The Greatness of Excel

Excel, in my opinion, is the most applicable tool we have learned in computer skills. Outside of entering basic formulas like addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division I was unaware of the other countless operations available. Computing averages, standard deviations, and medians make Excel a true tool which can be used by both professionals and non-professionals alike. Undoubtedly, accountants, economists, scientists, teachers, and virtually everybody can find their niche using the applications offered in Excel. Excel’s ability to be more than just a spread sheet is astounding. Personally, I was unaware that you could merge cells to create titles for diagrams, color the spreadsheets differently, and use conditional formatting to highlight interesting eye-grabbing data. There seems to be countless ways to format information to organize charts into the professionally looking diagrams without much added difficulty. I also didn’t know that data being entered into charts could be refined into pie graphs, line graphs, column graphs, bar graphs, and scatter diagrams. This viability to manipulate data saves the person working oodles of time. Excel is possibly most impressive through its innate flexibility to organize data, compile statistical information, and efficiently depict the data in visual form.

I personally expect to use Excel in the future for numerous purposes which could include a list of financial transactions, possibly a list of physical workouts and their dates, as well as “to-do” list of chores needing to be done. Currently, I keep an excel spread sheet for all of my college purchases. Even though I have being doing this prior to our unit on Excel, it wasn’t until after, when I started to make charts by selecting only contiguous cells, using the “control” key, and also implementing conditional formatting to highlight cells with purchases over fifty dollars. I have even generated a line chart to see if my spending is unusually high so that I can am knowledgeable about how I stand financially. Prior to the Excel unit, I found keeping a spreadsheet extremely tedious and boring. However, now that I have added some skills to my Excel repertoire I find my spreadsheet to be far more interesting and colorful but also organized and easy to interpret.

Most importantly, I find Excel as an easy application for any individual to achieve professional results without much prior knowledge. I truly appreciate Excel as being, in my opinion, the most useful application available in the Microsoft Office package.