This is mathematics, probability and statistics, but shown as Excel, which is just a tool!

Probably the worst class I have ever taken on Coursera. The teacher asked us to do tons of things without explaining how and used tons of complicated math formulas without explaining what they were, what they did, or when and how to use them. There were also actual incorrect answers in the videos on occasion, so that even if you did do things correctly, you would think you were wrong and be confused, and there were a lot of inconsistencies between the spreadsheets used in the videos and the methods used to solve things compared to the actual spreadsheets given to us, which makes things pretty impossible to learn. If you're more advanced, it may be easier to find and understand the differences between the video and the spreadsheets, but the whole point of this class is that it is for beginners.

For a specialization labeled for beginners, I found this course to be very challenging compared to the other courses in the specialization. I expected that this class would cover pivot tables and how to find and interpret regression using Excel. This was not the course. The teacher explained concepts using upper division math, so I struggled to learn the concepts and did not have a teacher who could explain the concepts. The video lessons had very limited information. They assumed you knew the math already. The course would improve if it covered half the material and had exercises and worksheets that demonstrated how to do the equations.

Warning: The lecture videos along will NOT be enough to prepare you for the final assignment! Be prepared to do your own research for the extra study materials. On the forum, many students said they had to drop out during the last week (probably without getting a refund!) because they were completely caught off guard by the huge knowledge gap between lectures and the final assignment. If you are determined to get the specialization certificate, you should definitely start the final assignment as early as possible. Don't wait until the last week or two!!

Completely disorganised. You will be tested on material BEFORE you take the lesson teaching it, making you question your ability. The outline they provide for the order you should take the materials is completely wrong. If you want to learn by a guy scribbling quickly and messily with little in depth explanation about the concepts he teaches, go ahead and take this. Otherwise, avoid at all costs. Also, you learn nothing about using excel to perform data analysis, just given templates with no explanation on how they work.

The course was hard and not properly explained. They have only taught the concepts and mathematical formulas in videos instead of applying the concepts on Excel. They have provided reading material assuming students would understand on themselves how to apply the concepts on Excel. In the final course project, we were asked to prepare our model on own. However, throughout the course, it was not practiced. Now, how can a student prepare a model on themselves without practicing given that they only know about the theory.

Shame on you for wasting people's time and money by calling this an introductory class.

Introductory classes do NOT have disclaimers that you need pre-reqs. Introductory classes do NOT have introductions to exel formulas that do not include how to utilize that formula.

This class is supposed to be abotu Excel, and instead rabbit-holes into tangental probability. It is poorly written, few practical examples are provided, and the instruction is incoherant and sloppy.

There is no Excel here but a lot of theoretical and statistical topics that really make the lessons impossible to be understood if you don't have the appropriate background. At a certain stage, if you want to continue, you need to spend a lot of time to catch up trying to find on line what the trainer is talking about.

It is a pity because I used Coursera already and I was happy with their courses, but not in this case

If I could give it less than 1 star, I would. It wasn't an Excel class, rather it was a targeted business statistics class with only disjointed lectures and no benefit of textbook to actually help you learn. Lots of errors in the lectures and tests, and little to no support from course staff. Stay away! You won't regret it.

Finding a model in quiz 1 module 6 is too hard. I have spent hours trying various models, and have read every discussion thread and watched every video related to finding this model. All to no avail. I am unable to complete this course simply because of this one problem.

I aced the first two weeks. It was recommended that I finish the first quiz of the final module. The information from the first two weeks would be fresh in my mind. I attempted the quiz, and encountered problems I was in no way prepared for.

Lectures are lack of education, most of the questions are too hard and have not been explanied well. His homework are not associated with what he teaches, making the test parts extremely annoying and time comsuming.

I am pretty sure that there are a lot of people who have problems with this course.

There should be more information and teaching for Test.

It's hard to utilize the things we learn from video for test...

