes cheesy casseroles with cicada-stuffed pasta shells.
Would you eat a cicada — or any other type of bug? According to the article, about two billion people around the world regularly do. If you were to eat a bug, which would you choose, and how might you like it cooked?
Tell us in the comments, then read the related article to learn more.
Students 13 and older in the United States and Britain, and 16 and older elsewhere, are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public and may appear in print.
Nobel laureates’ names have slipped out prematurely before. In 2019, the poet Katarina Frostenson, a member of the Swedish Academy, which awards the Nobel Prize in Literature, left after an investigation found that her husband had repeatedly leaked the names of winners.
This year’s chemistry Nobel laureates — Moungi G. Bawendi, Louis E. Brus and Alexei I. Ekimov — were selected for their discovery and development of quantum dots, used in LED lights and television screens and to help guide surgeons as they remove cancer tissue. At least one of the recipients still described the accolade as unexpected.
Daily Word Challenge
Can you correctly use the word accolade in a sentence?
Based on the definition and example provided, write a sentence using today’s Word of the Day and share it as a comment on this article. It is most important that your sentence makes sense and demonstrates that you understand the word’s definition, but we also encourage you to be creative and have fun.
If you want a better idea of how accolade can be used in a sentence, read these usage examples on Vocabulary.com. You can also visit this guide to learn how to use IPA symbols to show how different words are pronounced.
Students ages 13 and older in the United States and the United Kingdom, and 16 and older elsewhere, can comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff.
In honor of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month this May, we’re celebrating Asian American developers who’ve built useful and entertaining applications that bolster and give back to the Asian American community in some capacity.
Whether you’re looking for a way to order Asian grocery items or want to expand your knowledge of anime or Native Hawaiian history, here are five apps to download to show your support.
Timeless
Growing up with a grandmother with Alzheimer’s, Emma Yang saw firsthand how the illness can affect families and caregivers. As a resourceful programmer, Emma sought to build a mobile app that could help people with Alzheimer’s stay connected with friends and family, remember events, and recognize their loved ones.
“During the design process I often asked myself, What would my grandmother do? And how would this help her?” Emma said in a TEDx Talk. “I want to be able to empathize with how patients like my grandmother feel and understand how my app can help them live better daily lives.” Emma launched Timeless when she was 14 and in high school, and today she’s a student at Harvard and president of the Harvard College Quantum Computing Association.
Why we love it: The app incorporates AI-powered facial recognition technology in a few ways. Users can browse photos that are tagged with the names of people and their relationship, or use the camera app to identify people in front of them. Timeless is available in multiple languages including Simplified and Traditional Chinese as well as Spanish, making it more accessible for people around the world to use.
Angelina Tsuboi is an 18-year-old multi-hyphenate programmer, founder, and researcher who focuses on applying computational intelligence and AI to diverse fields like electromagnetism, astrophysics, quantum mechanics, and biology. In addition to running her own research lab Stellaryx Labs and building aerospace cybersecurity programs, Angelina has launched several apps over her programming career.
Lilac, an app that Angelina built in 2022, won the Student Swift Challenge at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference. The app provides resources for single parents to find childcare, housing, and translation services. Angelina built Lilac using React Native, Firebase, and Adobe Illustrator for the graphics.
Why we love it: The idea for Lilac came from Angelina’s lived experience. “My mom is a single mother and she’s from Japan,” she told Apple in a press release. “When she came here, she had problems with the language, so I made an app where you can find resources such as childcare or housing or grant opportunities, and translators in the community to help you connect with them.”
As a college student at Kansas State University, the closest Asian supermarket Alex Zhou could get to was two hours away — way too far to travel for his Chinese grocery staples like rice, chili oil, and tea. So when Alex graduated with a degree in electrical engineering, he founded Yamibuy, an e-commerce marketplace for buying Asian snacks, food, beauty, and health products in North America.
Alex’s mother owned businesses in China, which inspired him to become an entrepreneur, too. Being able to provide other Asian Americans with their comfort items is what makes the business so fulfilling: “Every time you’re homesick, [and] you want a taste of your hometown, you go to Yamibuy,” he said on an episode of the podcast Asian Hustle Network.
Why we love it: In addition to shrimp crackers and authentic K-beauty products, you can also find Asian kitchen appliances (like rice cookers and hot pots) and cooking tools on Yamibuy.
Like lots of software engineers, Kun Gao and his classmates in the computer science program at UC Berkeley liked to build products in their spare time. One of their projects was a video sharing site that would eventually become the wildly popular anime streaming service Crunchyroll.
Kun had interned at the now-defunct site Hot or Not, where he got a taste of how to code something from scratch. “The lesson there was it’s actually not hard to build a web startup, especially if you’re an engineer with a little bit of product sense — you can literally code it all yourself,” Kun told the podcast Asian Hustle Network.
Crunchyroll came about back in 2006, when online video was a relatively new concept. “It wasn’t just something you can do off the shelf,” Kun told the podcast Rock the Boat. Kun and his co-founders had to make their own servers, find and customize encoders, figure out how to decode video on a web browser, and learn how to deliver the bits, he said. “There was actually a lot of heavy lifting,” he says.
