How has Excel Helped You In Life?

I've been wanting to learn excel for quite some time now. Not just basic usage but up to the expertise level. I'm out of school for the summer and this is one of my goals. Here are a couple questions

1. How has knowing excel helped you in life? (career, daily life etc)
2. What are some resources that you would recommend for someone that knows the basics?

Thanks!

Welcome to the Board!

You'll find a lot of different uses for Excel, both personal and professional. It's got a myriad of uses, from simple check registers to statistical analysis and more. It's really up to what you want to do and how complex you want to get. Get ready to be frustrated at times, because it's a hugely complex program, but simplistic at the same time. Many users will never get past Excel as just digital graph paper, while some will go on to delve into it fully. That really depends on you. The most important thing is to have an open mind, because generally if you can think it, Excel can do it.

I stumbled into Excel as a job requirement many years ago and it literally shaped my career to where I'm now primarily an Excel developer.

As for resources there are lots of books out there, Bill Jelen (aka Mr. Excel) has several, as does John Walkenbach (www.j-walk.com). There are also a lot of tutorials that a Google/Bing search will turn up.

The Microsoft Template Gallery is a great resource and will (generally) give you good ideas about proper layout, design and functionality.

The best thing to do is just start working with it, and be open to asking questions - no matter how trivial or complicated they may seem to you, it's a good bet someone here can answer them.

HTH,

kstuffer said:

I've been wanting to learn excel for quite some time now. Not just basic usage but up to the expertise level. I'm out of school for the summer and this is one of my goals. Here are a couple questions

1. How has knowing excel helped you in life? (career, daily life etc)
2. What are some resources that you would recommend for someone that knows the basics?

Thanks!

Click to expand...

Don't do it.

Excel has ruined my life, and the lives of all of the sad gits that you see here.

xld said:

Don't do it.

Excel has ruined my life, and the lives of all of the sad gits that you see here.

Click to expand...

You don't mean that Bob. Oh no, actually you're right!!! Why didn't I just stick to photocopying and filing???

In answer to the OP's question though the main way it's helped me is I've got skills with a piece of software that is very widely used but I can use it better than anyone in my department and possibly in the entire workforce.

Dom

xld said:

Excel has ruined my life, and the lives of all of the sad gits that you see here.

Click to expand...

Not true - I used to use Access pretty much all day, so my life was already ruined.

It will increase your prospects with members of the opposite sex, most females $absolutely$ adore guys who know there way around Excel

rorya said:

Not true - I used to use Access pretty much all day, so my life was already ruined.

Click to expand...

Then you have no exuse, you should have seen it coming.

xld said:

you should have seen it coming.

Click to expand...

that is the leitmotif of my life.

There's very few people out there that can use Excel to anything like its full potential, so even learning a few simple VBA tricks can put you streets ahead of all of your colleagues in terms of efficiency, and before you know it everyone thinks you're a genius for getting your work done whilst sitting around drinking coffee

It's used in almost every industry, so it's a good transferable skill too, and competition is minimal in these days of fewer jobs...

baitmaster said:

... and before you know it everyone thinks you're a genius for getting your work done whilst sitting around drinking coffee

Click to expand...

If only! I have always found that every time I learnt something it made we want to find out more, so it saved me nada.