Programming certificates or help with programming ideas

[kenman]

Hi All,

Think I've been a member of this site since '05(don't look at my profile all that often), and I had a couple of general questions. First off, just want to say what a great website for info and a great concept for helping people get things done. A lot of it has to do with the people involved in the process.

2 things I'm trying to ponder and would appreciate feedback from both the Excel Champions on this site and teh people who come looking for help.

I'm on the 'other side of 50', but love to program. Have some different ideas on programs that I think would or could be profitable and wondering how I might best approach it. I'm sure I could probably get some dinosaur of a program running that might do what I want, but for it to be "really" user friendly, would probably look to have one or a team of writers help me with them. Any ideas on how or who to approach regarding putting it together?

If I did want to handle this on my own, what would be the best way to handle this, regarding training, education or training..

One of my ideas uses MS Word. Is there any kind of sister site to MrExcel where I can learn Word VBA, or find out what I would need to learn to be able to put together the program I'm thinking about. I read in another post (from '04 I believe) that had an Anne Troy had written a book "Dreamboat on Word", but haven't been able to really find any books dealing with Word VBA.

Is a Bachelors degree absolutely necessary in order to get a job in the programming area (I'm sure that it helps), but is it absolutely necessary?..

Seeing as MS has come out with Office '07 (which I never bot) should I upgrade, should I wait for new OS that they are talking about releasing later this year, or should I stay with Excel '03, which there seem to be many users still today?

Any and all general comments are appreciated....

 

[nbrcrunch]

Your on the "other side of 50" and I'm just about to exit it (in a couple years).

From what I've observed, a solid understanding of the financial world is something very appealing to employers. What you know about Excel on top of that is a definite plus. If you really want to find what is most important in the market, start with temp agencies. (In America, "Robert Half" is an agency that specializes in accountants.) They'd be able to tell you what employers are most interested in.

MrExcel.com has a section on books that you can buy for studying Excel VBA. There is even a set of video DVD tutorials on VBA.

Check Amazon.com for books on Word VBA.

Bach Degree: I guess degrees are important. I don't have one but then I work in Information Technology, not accounting. As a statistical analyst, my use of Excel is more an analysis of what is on time and what is not. I "fell into" the position because of my knowledge. and then just continued to prove myself.