except for 99% of employers are wanting you to master Excel, not SAS. I'm ignorant of SAS, so if learning SAS is going to help you master excel then obviously I can see what you are saying, correct me if I'm wrong.

I've been doing the analyst thing for like a year and I have a bs in math and econ from a pretty good school. I am familiar with other software but I primarily use excel(csvs pulled from a sql database or vendor data pulled from their apis) for my work.

It is an entry level analyst position and it is with a very big company. I interviewed and applied for a ton of similar entry level analyst jobs and the common theme was knowing excel and being very very quick and familiar with it and being able to problem solve efficiently.

A big part of what I do isn't even so much the excel work but finding ways to deal with small problems that can be somewhat tricky. For example not too long ago I had to come up with a way to take an array of data filled with non zero real numbers and blanks, and for each row make sure that every blank entry up to a real number is blank and every entry after the last real number is a zero.

So, turn <() () () 3 4 6 () ()> into <() () () 3 4 6 0 0> over a selected array embedded in larger table.

This kind of stuff has always been fun for me and that's why I like my job. If anyone has any questions about interviewing or anything I'm happy to answer with my experiences just because I've been through it recently.

I'm not gonna sit here and tell you that learning excel is the end all, because it's not but it's a good start. That's all.

You're levelling right ?

I'm doing Economics atm and 75% of my modules are heavily maths-related.

Hey Gospy (or anyone else),

how would you recommend learning excel from someone with basically zero knowledge of it? Any course or books you would recommend? (Nothing expensive if possible).

Thanks!

I mean it depends on your background. But luckily you are gonna want to be familiar with MS products for basically any job you apply for. It's something you may not get in school, but you are gonna want it regardless.

First step is to get a copy of Office 2010. You will want to be familiar with the ribbon setup.

I don't really know any formal courses or anything, I don't typically go that approach. I just use the internet to find stuff out/teach myself. This site was very helpful for reference for me: http://www.ozgrid.com/Excel/ Just go through each of the sections and study it.

What I would do after that(and what I still do now) is just go through forums and either help people solve problems or just read through others solutions. Take your time and focus on the simplest, most efficient way to solve things. Brute force is not your friend.

If you do this enough you will pick up a ton of extra skills. This is going to be true of just about anything, use this advice for other stuff too.

If you want to pick up math/other science tips in this way, I used to frequent this forum quite a bit: http://www.physicsforums.com. Traffic may have died down a bit but it seems pretty active still.

what forums would you advice going through?

Hey guys, I'm currently about to enter my 2nd year of my 4 year Economics with German BA with a year abroad at the University of Nottingham.

I have a choice of whether to do Econometrics this year as I did an Introductory Econometrics module in year 1. This would mean that I would do an "Econometrics project" as opposed to a dissertation in my final year. I found econometrics rather tedious however and it was my lowest mark out of all my modules.

Would I be advised to dropping down to do "quantitative economics" instead? It's a less rigorous set of modules yet still includes challenging mathematics. I feel if I took these modules it would increase my chance of getting a first.

Thanks!

do whatever you enjoy to do but keep in mind, that "reseraching" with Economeric methods is far (and I really mean way far) complicated and unsatisfying than what you learned in your introductory course...

Challenging math is all what Economics is about...

.

^yeah, this is why Ive decided not to pursue economics but rather accounting or finance. I dont think I will enjoy the math being used.

I get accounting, but is finance undergrad more useful than econ undergrad?
afaik Finance grad school requires as much math as econ grad school and finance undergrad requires as little as econ undergrad.

Assuming that accounting=really useful, close to 0% unemployment and econ=mentally stimulating + possibly the best choice for data analysis type of jobs (combo of decent statistics/metrics knowledge+ analytical thinking and ability to think in context), where is finance undergrad's edge?

you're probably right, but Im not even thinking of grad school right now. Just trying to finish undergrad asap