Why we love it: If you’re just wading into anime and want to explore past seasons from popular shows, or you’re an anime stan who wants to stream episodes an hour after they air in Japan, it’s easy to find something for you on Crunchyroll. Plus, there are lots of language options for subtitles, making the content accessible to people who don’t speak Japanese.
Software engineer and diversity activist Tracy Chou created the app Block Party to give people a tool that could protect them from online harassment and abuse. “On the technical side, I’ve written code from the startup ground floor of three consumer web-scale platforms — Facebook, Pinterest, Quora,” Tracy wrote on the Block Party website. She saw the shortcomings in the anti-harassment tools that social media platforms offer, and decided to build something better.
Chou, whose parents are Taiwanese immigrants, is outspoken on social media and unfortunately has dealt with trolls, harassers, threats, and stalkers. “My whole life is oriented around how I can be safe, psychologically, mentally, and physically,” she told Fast Company. With the rise of anti-Asian racism and hate crimes in recent years, Block Party’s offerings are essential: A 2021 Pew survey found that 81% of Asian Americans said that violence against them is increasing.
Block Party offers a handful of anti-harassment tools for Twitter (though they aim to expand to other platforms), like customizable Lockout Filters that mute people who are most likely to harass you. (There’s a basic plan that allows you to use Block Party for free, or you can pay $12 a month for more advanced block lists and filters.)
Why we love it: The beauty of Block Party is that, once you enable the tools, you can continue to use social media as usual without stressing over what you might come across on your timeline. There’s even an option to enlist a trusted person as a “helper” who gets permission to mute, block, and remove harmful tweets for you so you don’t have to see them yourself.
Sign up for Block Party by connecting your Twitter account here.
Honeycomb
If you’re constantly sending photos and videos of your kid to far-flung loved ones, you’ll love Honeycomb, a private digital scrapbook for families.
Honeycomb started as a tool for families to record their own histories to pass down to younger generations. “For years, I begged my mom and dad to record the stories they used to tell me and my sister as kids, stories about their lives growing up in China during the Cultural Revolution, how they met, why they decided to come to the United States,” Amelia Lin, who co-founded Honeycomb with Nicole Wee, wrote in a blog.
Why we love it: You can post audio snippets (for all those baby giggles and first words) to Honeycomb in addition to photos and videos. And the app is free to use and offers unlimited storage — so there’s no worries about over-documenting.
Native Stories is an audio app with a digital map of Hawaii and guided walking tours that teach you about the history behind points of cultural significance on the islands. Nohealani Hirahara Frizzell — whose ancestors originate from Maui, Kauai, and Japan — created the app to preserve indigenous Hawaiian wisdom and bring storytelling and oral tradition into the modern era. The audio tours, which are written and narrated by Native Hawaiians, only cost $1.99 to access, and all of the proceeds go to the Native Stories nonprofit.
Why we love it: You can download the audio tours to use offline if your service is spotty, plus there’s an option to read the text rather than listen to it. And if you’re not in Hawaii, you can always listen to the Native Stories podcast, which features interviews with inspiring indigeous people.
So far, we’ve heard about your various desires to strengthen your skills in data analysis, project management, information security, artificial intelligence, and human resources. Would you believe it if we told you that there is a technical skill that shows up in all of these fields and more?
It’s spreadsheet software.
Spreadsheet software, like Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets, is among the most commonly sought technical skills in job listings across all career areas and occupations. (Actually, we used spreadsheet software to discover this fun fact!)
According to our analysis using data from job listings in the past 12 months, this key skill frequently shows up in career areas ranging from the obvious—planning and analysis, business management, administration, and finance—to the technical—engineering, information technology, and science and research—all the way to the unexpected—hospitality, human resources, health care, marketing, sales, and customer support.
That’s because these tools are extremely versatile, and mastering them enables a wide range of tasks. You can use them to organize information, track progress, analyze data, and create charts.
The specific way spreadsheet software will show up in a role may vary, but tasks are generally guided by the same fundamentals. You can go far if you know how to format a spreadsheet, sort data, and use basic formulas and functions, like SUM and COUNT. You can go a bit farther if you know how to use conditional formatting, create pivot tables, and use slightly more complex functions like SUMIF, CONCATENATE, and VLOOKUP.
University of Colorado Boulder’s Everyday Excel Specialization, where you’ll dive a bit deeper into the practical uses of the spreadsheet software and complete applied learning projects, which you can use to demonstrate your skills to potential employers.
Macquarie University’s Excel Skills for Business Specialization, where you’ll gradually advance your spreadsheet skills and learn to apply them to analyze business data.
For more practice, here are some career-oriented Guided Projects, all of which take two hours or less to complete:
Before you go, tell us in the comments: What are the most creative ways you’ve used spreadsheets?
Myanmar’s military staged a coup in 2021, strangling democratic reforms and jailing much of the country’s civilian leadership. Three years later, the Southeast Asian nation is teetering on the brink of failed statehood. After years of conflict, rebels have scored victories over the military junta.
