DSO 547 - Spreadsheet Modeling for Business Insights

"Best class at USC. It's challenging, but very rewarding. Some people struggle, other people can be engaged 75% of the class time and not have to study outside of the classroom while getting an A/A-. 1 Midterm (hard with huge curve, many don't need to study) 1 Final (probably the same as the midterm) 4(?) Homework assignments out of class; not very difficult 5-8 Problems of the day (assignment given on thursdays and due at the end of class or midnight; not difficult) This really should be a core class..."

Yeah, this is the best class in Marshall with the best teacher. Even for people who struggle with Stats, this is not like taking Gabrys's class.

If Selbe is giving the class take it. Best quant professor out there and cares about the students. Excellent class.

This will be single-handedly the best class you take at Marshall. The professor is beyond accommodating (he's changed deadlines and midterm exams to work around our schedule). He's also engaging, nice, approachable, and helps walk through all the models you'll be building in class. For someone looking to build their excel skills and apply it to models that they will truly use in business, take this course..

Best Professor on Campus. Should win one of those "golden apples" or whatever they are called every year. As someone who had very little data experience, I learned a lot. It was fast paced, but one absorbs as much as one can. Spreadsheets doesn't sound like an exciting class, but Professor Omeed makes it interesting. He's funny too.

Great class for building excel skills. Omeed is the man, very funny, engaging, and super knowledgeable. He helps anyone digest some of the more difficult concepts while also challenging those who need more. It is a very applied class and the skills learned will be critical for almost any role in business.

Excellent professor who genuinely cares about whether the students are learning the stuff he teaches. Must take class if you are weak in excel. Gives challenging homework that teaches you excel analytic tools such as Solver, Decision Trees, Monte Carlo simulation (Crystal Ball).

Helpful excel skills; professor is great; 3 hour night class is a nice format since the first half is lecture and the second half is working independently on the problem of the day- lots of in class practice; workload is not bad

This is a "must take" class if you are not competent in excel. Omeed will more or less walk you through it. It is hard and confusing and the kind of thing that gets easier with practice. It is important to come to each class and do the homework. I would recommend taking it twice a week for 90 minutes as opposed to once a week for 3 hours. Again, it is practice that makes this class comprehensible.

(Disclaimer: prior to this class I had very minimal experience in excel / building models.) There is a real progression in the material and difficulty of concepts and modeling - each week builds on the prior week's work. Reading is very optional (Selbe has great ppt lecture slides and in-class discussion covers the conceptual basis needed to do the modeling.) There is lots of in-class excel work (problems of the day) and individual homework sets which count for a significant part of your grade, so you are forced to do the work. Selbe is an excellent professor. I have learned so much in this class and now feel confident in my excel / modeling skills. We did data analysis, optimization, decision-making, simulation (using Monte Carlo), financial models/pro-forma financial statements, etc.