What should we know to be an expert in MS Excel??

Many people appreciate my excel skills. But if someone asks me what do I know, i don't have an answer since I know few basic excel skills and I know how to make perfect utilization of it to develop any model through it. The following are a few skills that I have.

1. Count and Sum:

Some of the formulas that are highly useful in this category are: sum, sumif, sumifs, sumproduct, sumsq, sumx2my2(sum of x square - y square), sumx2py2(sum of x square + y square), sumxmy2(sum of (x - y) square), count, countif, countifs, average, etc

2. Key board shortcuts:

There are a list of excel shortcuts that are highly useful and that makes the work faster. All the shortcuts can be seen in the following link by microsoft.

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel-help/excel-shortcut-and-function-keys-HP010073848.aspx

In this, the most important that cannot be ignored are: F2, F4, Ctrl + c, Ctrl + v, Ctrl + directional arrows, home, end, etc

3. Logical and Conditional formulas:

A few but most important formulas are: if, iferror, and, or, not, etc

4. Filters:

Data can be filtered as per our requirement by using the concept of filters. There is also an advanced filter which is an added advantage over the normal filter.

5. Lookups:

Hlookup and Vlookup are the major requirement while dealing with a major set of data. To develop a dynamic model in excel including filtering gets easier using lookups

6. Security and Protection:

For keeping your data unmodifiable in a particular cell or worksheet or file, you can protect it. It is available in Home/Cells/Protection.

7. Charts and Pivot Table:

Pivot table is highly useful in organizing, calculating sum, count, average, etc and summarizing the data based on requirement. A chart also helps presenting the data in an easier pictorial format.

8. Others:

There are certain other concepts which are most important in excel. Some of the most important are Solver, Goal Seek, data table, scenario analysis, data analysis, conditional formating, macros, etc.

Greeks in Education

Indian education is full of Greek letters like alpha, beta, gamma, theta, Vega, etc. These similar words are used in almost every field. If I ask theta in a summit with audience from diversified fields, they understand it differently. For example, theta is used in different fields as follows:

• Derivatives in finance.
• A plane angle in geometry.
• A special function of several complex variables.
• The voiceless dental fricative in the International Phonetic Alphabet, such as in the words thick or thin (but not as in the, which is the voiced dental fricative).
• The Potential temperature in meteorology.
• The score of a test taker in item response theory.
• Theta Type Replication: a type of bacterial DNA replication specific to circular chromosomes.
• Threshold value of an artificial neuron.
• A Bayer designation letter applied to a star in a constellation; usually the eighth star so labelled but not necessarily the eighth brightest as viewed from Earth.
• The parameter frequently used in writing the likelihood function (Bayes theorem).
• Along with μ (Mu), population parameters in the Normal/Gaussian/Bell curve distribution, usually designated N(μ,θ).
• The Watterson estimator for the population mutation rate in population genetics.
• In Christian theological writings it is often used as a short hand for God.

If this single Greek letter is used in such diversified fields, I wonder how people interpret it. Being an Indian, we can say that we don't understand Greek. But what do Greeks say if they don't understand Greek??

Todays education gets us an ability to read but not the ability to distinguish what is worth reading

In schools, the education system in India has been designed so as to match the requirements of the parents and organizations. It educates a man on how to handle pressure of studies and related homework, etc rather than teaching how to enjoy the learning. The hobby or hidden talent of the child is killed in the system. By the time he completes his education (graduation/post graduation), he looses his hidden talent and try to create a new hobby or talent which results in nothing more than a failure. Ultimately, he himself is made responsible for the loss. Every parent wants a child to be a sachin tendulkar or lata mangeshkar but no one makes it happen by recognizing, appreciating and encouraging them to enjoy his talent. If sachin tendulkar or lata mangeshkar could not have not been allowed to play cricket or music in there childhood, we could not have had them as a great appreciatable talent.

If a student is physically and mentally capable of handling the pressure, he is appreciated. But he doesn't really deserve it as he has done it based on his ability rather than performance. A ranker is elected as a leader/representative in the class rather than the one who has shown a much better performance than the last time (The previous exam). In stock market, we feel that "A small performing company is much better than the biggest company which is not performing"

The education system today has got us an ability to read and write but not the ability to distinguish what is worth reading. So, we get attracted by an attractive story rather than a real time good story.