Learner Reviews & Feedback for Operations Analytics by University of Pennsylvania

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Not bad for someone with no business background like me who doesn't utilize Excel often in my job as I'd adopt python to crunch a massive amount of data instead. However, Excel does do an excellent job for a small amount of data, and when you're proficient at it, you'd be better at mingling with those business degree people at work. Don't be deterred by the lengthy videos as the concepts presented are intuitive and not very difficult (given that you're not bad at junior high/ high school level maths), so you can certainly skip some parts.

Some downsides about this course: I think it's too easy. The quizzes are too easy and the students do not have an opportunity to create their own Excel simulations because these are not required to pass the course. Watching how someone does Excel passively doesn't guarantee that you'd be able to do the same.

The course provides good overview of forecasting and operation analytics. Some operation research techniques like linear programming, network optimization, decision tree (not to confuse with decision tree from machine learning field), and simulation are nicely presented. Solver plugin of excel is used for all those problems which makes the analytic content becomes more concrete.

The presentation is from very, very high level point of view though, and lack from depth. It lacks of depth from business point of view, but also from analytic point of view. The quizzes are much too easy given the content. I expect that the quizz would be harder than example given in the course, but it's unfortunately the reverse.

I agree with the majority of comments about the general quality of the course materials and quality of teaching. This course would probably be suitable for those with 0 prior experience in excel, statistics and optimisation problems. Although tools presented were overall useful and easy to use (everything can be done in Excel), I think all of the teaching material could be summarised in 1-hour lecture. I had to watch the videos at x1.75 speed. In my opinion, the course could be also improved by adjusting the depth and complexity of the weekly quizzes as currently they are very basic.

A great course, with good material and very smart and likeable professors.

For improvement: Sometimes it is hard to follow, slow down from time to time to review concepts that have been introduced + I would appreciate if there is follow up material at the end of the course to answer the "what's next" question, after finishing. Also think about different Assignments for grading. I found the quizzes too easy (in part).

I believe the course was truly worth it, but the lack of didactics from the first professor was really discouraging, he basically only read whatever was write on the power point presentation, other than that, I believe Wharton should have kept the course and the answers to students questions updated. Still, is worth it, if you plan on developing analytical skills.

Prof. Senthil can definitely improve on delivering the lecture as it was very deflating. Reading out the slide content is not exactly a good way to put forth concepts. Prof. Sergei and Gan did a fantastic job in explaining the concept and demonstrated using excel perfectly. Learned a lot of new concepts and I am able to allocate the same in realistic environment.

Great course! Motivates students to learn more about (non-) linear optimization, simulations, distributions, and decision trees. Satisfactorily thorough with references to further materials when one wants to deepen their understanding and easily understandable for people with no background. Thank you for your course.

THis is an amazing course and i learnt so much. WHat i really enjoyed about this course is the exercises and that you can practice as you learn. I work in the retail industry so i found the case studies really relevant and easy to understand and hence had the context needed to solve the problem! Great work Wharton!

Provides a understanding of simulation and optimization using very simple examples. Perfect for beginners, not so much if you looking for more in-depth discussion to solve complicated problems.

Also, Week 3 and Week 4 test more on your Excel skills rather than actual simulation and optimization knowledge.

A must-do course for people managing resources (both men & material). This course will help in analysing data effectively which in turn can be used for taking key business decisions. "Solver" & "Data Simulation" are 2 things which I have found very useful in this course.

Great course! However I think that the evaluation quiz is confusing, because we always need to pick up previous class data to solve the problems. In the future consider to put all data in the quiz. With this problem corrected, I would give a 5 star rating.

Very good introduction course to some of the fundamental problems outlining operation analytics. I especially liked the walk-through excel exercises and the homework exercises offered just the right amount of challenge for someone to grasp the concept.