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The Complete Excel Course with AI Integration

Excel course for college and university students

For college and university students handling coursework, projects and personal finances. This guide highlights the sections of The Complete Excel Course with AI Integration that serve a student: starting a spreadsheet, writing formulas for averages and totals, building a term budget, preparing and counting survey results, using PivotTables, formatting presentation charts, and applying AI with proper checks.

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Taught by Sagnik Bhattacharya and Virginia Thorn

The Complete Excel Course with AI Integration: Sagnik Bhattacharya and Virginia Thorn

What you will be able to do

At work, you will be able to:

  • Organise coursework and project data within Excel Tables, applying filters, sorts, and reliable formulas for averages and totals.
  • Track a term budget using AVERAGE and SUM, summarising spending by category, adding colour warnings, and showing expenses in a pie chart.
  • Tidy downloaded survey answers using Remove Duplicates, TRIM and Text to Columns, then count results with COUNTIF and COUNTIFS.
  • Group and summarise project or survey findings using PivotTables alongside slicers.
  • Select and format clear graphs for presentations and reports, covering everything from line and column charts to histograms.
  • Draw on ChatGPT or Copilot for guidance, running every answer through a QA checklist before adding it to submitted work.

Projects

What you will build.

The course has 14 projects. These five matter most here.

  • Personal budget tracker in Excel: spending by category with income, expense and saving totals beside a pie chart of expenses.

    Project 01

    Personal Budget Tracker

    Your first workbook: where the money goes each month.

    Adapted for a term of study to track rent, food and books with averages and totals, showing overspending in colour and drawing a pie chart of expenses.

  • Nine Excel chart types from the Marketing Engagement Dashboard: combo, bar, funnel, Pareto, waterfall, histogram, box and whisker, sunburst and treemap.

    Project 04

    Marketing Engagement Dashboard

    Nine charts, each picked for the question it answers.

    Practise building presentation and report figures with marketing records, selecting and formatting a suitable chart so your reader grasps the result clearly.

  • Excel PivotTables and a PivotChart of sales data (SalesPlusPerformance): net sales by product category as a column chart, with State, Region and City filters.

    Project 05

    SalesPlusPerformance

    A sales question answered in seconds, straight from the order data.

    Apply the steps the lessons use on sales orders to summarise a survey by group, inserting slicers to compare different groups side by side.

  • Claude AI in Excel fixing a formula: the Claude panel explains the mistake in a unit cost column and edits the cells, beside the profit percentage column.

    Project 14

    Agentic AI in Excel

    AI finds and fixes the formula; you check it before it counts.

    Treat AI as a study assistant that needs supervision, writing clear prompts to draft charts and PivotTables, and passing results through a checklist before putting them in your coursework.

  • Project 02

    Dunder Michael Paper Company employee database

    Practise cleaning techniques on employee files, learning the steps to take a raw survey download and remove stray spaces or duplicates so the list is ready to count.

Lessons

The lessons that matter, in course order.

The Complete Excel Course with AI Integration has 186 lessons. This page picks out 64 of them, 5 h 30 min of video. Each lesson keeps its number in the course.

Where to start

Lesson 1 Introduction

Start with Lesson 1 if Excel is new to you, as the course begins at the Excel window. If you already know how to enter data and use SUM, jump to Lesson 14 for the budget or Lesson 19 for project data; that section, Managing data in Excel, is free by email alongside its practice files. If you are comfortable with formulas, head to Lesson 57 to learn PivotTables.

