I have now finished my term in my technology class where one of my main projects was to do an inquiry on something relating to technology that you wish to learn more about.  I chose to do Excel for my tech inquiry. I chose this because Excel was something I have never known much about, but I know how useful it can be for a variety of different functions. I knew that Excel was not learned overnight and that it takes time to fully understand how it works and to learn how to use its various functions. This is why I thought it would be the perfect thing to do for my inquiry as I had 11 weeks to learn it.

My journey learning Excel has been very educational. It was definitely frustrating at times, as some days I felt like I would never be able to figure out how it works, but once you do understand a function it becomes clear and easy. I have learned a lot of unique features that Excel offers, such as how to enter, sort and filter data, how the formulas work, how to insert tables, how to use charts, and more! I feel much more confident in my ability to use Excel since learning more about it, however, there I still have more to learn. The order I learned each of these functions in was beneficial for me and they built off of each other. This allowed me to gain a better understanding of each function since I knew the other functions you had to use. Within these 11 weeks learning about Excel, I have gained confidence and experience using this program.

One of the highlights of learning Excel for me was the basic tasks and learning how the formulas work when creating a budget spreadsheet. Learning the ins and outs of these formulas allowed me to create an accurate budget spreadsheet easily. This is something that I will use a lot when using Excel because it saves you a lot of time and manual inputting. I think that the formulas (SUM, AVERAGE, etc.) are one of the most used functions by those using Excel, so I wanted to spend a lot of time learning these. I now feel confident in my skills and feel that I can accurately use these formulas.

Overall, I am happy that I chose to learn Excel for my tech inquiry, as it challenged me to learn something that I had absolutely zero knowledge on and something that would be of value to me in my years to come. It was definitely not easy to learn since there is so much involved with an Excel spreadsheet and many different functions, however, there are a ton of great resources available online (linked in each of my blog posts) that were a huge help for me in my learning. I am grateful that I had the opportunity in my technology class to learn Excel because it is a skill I can take away with me and it also allowed me to do a lot of research and writing on the topic. I recommend anyone looking for an extra project who does not already know Excel to learn how to use it. You will be surprised how helpful it can be in your everyday life.

Thanks for reading my journey with using Excel 🙂