Useless. Poorly presented material and useless project. I would not recommend it at all. You are waisting your time if you enroll.

lots of mistakes and errors, and videos are not enough to complete all the coursework

Though the Course name is Mastering Data Analysis in Excel. This course will take you beyond Excel mastering skills. Quite a Short Course compare to amount of Statistical and Probability concepts you learn. This course covers most of the concepts and models necessary for any Data Analyst & Data Science students and Professionals. This course is quite challenging and at times frustrating and time consuming but in the end you will feel you learnt something what you don't know. It will be worth your effort.If you don't know something what you don't know. Here is the course, it is an accelerated course. You many not master all of them, you will master some, I can assure any future students Professor will give all the information and concepts that you need to master. Even after completing the exam I keep repeating and going back to videos and notes which is really valuable.

This course sharpens my knowledge of Probability Distribution and teaches a new concept of Binary Classification. It shows me how to apply Business Metrics (Course 1 of this specification), Probability Distribution and Binary Classification to Data Analysis. However, be prepared to conduct some research and seek outside material to understand more deeply becasue you may feel confused at some points as some students have complained, especially when you are a newbie in the field of probability distribution. In my opinion, this is not necessarily a drawback of this course becausue when you are left to self-learning and researching, you are also thriving strongly.

This course isn't for the faint hearted, you need a decent background in statistics, intermediate mathematics and good grounding in excel. All of these are covered well in the course but there's a lot to take in and I can imagine it being quite tough for those not so familiar. That said, the topics, examples and tools provided are exactly those required to build a good foundation in Business Analytics and I imagine, Data Science. Prof. Egger as always, delivers the course with great aplomb and shares his considerable knowledge in a wise but unassuming manner. Highly recommended.

I learnt a lot from this course. The first week seemed very straight forward and I was worried the course was a bit too rudimentary. From there it stepped up four or five gears and I had to work hard to reinforce the concepts and apply the concepts.

A really great course for any analyst or anyone seeking the true insight in data. The discussion board is a wealth of knowledge and a good read with tutors posting very plain english easier to understand answers to questions.

I got to learn life skills that are essential for a data analyst. The biggest addition to my knowledge via this course would have to be binary classification and entropy. Although I was familiar with the theory of probability and statistics prior to taking this course, everything was brought into perspective or context in this course. Grateful to Prof. Egger for his enoromous efforts in recording the videos and providing the spreadsheets for our practice and future use.

This Course is awesome!

It is incredible how some concepts clearly defined and put into practice turn into a a powerful tools for data analysis... like binary classification models, confusion matrix, bayes theorem.

I am really enjoying this course... I highly recommended to everyone... thanks a lot professor Daniel Egger for sharing your knowledge with us, Coursera and Duke University for making this course available...

Hungry for more...

Volney Poulson

Very good course. Loved Daniel's teaching. I have a request to make coming from healthcare/ lifesciences background and a starter to analytics it would be very very helpful if Daniel can include basic/ elementary videos on probability and statistics/ Bio-Statistics in this course to enable us to go deeper.

Else a separate course on BioStatistics and probability would be WOW. Looking forward for more courses from Daniel.

Thanks,

Swetha

I believe this is a great course for beginners in data science like me. I really loved the content of the course, presented with so many examples and prof Daniel Egger and his team has done a great job. I must admit that I did not understand many of the videos or concepts at first go, I had to do my share of background reading for every week. Once that is done, I guess you can takeaway so much more from these classes.

Excellent!!!

Its has so many things to learn; from understanding the data analysis process to building actual models. This course definitely laid the foundation of basic understanding and implementation of making decision thorough data analysis.

I would recommend this course to whoever is interested in learning data analysis or is involved in rational decision making through the data analysis.

I liked the teaching methods and the content. You don't have to be an expert at Excel, but it requires certain experience in data analysis, algebra, and statistics, so you don't get lost when studying the content. I have an engineering's degree, so I'm not an expert in the topic, but I was interested and I feel satisfied with the knowledge I obtained and the challenges in the final project.