Get the free section by email

64 of 186 lessons · 5 h 30 min

01 Microsoft Excel fundamentals: building a foundation from scratch 13 lessons · 1 h 5 min Starting with the Excel window, sheets and workbooks, moving through data entry, cell formats, arithmetic, SUM, percentages, cell references and fixing common errors with IFERROR. The lessons build a personal budget.
  1. 1 Start here Introduction Free preview 2 min
  2. 2 Course overview What you will learn in this Excel and AI course Free preview 5 min
  3. 3 The Excel interface Ribbon, tabs, name box, formula bar and navigation Free preview 13 min
  4. 4 Workbooks and worksheets in Excel Add, rename, move and navigate sheets Free preview 6 min
  5. 5 Your first Excel spreadsheet Cells, rows, columns and data types in a budget 8 min
  6. 6 Number formatting in Excel Currency, date and percentage formats for a budget 5 min
  7. 7 Cell formatting in Excel AutoFit column width, the #### error and cell styles 6 min
  8. 8 Basic maths in Excel Add, subtract, multiply and divide with formulas 3 min
  9. 9 SUM and AutoSum in Excel Total income, expenses and savings with MAX 6 min
  10. 10 Relative vs absolute references in Excel Dollar signs and mixed references 3 min
  11. 11 Calculating percentages in Excel Each expense as a percentage of income 2 min
  12. 12 Common Excel errors and how to fix them DIV0, NAME, VALUE errors and IFERROR 4 min
  13. 13 Organising an Excel workbook Dashboard, transactions and notes sheets 2 min
02 Project: personal budget tracker 5 lessons · 29 min Building a personal budget tracker that fits a term of study, featuring AVERAGE and SUM, conditional formatting, a summary by category, a pie chart and an FV calculator to plan savings.
  1. 14 SUM and AVERAGE in Excel Personal budget tracker totals and average expense 4 min
  2. 15 Conditional formatting in Excel Highlight rules, data bars and icon sets 3 min
  3. 16 Monthly expense summary in Excel Category totals for a personal budget tracker 7 min
  4. 17 Excel charts for beginners Pie chart of budget expenses by category 8 min
  5. 18 SIP growth calculator in Excel FV function for mutual fund investment growth 7 min
03 Managing data in Excel: sort, filter and tables (Dunder Michael Paper employee database) 9 lessons · 1 h 1 min Organising survey and coursework data through Excel Tables, filtering and sorting, Find and Replace, TRIM, Remove Duplicates, Text to Columns, Flash Fill, frozen headers and printing layouts. The lessons use an employee database.
  1. 19 Excel tables Create and format a table, structured references and total row 8 min
  2. 20 Sorting data in Excel Single and multi-level sort on an employee database 6 min
  3. 21 Filtering data in Excel AutoFilter, text and number filters on employee data 10 min
  4. 22 Cleaning data in Excel TRIM, Paste Special values and Find and Replace 13 min
  5. 23 Remove duplicates in Excel Find and delete duplicate rows in an employee list 6 min
  6. 24 Flash Fill in Excel Split first and last names automatically 3 min
  7. 25 Text to Columns in Excel Split data by delimiter into separate columns 6 min
  8. 26 Freeze panes in Excel Lock header rows and columns while scrolling 3 min
  9. 27 Printing in Excel Print area, page orientation, scaling and page layout 6 min
04 Essential formulas and functions (IF, SUMIF and more) 10 of 13 lessons · 59 min Using IF for simple yes or no answers, IFS and nested IF for bands, AND and OR, checking responses with COUNT and COUNTA, then finding totals and counts by group with SUMIF, SUMIFS, COUNTIF and COUNTIFS.
  1. 28 Logical functions in Excel TRUE and FALSE comparisons for beginners 5 min
  2. 29 The IF function in Excel Pass or fail results with a single condition 3 min
  3. 30 IF function practice in Excel Categorise sales data with IF formulas 6 min
  4. 31 Nested IF and IFS in Excel Customer value tiers with nested IF 6 min
  5. 32 Nested IF and IFS in Excel Sales performance labels with the IFS function 5 min
  6. 33 AND and OR with IF in Excel Flag high-value deals with multiple conditions 8 min
  7. 34 SUM, COUNT and COUNTA in Excel SUM with FILTER and counting numbers with COUNT 7 min
  8. 35 SUM, COUNT and COUNTA in Excel COUNTA, unique counts and completeness checks 4 min
  9. 36 SUMIF and COUNTIF in Excel Conditional sum and count with one criterion 8 min
  10. 37 SUMIFS and COUNTIFS in Excel Sum and count with multiple criteria 7 min
06 Data visualisation: charts and graphs 9 lessons · 45 min Preparing charts for presentations and reports, covering how to choose between pie, line, column and combo charts, alongside formatting, sparklines, and modern options like Pareto and histograms. The lessons chart marketing data.
  1. 48 Choosing the right Excel chart Column, line, pie, combo and modern chart types 4 min
  2. 49 Column charts in Excel Insert, format and label a column chart 5 min
  3. 50 Line charts in Excel Show trends over time with a line chart 4 min
  4. 51 Pie charts in Excel Show proportions and parts of a whole 4 min
  5. 52 Combo charts in Excel Column and line chart with a secondary axis 4 min
  6. 53 Formatting charts in Excel Titles, data labels, colours and chart styles 7 min
  7. 54 Sparklines in Excel Line, column and win-loss mini charts in cells 5 min
  8. 55 Funnel, Pareto and waterfall charts in Excel Modern charts for business data 5 min
  9. 56 Histogram, box and whisker, treemap and sunburst Advanced Excel chart types 6 min
07 PivotTables and PivotCharts: data analysis made easy 10 lessons · 33 min Analysing project or survey data by group and date using PivotTables, PivotCharts and slicers, ending with a practical challenge. The lessons use sales orders.
  1. 57 PivotTables 101 in Excel What a PivotTable does and the sales dataset 5 min
  2. 58 Preparing data for PivotTables Clean data with TRIM, PROPER, find and replace 5 min
  3. 59 Create your first PivotTable in Excel Insert a PivotTable from a sales table 1 min
  4. 60 PivotTable fields in Excel Rows, values, columns and Value Field Settings 2 min
  5. 61 PivotTable summaries in Excel Sales by product category and grouping by date 4 min
  6. 62 Slicers in Excel Filter PivotTables with clickable buttons 3 min
  7. 63 PivotCharts in Excel Create interactive charts from a PivotTable 5 min
  8. 64 PivotTable design Tab Report layouts, PivotTable styles and number formats 5 min
  9. 65 Refresh a PivotTable in Excel Update pivots when source data changes 2 min
  10. 66 Excel Ninja Challenge PivotTable sales by region, category and monthly trend 1 min
10 Boosting productivity with AI in Excel (Copilot, ChatGPT and Claude) 6 of 17 lessons · 35 min Exploring AI as an assistant to see what Claude, ChatGPT and Copilot can and cannot achieve, preparing tables, writing better prompts, and generating summaries, charts and PivotTables from a prompt. The lessons use sales data.
  1. 88 AI in Excel What Copilot, ChatGPT and Claude can and cannot do 8 min
  2. 89 Prepare data for Copilot in Excel Tables, headers and clean structure 6 min
  3. 90 Copilot executive summary in Excel Summarise a dataset in seconds with AI 5 min
  4. 91 Copilot prompts for Excel Weak vs strong prompts and the PRO prompt pattern 5 min
  5. 92 PivotTables with Copilot Build an Excel PivotTable from a prompt 5 min
  6. 93 Charts with Copilot and ChatGPT Create and choose the right Excel chart 6 min
10 Boosting productivity with AI in Excel (Copilot, ChatGPT and Claude) 2 of 17 lessons · 5 min Applying a QA checklist to verify every AI answer, and using ChatGPT to map out an analysis before you start building.
  1. 99 Check AI output in Excel A quick QA checklist for Copilot results 2 min
  2. 100 ChatGPT as your analysis planner Plan an Excel analysis before you build it 3 min

