The college decision is a big one. Are you deciding which college(s) to apply to or which one to attend? Or are you in middle or high school and interested in attending college someday? Or have you already graduated from college?
For all, let’s explore essential skills by analyzing data across 202 U.S. colleges! Continue reading “ABCD: Analyzing Big College Data”
Nutella has recently been a prime target of thefts – from the undergraduate dining halls of Columbia University to a central German town of Bad Hersfeld, where 5 tons of this hazelnut spread was discovered from a parked trailer. Imagine a trailer holding 7,150,000 calories, 780,000 grams of fat, and over 1.5 tons of sugars – all packed in this delicious spread! Continue reading “Nutella “Spread”sheet Analysis”
How do we make use of an explosion of information? What skills do we need to manage massive amounts of data? Can we analyze them, create visualizations, and make discoveries?
If any of these questions intrigue you, you may be interested in “the sexiest job in the 21st century” (according to the Harvard Business Review).
A new trend across schools has emerged: B.Y.O.T for Bring Your Own Technology. Recently, an article in the New York Times describes the debate of whether schools should adopt B.Y.O.T. Are you a fan or a critic of B.Y.O.T? Do the advantages of adopting this policy outweigh the drawbacks, or do they not? How can we think about this? Before you answer our poll, let’s first discover how we can use a spreadsheet to develop a logical framework to better inform our opinion!
[polldaddy poll=6990938]
In honor of Women’s History Month in March, check out our poll below: what percentage of the work force consisted of women in 1948? Keep in mind that just 28 years prior to 1948, women were first granted the right to vote. How have employment patterns by gender changed over time? Let’s use our spreadsheet problem solving skills to figure this out!
[polldaddy poll=6991261]
Ever heard of the philosopher and mathematician, Pythagoras of the 6th century BC? Perhaps you’ve come across one his most famous theorems during your geometry class. The Pythagorean Theorem states that in a right triangle, the sum of the legs squared is equal to the hypotenuse squared.
What if life’s major choices are to be decided by the flip of a coin? Interestingly, the Freakonomics Experiments project – a collaboration between Freakonomics and the University of Chicago – is enlisting volunteers to do just that to study human behavior of decision-making. Intriguing, right?
An essential feature of this experiment is generating a truly random toin coss. While the Freakonomics Experiments team ensured coin toss randomness by using the Swiss-based Fourmilab’s True Random Number Generator (more info here), we can create our own coin toss using spreadsheets! Really? You bet!
“‘Most teams are using spreadsheets or just using our reports,’ says Brian Kopp, executive vice-president at STATS. ‘The Raptors go a step beyond that, which only a few teams are doing, and their visualizations are the best I’ve seen.'”
This quote is taken from a piece describing how technology, statistics, and analytics are changing basketball.
Full article here.
Have you seen the list of 40 movies turning 20 years old? Coming out in 1993, these movies include Jurassic Park, Robin Hood Men in Tights, Cool Runnings, Mrs. Doubtfire, and Free Willy. (The full list can be found from the link at the bottom of the post). Now you may thinking to yourselves, how could spreadsheets possibly be related to movies? Continue reading “Movie data analysis – movies turning 20”
Whether or not you realize it, you already have access to spreadsheets! Wait a minute: are you saying I don’t need to buy a spreadsheet software program to learn and create spreadsheets?
Absolutely right! Google spreadsheets are free. The 3 things you’ll need are… Continue reading “How do I access spreadsheets?”
Why care about spreadsheets? How could learning spreadsheets possibly benefit me? Continue reading “Welcome to Spreadsheet Solving”
