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High School Students Compete In 'Microsoft Office Championship' (latimes.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the extracurricular-activities dept.

An anonymous reader writes: This week the L.A. Times described a 17-year-old from Virginia who'd spent several hours a day perfecting his technique in Microsoft Excel, "one of 150 students from 50 countries competing in the Microsoft Office Specialist World Championship" at the Disneyland Hotel in Anaheim. "At stake: cash, prizes and the clout that comes with being the best in the world at Excel, PowerPoint or Word. 'I'm going to do my best to bring it home for the United States,' John said as he prepared for the competition."

Microsoft's VP of Worldwide Education said the event helps students "to become more employable to companies that build their businesses around the Microsoft suite." For example, the article points out, "Past winners have gone on to attend Ivy League colleges and even work at, yes, Microsoft... Delaware resident Anirudh Narayanan, 17, prepared all summer to compete in the Excel 2013 category, 'looking up obscure facts just in case I might need to know it during the test.' He's hoping the skills he honed will help him at Carnegie Mellon University, where he will begin studying economics in the fall. 'I make sure I do a minimum of five hours a week in Excel,' Anirudh said. 'Then for a while I'll be on YouTube watching videos about Excel.'"
John eventually won the first-place prize in the Excel category -- which was $7,000 and an Xbox.

68 of 103 comments (clear)

  1. April Fool! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Wait... today is not April 1st.

    W.T.F.???

    1. Re: April Fool! by tysonedwards · · Score: 2

      What's the job? Administrative Assistant? I thought the key criteria there was being attractive.

      --
      Thirty four characters live here.
    2. Re: April Fool! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Excel is used heavily in scientific analysis of data.

    3. Re: April Fool! by Immerman · · Score: 4, Interesting

      More's the pity.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    4. Re: April Fool! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I think most GC's and such write their own software now that you pay for or come bundled. I dont know any that still rely on Excel.

    5. Re: April Fool! by supremebob · · Score: 2

      Financial analysts LOVE Excel for their financial models. Junior analysts spend so much time using it that their bosses often take away their mice and force them to learn all of the keyboard shortcuts to improve their productivity.

    6. Re: April Fool! by dougdonovan · · Score: 2

      good for the hourly wage students since basicly every office uses ms office products.

    7. Re: April Fool! by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 2

      So is Matlab and Gnuplot. The difference is, they're actually useful.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    8. Re: April Fool! by davester666 · · Score: 2

      a close second is being on the pill.

      --
      Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
    9. Re: April Fool! by mspohr · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The problem with spreadsheets is that there is no way to audit the results. It's very easy for a spreadsheet to become corrupted through inattentive programming or random unintended manipulation. Anything beyond a few hundred cells should be looked on with suspicion.
      It's scary to think of the decisions which are being made with these flaky tools.

      --
      I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
    10. Re: April Fool! by jandersen · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Excel is used heavily in scientific analysis of data.

      An extraordinary claim like needs a bit more detail - as well as quotations. Spreadsheets are no doubt useful for quick and dirty ad-hoc calculations, and one can imagine a scientist running a limited data set through one, while deciding on which model to build on a massively parallel super computer - which BTW most likely runs Linux - but spreadsheets are meant to be used primarily by managers and their assistants. I think one big limitation with a spreadsheet is that it is two-dimensional and cannot easily be modified to model a larger number of dimensions; it also sort of sits between specialities: it is like a database, with each sheet being a bit like a table, but you would never replace a database with it. You can perform calculations - even quite complicated ones - but you would never use it for serious number crunching; at the end of the day, your calculations are interpreted, not compiled, and you are running on a desktop computer, not TFLOPS hardware, and many real datasets contain billions of rows.

    11. Re: April Fool! by OneAhead · · Score: 2

      Spreadsheets are no doubt useful for quick and dirty ad-hoc calculations, and one can imagine a scientist running a limited data set through one

      Ah, but you see, the vast majority of scientific papers do involve limited data sets, and yes, these have often been processed by nothing more than a spreadsheet. Building a special supercomputer for that would qualify as "premature optimization" (as well as an unbelievable waste of time) if there ever was such thing.

      Though that spreadsheet may just as well have been Libreoffice calc - at least in some branches of science, FOSS is far more popular than in the "mainstream". Excel has zero special merit in this respect.

      But to get back on topic, GP's point is probably that it's not a waste of time at all for kids to decently learn to use a spreadsheet - something I would strongly agree with. Believe it or not, but spreadsheet usage is a key "problematic skill" in some universities' student influx. (Where a "problematic skill" would in this context be defined at a relevant and important skill that is really below university level to teach so that the burden falls on the high schools, which unfortunately don't do a sufficiently good job at it. See also: writing skills, basic math.)

    12. Re:April Fool! by Big+Hairy+Ian · · Score: 2

      Clearly the kid just wanted to excel

      --

      Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.

