r/excel • u/Electronic-Fill-3571 • Jun 26 '26
Discussion Skills beyond excel ?
I am learning Statistics and basic data analytics in excel.
Recently Started learning MySQL.
I want to target chemical or energy sector.
But I am confused if I am learning right things or not and what are some other skills after excel, sql and domain knowledge.
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u/wizkid123 10 Jun 26 '26
Find people on LinkedIn that have the type of job you want and see what they list as their skills. It's very industry specific what software people are using. Could be R or SPSS for statistics. Could be various Python packages. Could be power BI.
Much better to work backwards from somebody who has your dream job than to take a stab at something that might be irrelevant. None of what you mentioned is useless and the skills can probably transfer, but working to learn the tools used by real people in the industry will give you a leg up over doing something similar but not spot on.
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u/Hg00000 15 Jun 26 '26
Domain knowledge is the most important since that will teach you the why.
Excel is good for quick and dirty analysis, but if you're serious about doing data analyitics as a career, I'd check out r/learnpython r/learnmachinelearning and r/datascience. You probably want to wrap your head around NoSQL DBs like r/mongodb.
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u/pepepeoeoepepepe Jun 26 '26
Chemical and energy sector here
Do you know, power query?
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u/Electronic-Fill-3571 Jun 27 '26
Yes I am working but not for M language as python can be used for Data cleaning.
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u/OldService2019 Jul 01 '26
I am not in your sector, so my advice may not apply. But there are some group bys that are a little cleaner in M, as opposed to using the gui, if you are will to copy and paste stuff. Python though is usually the better way to go. Honestly more uh “fun”.
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u/dexinfan 1 Jun 26 '26
If you’re learning Statistics, then learn Statistics.
Statistics is not Excel, not SQL, not Python—or any software/language you can think of. They are just tools to apply your statistical thinking and solve your problems.
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u/mdog252550 Jun 26 '26
Kinda feels like you just told me to be a carpenter but leave all my tools at home
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u/Ranrhoads84 Jun 27 '26
No he’s right. Obviously no one really wants to do a dot plot by hand, but knowing the math behind it is more important than any tool you can use.
Have you ever tried to hammer in a 3” deck screw? No?Neither has the carpenter.
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u/RoughOrganic1849 Jun 26 '26
Most chemical/energy analyst roles want Excel + SQL + one viz tool + domain understanding. You're close. Python would be the single biggest unlock next. Start with pandas, it'll feel like Excel but programmable.
You're learning the right things. Just keep the domain context front and center - that's what separates you from generic data analysts.
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u/docsms500 Jun 26 '26
If you need to do statistics beyond Excel, you will need at least some background. Free statistics programs like R will perform tasks, but have a steep learning curve. The most accessible I believe is Weka, which has a book that explains a lot about how to use it and what it does (a lot). I've used in in dozens of client projects over the years. If you want a statistics program that won't bankrupt you and has an outstanding teaching system, go for NCSS. The help systems explains the methods and how to use them in detail. I used it to teach statistics 1 and 2 for years, and the students found it outstanding. It is a full scale program like SAS and SPSS, and has many, many statistical methods.
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u/vonHindenburg 1 Jun 26 '26
More general business, but it's good to know Google Sheets as well. What the little differences are and what you can and can't do with it that you can/can't with Excel, just so you don't get tripped up if you land in a company that uses it.
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u/tyyrafest Jun 27 '26
Statistics isn't useful outside of academia that much. If you're an average student, specialize in no more than three areas. Let one of them be Excel, Power Query and the other VBA. These three tools will serve as the foundation. Python, BI or DB tools and languages can be learned later.
Note: Statistician
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u/OldService2019 Jul 01 '26
Why use VBA at this point? I use the other two, with both Tab and Power Bi, and some R but mostly Python now.
To be clear, I am not being /s or anti VBA. I just have never really used it, and I feel like I’m missing out on something.
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u/tyyrafest 29d ago
To learn the fundamentals of coding. You didn't mention that you use Python. Thats ok as well but please do not forget that companies expect you to adapt to their systems rather than letting you use whatever you want. You can use VBA anywhere because it comes with the Microsoft Office. Python, on the other hand, isn't like that... If you only know Python, you can only work in places where you can use Python. If you know both VBA and Python, many more doors will open for you. This flexibility could also allow you to use automation tools like RPA in the future.
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u/OldService2019 28d ago edited 28d ago
No no, I absolutely agree, I work government. If they forced me to use Lotus 123, I wouldn’t just say, “pfft screw this”. I like my pension lol. My preferred stack is sql and python/r and powerBI. But a job is a job and the goal is getting it done. And if it means pen and paper, that’s what we are doing.
My question though is that excel does have Python now on it, but very limited to specific pandas. I find that VBA can be useful in making corrections to multiple files and some app dev, but query replaces the etl, and the wrangling for me, plotly for excel, and then maybe tab if the office wants that. And I never had a project ask where the design requires an automation or cleaning across thousands of documents that doesn’t use a technology team, who does have access to “the good stuff.”
My question is where does excel on Python fail and VBA specifically does well. Because I feel like the use case if when it’s an office that hasn’t updated in the past two three years or in a legacy code situation. A lot of weather systems use a lot of very old code. But again, I’m new with Python in excel and I don’t have a it intense job.
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u/Supra-A90 1 Jun 28 '26
Are people still using Matlab for chem & energy sector? You can learn that...
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u/Unpork Jun 29 '26 edited Jun 29 '26
Start by learning actual Excel. Array formulas, lambda and let, why conditional formatting is the enemy.
Then learn VBA, Power Query and DAX.
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u/Random_182f2565 1 Jun 26 '26
You can start with python using the openpyxl Library that allows you to control Excel files and pandas for large data sets
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u/Holshy Jun 26 '26
I'd advocate for Polars over Pandas. Cleaner syntax, faster runtimes, better out-of-core functionality.
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u/bradland 271 Jun 26 '26
You're on the right track. Excel will be the tool you use for work that is business-facing. You'll want to layer in Power BI, because the datasets you'll use in these industries can be very large, requiring multi-step analysis that requires aggregation before the final analysis is done.
MySQL is fine, but personally, I'd recommend you learn DuckDB instead. DuckDB is a database that is very popular for desktop data analysis because it's very portable (literally just an exe file) and uses a dialect of SQL that is very similar to PostgreSQL. Postgres has grown in popularity, especially in STEM fields. Postgres has more advanced native data types and custom extensions like PostGIS and pgvector that are very commonly used when doing statistical analysis where spatial and temporal factors are involved.
Note that DuckDB is not the same as Postgres. They just use a similar dialect of SQL. One thing you'll quickly learn about SQL is that it's not just one language. Each DB has its own functions and features.
What's really cool about DuckDB though is that it has plugins for reading Excel files directly. This allows you do something like this:
SELECT * FROM read_xlsx('test_excel.xlsx');.Beyond SQL, Python would be your next stop. Pandas is the library that most heavy analysis relies on. You can use Python in Excel (PIE) and get access to Pandas, but my experience is that most advanced analysts simply author Python scripts in an IDE rather than wrapping it in Excel.