Charts are everywhere – books, newspaper articles, magazines, ads, and even TV shows [Click here for a video clip of How I Met Your Mother]. Valuable, practical, and fun, charts enable us to visualize and understand data. In 3 steps, you can build any chart in Google spreadsheets. Continue reading “How to Create Charts in Google Spreadsheets”
A good friend introduced me to a site by Payscale that compares the “value” of a college education through a measure called the ROI (Return on Investment), broadly calculated as the difference between the expected future income stream of a college graduate and the actual cost of attending college. Continue reading “Introducing VLOOKUP & College Education Value”
Did you know you can create an interactive online Tic Tac Toe game in 5 steps? Google spreadsheets makes this possible! Two beautiful features of a Google spreadsheet are 1) it is online-based, so anyone with an Internet connection can play; and 2) Google spreadsheets are free! To access it, view our post: spreadsheetsolving.com/access Continue reading “How to Create an Online Game in 5 steps”
Here is a short post on my top 10 favorite keyboard shortcuts for spreadsheets.
Keyboard shortcuts lets you perform an action in your spreadsheet by pressing certain keys on your keyboard. Why learn them? Shortcuts are time-saving, increasing your productivity and efficiency!
If you use a Mac, replace the Ctrl with the Command (or Apple) key. Unless specified, the shortcuts can be applied in both Google Spreadsheet and Microsoft Excel.
Continue reading “Top 10 Keyboard Shortcuts for Spreadsheets”
Do higher-ranked schools tend to charge a larger tuition? Does a professor’s salary positively correlate with college tuition? In this post, we’ll explore the relationships between college tuition to a couple of factors, such as professor salary, school rank, freshman retention rate*, and 6-year graduation rate.
Continue reading “What College Rank & Professors’ Salaries say about Tuition”
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”
When asked which child she adores most, my mom would remark without hesitation, “Sushi is my favorite.” Sushi is an adorable 7-year-old schnauzer. As many may relate, pets are a part of the family, with a few lucky ones elevated to “favorite child” status. Continue reading “Pampered Pooches: Is Pet Spending Recession-Proof?”
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) recently published an observational study of subway rider seating behavior. Collecting data over three weeks in late winter 2012, the researchers published their findings on rider seating preferences in a draft report: who finds seats when the train is crowded? Do standing riders prefer vertical bars or graspable handles? Which seat type do sitting riders take: seats near a door or bench spots?
Based on some of the data from the report, let’s create visuals – charts that offer us a glimpse into some questions: Continue reading “NYC Subway Passenger Habit Charts”
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).
The tax code is complex: figuring out just how much we owe Uncle Sam is frequently accompanied with a huge headache. So just how neat would it be if we had an easy way to estimate how much federal taxes we owe?
By the end of this post, you will 1) understand how our federal tax schedule works, and 2) be on your way to creating a tax estimator spreadsheet. Continue reading “How to Estimate Taxes with Spreadsheets”
April is National Volunteering Month, so let’s celebrate! What better way is there to celebrate than to honor those who devote themselves to their communities while simultaneously mastering a pivot table? That’s right – you heard me!
Continue reading “Pivot Table & National Volunteering Month”
In Season 5 of Mad Men, a TV series set in the 1960’s, Peggy leaves the company to accept a salary of $19,000. What does $19K in 1967 equate to in today’s dollars? Let’s solve it with a spreadsheet!