Instructors

Who teaches it.

Virginia Thorn smiling at the camera, dark hair tied back, wearing a navy top.

Instructor, Excel with AI

Virginia Thorn

Emmy Award winner. Teaches Excel with AI at Coding Liquids.

Questions

Asked before starting.

Is there a suitable Excel course for college and university students?

Yes. The Complete Excel Course with AI Integration from Coding Liquids guides a student from a blank spreadsheet to the practical Excel skills needed for projects and coursework: averages, totals and percentages, a term budget, counted and cleaned survey data, PivotTables, presentation charts, and AI tools applied with a QA checklist. This page highlights 64 lessons, 5 hours 30 minutes out of the course's 16 hours.

Will this course prepare a student for the Microsoft Office Specialist exam?

No. The Complete Excel Course with AI Integration is not designed for the Microsoft Office Specialist exam and does not follow its specific objectives, nor does it cover academic writing or statistics. It focuses on learning Excel through hands-on projects, building practical skills in tables, formulas, charts, PivotTables, and careful AI use.

Can a university student use Excel to analyse a project survey?

Yes. Using the methods The Complete Excel Course with AI Integration teaches, you can clean your downloaded survey answers with Remove Duplicates and TRIM, count the replies using COUNTIF and COUNTIFS, group them in a PivotTable, and display the findings in an appropriate chart. The course focuses on describing results rather than running statistical tests, which are not taught.

Is it acceptable for college students to use AI in Excel coursework?

That depends entirely on your own university's rules, which The Complete Excel Course with AI Integration cannot address. Instead, it teaches how to use ChatGPT and Copilot responsibly: writing clear prompts, drafting charts and PivotTables from text, and using a QA checklist to verify every AI answer before you submit your work.

Can college students keep their term budget in Excel?

Yes. The opening project in The Complete Excel Course with AI Integration builds a personal budget tracker: laying out spending and income with AVERAGE and SUM, setting up colours to flag overspending, summarising outgoings by category, drawing a pie chart of expenses, and building a calculator for monthly savings. This tracker easily holds a term of rent, books and food.

Excel with AI

See the whole course.

The Complete Excel Course with AI Integration: 16 hours of video in 186 lessons, built around 14 projects, with lifetime access, a Certificate of Completion and a 14-day money-back guarantee.

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