I've been taking all the other courses in the Certified Data Analyst group and really glad to see that there is a hands on lesson, which was something I had requested earlier. Michael goes over all the steps involved in thorough detail to download data from FRED, synchronize the preriodicity of the data (D, W, M), then generate some univariate statistics to help interpret the data. My only critique is that he manually synchronized the data between daily / weekly / yearly when that could have been done automatically by changing the FRED download, but it's possible he did this as a learning point in case you are importing data from other sources. The hands on took 1.5 hours for me (and probably would for most since you need to pause and recreate what he's doing) so a bit more than the recommended 1 hr. Very good course overall and looking forward to more.

Another great course! I enjoyed learning through the hands on excercise. Very clear explanations on the methodology. I still would like to have notes to get an understanding of the terminology, perhaps this is in the other courses. The exercises were very helpful to understand how to go about building a good data set for analysis.

Having a walkthrough module that you could do alongside the instructor helped to put the different items from past courses into perspective. It would have helped though if the walkthrough was better organized or slightly slower, I had to keep repeating segments to check my numbers.

I really liked how the instructor walked us through building a data set, especially how he worked through a few different challenges we may face. I also liked his explanation of V-lookups, as I am trying to get more familiar with this tool.

Comprehensive, but test questions were glossed over so multiple choice was difficult for some. Seasoned Excel users might be frustrated at following along (for example, V-lookup was an addition, not a focus).

This was a great course. Building data sets in a great tool to have in the business world. Also learning how to clean up and use the different tools that excel has to offer was great to learn

Course covered how to complete basic statistical analyses of a dataset from free data provided by the federal reserve. Description of how to deal with variable frequency issues was helpful.

Doing data analytics in excels is a really useful skill in analyzing data. I would rate this course 5 stars course this course is easy to understand and easy to learn.

Insightful and useful information, in combination with Excel, makes for a high-value end product. It gives a data analyst additional tools to deliver quality work!

The step by step walkthrough of how to download data from FRED, clear up data and arrange data for charting are very helpful for effective and efficient data analysis.