Is there a Uni Dregree worth of learning in Excel???

[farmerscott]

Hi Everybody,

I have been on this forum for 2 years and would spend at least an hour a day relating to this forum. I have learnt a huge amount but I feel that I would harness less than 5% of its capabilities. The scope and depth of knowledge and skills to truely be proficient at Excel is rather interesting.

So I pose the question..... "Is there a uni degree worth of learning in Excel?"

cheers

FarmerScott

 

[Fazza]

Gotta be, Scott.

Once one gets into VBA for Excel, there is a huge amount that can be done/learnt: it is very deep. Even after many years of learning one is likely to have learnt only a small fraction of what there is to learn. There would be more to learn than a 'uni degree' worth.

best regards, Fazza

 

[J.Ty.]

Most likely you cannot do a degree in Excel.

If you go to a university for a computer science or computer engineering degree, Excel will be only a small fraction of your curriculum, and you will learn to do much more complicated things than that.

If you go to a university for a business, accounting, finance, ... degree, Excel will be only a tool for much more important elements of your curriculum, and you will learn to do much more than just to use it.

J.Ty.

 

[Smitty]

I teach a university course on Excel in Business, and it is by no means all encompassing as it generally focuses on best practices for business (primarily Finance & Accounting). But Excel has so many uses beyond just that area that I think it would be tough to find something all encompassing (other than teaching common elements in efficient usage). For instance, Excel for Engineers or Statisticians will be far different than my class.

 

[farmerscott]

Morning Fazza,

My main objective with this site was to learn VBA. I have some of the very basics but you are right that it takes time and experience. I always like it when a few of MVP's answer the same thread. Comparing their syntax is always interesting.

I would hazzard to say that Excel is that wide of scope that 90% of the people of this forum you could classify as being VBA dominant or function dominant in their suggestions/answers to threads. I could only think of a few that I see are highly developed in both. I don't say that as a criticism but it might be a sign that there are possibilities of even specialising within Excel.

There are a number of people on this site that do offer Excel expertise; it would be interesting if they gave a 'whole of' Excel consulting or they specialised in certain areas of Excel?

Cheers,

FarmerScott

 

[farmerscott]

Morning J.Ty,

To be honest I did not even Google to see if any Excel degrees came up. However, doing a simple job search highlighted that careers could be developed if you knew Excel. Reading between the lines (and the ads) suggested that Excel skill are looked upons as the same as SQL, Java, C++ etc as an highly employable skill.


To put my question (above) into context, when I finished my undergrad, I would have only known 1% of what I do now. It is often said that you need 10 years of professional experience after studying that you gain a high level of proficiency or professional development.

cheers

FarmerScott

 

[farmerscott]

Morning Smitty,


thanks for the comments.

You confirm J.Ty comments that Excel is only a small part of some uni degrees. Can you give us an idea of how proficient some of your students are (at Excel) when they finish your subject? Can you give some samples of test questions?

cheers,

FarmerScott

 

[Smitty]

Can you give us an idea of how proficient some of your students are (at Excel) when they finish your subject?

That all depends on the student/participant, whether it be training or an entire course. But after either, they certainly have all the tools to know where to look for things, which is what I stress: not to be an expert in all areas of Excel, but to know where to look for answers and have enough background to know how to apply it.

Can you give some samples of test questions?

I don't give tests as much as I do assignments.

Although for questions I'd probably throw in examples that ask why certain scenarios work or don't:

Why doesn't this VLOOKUP work?
Can you copy this INDEX/MATCH formula to section x? Does it work? If not why not? (Absolute References)
What would you do in this situation to add a Timeline slicer if you don't have Excel 2013?
Give an example showing where most people would build a nasty IF statement and tell them to build the appropriate formula (VLOOKUP)

 

[Fazza]

Yes, there are very few (especially posting on MrExcel) who are absolutely top level in both formulas & VBA.

Specialisation definitely occurs - e.g. refer to the areas of interest of MS MVP. MVP Web Sites Things like interacting with other software, interacting with databases, business applications, etc

regards

 

[J.Ty.]

I believe there is a good reason for this specialization. In fact, Excel is a strange bundle of two quite different layers:

• VBA, which is a general imperative programming language - and its only special feature is an extensive library of methods to access the elements of Excel's user interface,
• Spreadsheet formulas, which constitute a programming language unlike any other, often considered to be functional, but still very, very diverse from other functional languages.

The difference between the two is so fundamental, they require so different methods of thinking and designing algorithms, that it creates a natural tendency towards specialization.

On a much more speculative level, I suspect also the following mechanism:

• In order to be really proficient in VBA, a good education in general programming and algorithms is necessary, and people who have it most likely perceive the language of formulas as something strange and weird,
• Those who do not have general programming education can master in formulas, but even if they do so, it does not get them any closer to programming in VBA.

J.Ty.