MLDP Special Session: "Excel Training Workshop" with Natalya Shulga' 07 and Michael Belinsky' 08

This ongoing series explores sessions of the Management and Leadership Development Program (MLDP) through participant narratives. MLDP is a one-term program designed to develop citizen leaders among sophomores, juniors, and seniors at Dartmouth College. Led by expert guest speakers each week, sessions employ experiential teaching techniques to engage students through hands-on learning of core management and leadership skills.

Over the course of two hours on a Saturday afternoon, the MLDP Excel Training Workshop equipped a room of students with the basic techniques and timesaving tricks applicable to an academic or professional setting. Natalya Shulga ’07 and Michael Belinsky ‘08, who both currently work as consultants in Boston, visited Dartmouth for the third time this year to facilitate the training. We opened the session by discussing different uses of the software, such as statistical analysis; environments in which our Excel training could prove useful, from public policy to finance, and skills we hoped to learn in the training. We began with an introduction to Excel functionality, including data entry, manipulation, and basic calculations. For those of us who weren’t as tech savvy, one of the presenters was always available to answer questions while the other led the tutorial. Natalya showed us an application of the software techniques used in her work, relating to state education administration. The session concluded with an overview of some more complex techniques, such as logic statements and modeling. Natalya and Michael conducted the training in an easy-to-understand format while managing to cover a broad selection of topics, and we all received a more comprehensive workbook to continue to practice our Excel skills in the future. A participant from the Class of 2012 commented: “I found the session really useful. I've used Excel extensively before, but I learned new tools that will allow me to better utilize the program. I was especially glad to learn how to create fixed references to cells, as well as how to create logical (as opposed to numeric) formulas.” I’d recommend the training to any Dartmouth student interested in boosting his or her Excel know-how!