MS EXCEL IN EDUCATING UNIVERSITY STUDENTS MAJORING IN MANAGEMENT. A CASE OF THE FACULTY OF MANAGEMENT AT THE UTP UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

The paper addresses the application of Ms Excel in educating university students majoring in management.

The results of many studies demonstrate that spreadsheet is a very important tool in educating students in economics majors. The knowledge of spreadsheet potential and how to operate it is indispensable not only in managerial positions but also in various supervisory and office jobs in various sections of the organization; from HR, through accounting and sales departments, to production. It is essential to know not only spreadsheet functions and tools but also how to apply spreadsheet to solve specific business problems.

Bearing all that in mind, it is extremely important for economic majors education programs to consider the spreadsheet application for specific courses. Such assumption has been made by the Faculty of Management at the UTP University of Science and Technology in Bydgoszcz, Poland. The education programs for the management major and the management and production engineering major cover the following courses which involve the use of Ms Excel spreadsheet: Information Technologies, Computer Science for Commerce and Services, Management Accounting, Cost Accounting as well as Controlling.

This article provides issues covered in each of those courses, pointing to specific spreadsheet functions and tools applied to solve the problems analysed.

The results of the students survey confirm the purposefulness of spreadsheet application to education process. The students of the Faculty of Management at UTP consider the spreadsheet-using courses to be very positive and claim that they have learnt many new functions and tools applicable to solving content-wise problems.