Question about People's Backgrounds

[richantra]

Hi, I'm new here and just posted my first Excel question (and already received very helpful replies). My background is more in financial modeling in the finance community. Since I am new here, I was wondering what people's backgrounds are here? There seem to be a good contingent of programmers and also a lot of self taught people. Thank you.

[TMS]

Maths and Computer Science at University ... wish I’d just done Computer Science. Learnt Algol at University, bit of FORTRAN. First job learnt to Program in RPG II and COBOL. Second job learnt to program in RPG II and COBOL a lot better. Third job learnt System 10 Assembler and started to find out about spreadsheets, though not Excel. Made redundant. Fourth job learnt to use Excel and started to use VBA. Read a LOT of books on Excel and VBA and asked questions on the forums. When I was made redundant the second time, I worked for myself as an Excel consultant. Now retired ... but still answering the questions I can. Lots of stuff out there now that are completely beyond me. So, short story, worked in IT development and support my entire life.

Does that help?

[AliGW]

Joint Honours Degree in French and German, PGCE, Head of Modern Foreign Languages at a school in England (11-18 years of age) - worked for 31 years in this job (not same school, but only three of them altogether) and soon to retire. Completely self-taught at Excel and PowerQuery, but use it every day for data analysis at school.

[Glenn Kennedy]

Degree in Biochemistry, PhD in Biochemistry, DSc in analytical chemistry/food safety. I know how to turn a computer on.. and off... but have no idea what goes on "under the hood". VBA was banned in work, so I never learned it!! Entirely self taught on Excel... largely via my participation here. I used to build some good spreadsheets back in the day, with too much pastel shading (Glenn's girlie spreadsheets, as they were affectionately known). Now a part-time Digtal Nomad, providing independent consultancy services on (literally) a minute area of global Sanitary & Phytosanitary regulations (specifically: international regulation of residues of veterinary medicinal products in food of animal origin) to anyone who's prepared to pay me!!

If that lot doesn't cause you to fall asleep in a nanosecond... you're not normal...

[richantra]

Thanks so much for the detailed responses, so much more helpful that I had hoped.

[alansidman]

BS in Accounting. Worked for national Public Accounting Firm out of College. Accounting/Finance Manager for Fortune 500 co. Started with Lotus 123 and moved to Excel. Self taught in Excel, Power Query, VBA (but not at a high level) and MS Access. Retired and doing only forum assistance and when asked ProBono Access Data Bases (primarily in the non-profit community).

[TMS]

@richantra: what are you looking for? Hoping for? In what way does it help you?

[richantra]

TMS, thanks for your questions.

Besides general curiosity for a relative newcomer, I asked for the following reason: Most of the day, I focus on financial modeling, mostly three statement models to predict a company's future, but also other types of financial modeling. I'm fairly new to this and continue to find myself using inefficient workarounds on Excel. Because I am now working from home like a lot of us, I can't just run over to a co-worker to ask a question or see their model for reference. Typically, the questions I want to ask assume a combination of Excel knowhow with some finance / accounting experience (e.g., "What's the most efficient way to model out two revolving credit facilities?" or, the most common question, "Why is my balance sheet not balancing, is there a way to do quick checks?"). So, the purpose of my question was to see if there were a lot of people on here from the finance industry because not only could I receive help with Excel but they might also point me to "best practices" in Excel for the specific industry.

In any case, I have already received really quick and helpful replies on this forum (regardless of background), so I'll be on here a lot more to learn from everyone. Hope that answers your question.

[TMS]

@richantra: good to know, and welcome.

Have to say, I’ve been on here for a while and I don't know the background of many, if any, of the regulars. Ok, we all know Ali's a teacher ... But it's amazing what people bring to the party.

Bear in mind, good thread titles, clear description of your requirements, and a sample workbook with some typical data with expected outcome will help you get specific and accurate potential solutions.

[FDibbins]

Masters in Business Management, Bsc in Industrial/Process Engineering, Lean Manufacturing mentor/coach/facilitator and (uncertified) Six Sigma Black belt (whew that was a mouthful)

Started using SS's when SuperCalc came out, converted to Lotus 123 and Quatro, then to Excel - self taught and mainly learned from forums, asking and answering questions. I used excel quite a bit to analyze study results and rum simulations.

Left the engineering field and worked in security (excel usage dropped significantly and mainly helped here), now a Millwork Specialist at Home Depot where I dont use excel at all.

[Pete_UK]

I tend to avoid questions about financial functions, as my background is more "technical" - B.Sc in Physics, M.Sc. in Nuclear Reactor Physics, Chartered Engineer and Cert.Ed. I spent about 9 years after university in the field of non-destructive testing, basically designing/building prototype circuits to interface with ultrasonic equipment and using them in the field. 3 years working for a company, then another 3 yrs in a company I formed with 3 others, then 3 yrs as a self-employed consultant in NDT. Change of career then, as Lecturer in Computer Science/Studies at a local FE/HE college for 9 years, and then moved onto the admin side as Director of the MIS section (mainly databases) for a further 6 years. Another change of career then, as I worked for myself (with my wife) as a Cost Management Consultant until I retired about 5 years ago.

I became quite the in-house expert in Word Perfect and Quattro at the college (self-taught), and reluctantly moved over to MS products round about year 2000. I discovered the old Newsgroups in about 2004, and started to contribute to them and other forums. Nowadays, I only use this Forum.

Pete

[Glenn Kennedy]

PeteUK... and you were the very first person here to help me, when I joined EF. And the most recent, too. So... Once again... thank you!!

[Pete_UK]

Well, I didn't know that, Glenn !!

Obviously, my first help did not put you off, as you have gone on to become a most prolific contributor (I can't keep up with you!)

Pete

[Rick Rothstein]

Currently, and for the past 18 years, I have been a Microsoft MVP. My original discipline was Visual Basic (original compiled version) and for the last several years Excel.

I graduated college as a Math Major and then ended up working for some 32+ years as a Civil Engineer (Road Design) for the New Jersey (USA) Department of Transportation. I originally started programming in BASIC on a Texas Instruments TI-99/4 as a hobby. Eventually I formed a company (FFF Software) with two other gentleman and we sold a couple of TI-BASIC programs commercially for a couple of years. I also sold several articles on programming the TI-99/4 to COMPUTE! Magazine (very popular in the 1980s). Once TI went out of the home computer market, I purchased a Radio Shack Model 100 (first truly portable computer) and programmed on it (again, as a hobby) for a couple of years. Again, I sold several articles to a couple of magazines that covered this particular computer. Before buying my first IBM compatible PC, I owned a Commodore 128 and Atari 520. Once I discovered Visual Basic, I was completely hooked. I continued writing articles on and off across the years, but now exclusively for Visual Basic; and, of course, I used Visual Basic in my workplace to make my job, and the job of my co-workers, easier. About a year or so before I retired, I decided to start helping others with their programming needs by volunteering to answer questions on various Visual Basic newsgroups. In 2007 or so, I branched out and began answering questions on Excel newsgroups as well. I have been retired for a quite a few years now (18+ as of this posting) but my Excel online forum volunteer efforts are still continuing to this very day.

I am completely self-taught in all the programming languages I coded in and I am completely self-taught in Excel as well. Interestingly (at least to me) is the fact that I have never used Excel in any of my work across the years which may mean that I am probably the only Microsoft MVP who has absolutely no practical experience in the discipline for which I was award MVP status.

[richantra]

Such amazing backgrounds. Thank you for sharing.

[ray707]

Mainly finance, I've been in data heavy roles throughout my career!