Hey guys!
I am back with another blog post! Today I will share with you guys seven different ways to use Spreadsheets or Excel for college. If I am honest with you all, I never really saw the potential for them until my last year of high school.
Originally, I would only use them for class-related purposes, in math classes, but I then realized they were perfect to organize information. In college, when I looked for different ways to study, I also found one new method to study using these sheets!
With that being said, I hope you can learn something new from this blog post!
Budgeting School Expenses
The first way I recommend using spreadsheets in college is for planning out the expenses you will have. This includes tuition, housing, food, transportation, and more. I also like to include some of the fees that my school charges us. The numbers will be estimates or depend on the financial award letter my school gives me. Then, I include next to those numbers the actual amount I have and will be paying for that category. In my spreadsheet, for the estimate, I used my financial award letter and the numbers my school gave me. Then, on actual, I inputted the amount of money I had for that category. This number could be different depending on what I thought. For example, I knew I would not need that much money for books so I would put a "TBD" on it instead of a number. Luckily, I paid nothing for them which saved me money, make sure to check that post out! It all depends on you and your college experience. Some might live home and others might not! This was helpful for me because it showed me what I had covered and what I didn't. I knew where I had to allocate my money and whether I need more of it. This is a practice that will also be useful post-college (as an adult you have rent, groceries, and bills). Spreadsheets for budgeting are the best combination. USE THEM!
Planning Your Four Years
Okay, I know that some of our advisors will be doing this for us but it is also a good idea to make one for YOURSELF. I have a few plans and goals that I want to accomplish within my four years and there is no better form of manifestation than to have a solid written plan of it. My school runs with the semester system so I made sure I had two different charts for one year. After doing some research and meeting with my advisor, I made a plan of my own while simultaneously referring to my advisor's own four-year plan. I then used a color-coding system and made sure everything was clear for me. This has helped me so much when meeting with mentors and advisors. It also has helped me choose all the classes I need and keep count of my units. Overall, I REALLY recommend doing a four-year plan for yourself! Plan out what you want to see happen. Of course, sometimes things will not go your way; life happens and not all plans go accordingly. However, it is nice having something you can follow or rely on and if you still do not know what you want to do or accomplish, that is okay too. This is meant to make your life easier, not to stress you out.
Grade Calculation
The chart above was graciously provided to me by my lovely professor during our class. She created it for us and I will forever be grateful for it, it made my life so much easier! Although this recommendation is a bit more complicated since it requires you to know how to use formulas on spreadsheets for the percentages, I HIGHLY recommend it! Once you get the hang of it, if you make one for each class, all you got to do is input your grades! This allows you to know if you have any leeway when times get difficult. It also helps you keep your professor accountable by making sure that they do not make any mistakes. This one is pretty straight forward but I thought I should include it here because I find this to be a bit more reliable than the grade calculators online.
Recording Scholarships & Internships
This one right here helped me SO MUCH during my senior year! Every year, I make a new sheet and it helps me keep track of everything I apply to. What I do is add a column for the name, the deadline to make sure I do not miss them, whether I turned it in or not and when, and any comments (normally the link and some important details). I also created a color code system to track which ones I am waiting for a reply for, which ones accepted me, and which ones rejected me. This honestly is nice as well because I am to share them with younger friends or peers to share opportunities. Another plus is for when I update my resume, all the things I have done and been awarded are on this sheet! This is just a great thing to have because it will help you stay organized with all the scholarships and internships you apply! (Make sure you also write down the day you are awarded anything because it can be important for the future!)
Keeping Track of Your Requirements
This one can be done in the same spreadsheet your four-year plan is at but it is all up to you. I personally made a small chart in one corner and wrote all the requirements I had to complete for my degree (I also made a more detailed one too as pictured on the top left). On the bottom, I made another chart with my general education requirements as well! This allows me to make sure I am on track and know what I still need to complete as well as what I am currently taking. This is something super simple but super helpful. It will help you in the long run and will definitely ease some of your stress when planning out your schedules or when you meet with an advisor. I have also found that it makes things easy when you are looking for potential minors that you are interested in enrolling! You can cross-reference with its own requirements!
Usernames & Passwords
I am sure most of us will go through forgetting our username or password at one point in our life. Both even. Personally, when applying to schools and even during my first year of college, I found myself having to make SO many accounts. When you are accepted to colleges, you will most likely be required to make portal accounts. That is A LOT of information that you need to remember! Now, you can write this on a paper in a notebook, but that chances of losing it or having it get destroyed exist. I think that inputting this information on a spreadsheet is super convenient and efficient. You will be able to access it everywhere and the chances of losing it are almost nonexistent. If you are afraid of people being able to see them, one tip I have is after writing everything in, fill in the cell with the same color as the text. You will only know this and when you want to read them, you can just get rid of the fill color.
Active Recall Method
The last way I recommend using spreadsheets is for studying purposes. While watching a few YouTubers on different effective ways to study, I found out about this method! They use spreadsheets for it and the technique I mentioned on the previous tip (the one above/ before this one). On one column, they write out the questions in a white/clear cell and black (or any color you want) letters; on the one next to it, they write out the answer. However, instead of having the cell of the answer be white/clear, they make it the same color that the letters are in so you do not see the answer! Or you can simple make the text white to make it blend in with the background. Once you are reviewing the questions, you make the cell clear once again or the text black to reveal the answer. This is almost like the flashcard system but spreadsheet-style! To make this more helpful you can also color code your questions; you can mark which ones you know know, which ones need work, and which ones you are completely clueless about! Make sure you consistently review them and you should be able to learn the information faster!
I hope you guys learned something new from all of this! I hope I was able to teach you something! Spreadsheets can be SO helpful but so many people are not aware of the potential uses. I also love that you can color-code it and implement them in different aspects of your life!
Have you tried these? Did you use spreadsheets in any of these ways or other ways? Let me know down below!
Until next time,
Diana