  2. good for them by turkeydance · · Score: 2

    they got paid

    1. Re:good for them by drinkypoo · · Score: 2

      Yeah, it makes me hate Microsoft a little more somehow, but you can't blame kids for getting paid. Seven grand and an Xbox? Pretty sweet if you ask me.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    2. Re: good for them by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The kid put in 3500 hours of studying so that works out to $2.00/hour. That minimum wage clerical job waiting for him is gonna look pretty juicy.

    3. Re:good for them by unixisc · · Score: 4, Funny

      Did this championship get opened by cutting a ribbon? That would have been ironically funny

    4. Re: good for them by unixisc · · Score: 2

      Why would they need to study? A lot of practice w/ documents, spreadsheets (including pivot tables) and presentations (including embedded worksheets w/ animations) would get them there.

    5. Re: good for them by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Gee that sounds a lot like studying.

    6. Re: good for them by drinkypoo · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The kid put in 3500 hours of studying so that works out to $2.00/hour. That minimum wage clerical job waiting for him is gonna look pretty juicy.

      Of all the Microsoft applications he could have put time into, Excel is probably the best. The skills learned there will transfer to other spreadsheets just fine, and they are really very useful tools.

      As a kid I was fascinated by weird computers and operating systems. There were a lot of them around because I lived in Santa Cruz, worked for Silicon Engineering (originally Sequoia Semiconductor) and Cisco (in the office formerly known as TGV) and hung out with students of UCSC which was a fairly early internet presence... and also employees of pre-Caldera SCO. My Unix hobbyism led to my first sysadmin job, and my early website (with all kinds of fringey content on it, no less) led to my working for Tivoli (just post IBM buyout) in Austin, because the recruiter at the time saw it and then contacted me.

      Aren't we supposed to celebrate nerdism here? The spreadsheet was arguably the first useful application designed for non-programmers.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    7. Re:good for them by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 1

      Yeah, it makes me hate Microsoft a little more somehow, but you can't blame kids for getting paid. Seven grand and an Xbox? Pretty sweet if you ask me.

      Does $7000 and an XBox really make up for all the times he's been stuffed in a locker with an Atomic Wedgie?

      --
      #DeleteChrome
    8. Re: good for them by swb · · Score: 1

      I love Excel. I was never a math whiz but Excel lets me play with math in ways I couldn't on paper.

    9. Re: good for them by davester666 · · Score: 1

      Clippy makes the time just fly by.

      --
      Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
    10. Re: good for them by tlhIngan · · Score: 1

      Aren't we supposed to celebrate nerdism here? The spreadsheet was arguably the first useful application designed for non-programmers.

      The spreadsheet was arguably the first killer app for a personal computer (not using PC because I don't want to refer to IBM PCs). VisiCalc was the app, and your computer was useless unless it had a copy of VisiCalc for it. And yes, all the major 8-bit PCs of the era had VisiCalc.

      It was the reason anyone needed a PC - a business owner could justify getting a PC for VisiCalc because of its flexibility, and more importantly, its "what if" features. Update a projection on a spreadsheet and the program will recalculate it all, saving hours of tedious manual computation. You could use this to determine how to price a product, what the input costs would be (which change depending on quantity), how much profit and how many sales you'd need and then the spreadsheet would calculate it all.

      Modern spreadsheets have added so much more functionality since then. It's effectively a huge simulation tool now. And some people have done interesting things with it. An accountant turned Excel into an RPG, which given what an RPG is, isn't too surprising.

    11. Re: good for them by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      Well, if you have used/learned Lotus123, Excel is a piece of cake. :D

      My first PC (and about my third computer) was a hand-me-down IBM PC-1 with DOS 3.0 on it... and Lotus 1-2-3 1.0. But I also took a class in Lotus for DOS at Cabrillo college, which served me fairly well in the future even though I never used it again, and have pretty much used only Excel and LibreOffice Calc since.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    12. Re: good for them by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      math is not what you think it is.

      As helpful and friendly as mathematicians are, I can't imagine why more people aren't proficient in it.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  3. No... just no. by jawtheshark · · Score: 1
    No... just no.

    Should my kids ever get to this, I'll disown them.

    --
    Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
  4. Now: LibreOffice championship? by Futurepower(R) · · Score: 3, Funny

    Let's have a LibreOffice championship.

    LibreOffice needs improvements in its user interface. Those who compete could suggest improvements.

    1. Re:Now: LibreOffice championship? by unixisc · · Score: 1

      Or Calligra suite championship, which could use it

    2. Re:Now: LibreOffice championship? by Heir+Of+The+Mess · · Score: 1

      Let's have a LibreOffice championship.

      That doesn't seem very interesting, anyone can demonstrate skills in spreadsheets and word processors. What about an Emacs competition, that would be much more relevant and exciting.

      --
      Australian running a company that does C# / C++ / Java / SQL / Python / Mathematica
    3. Re:Now: LibreOffice championship? by jbmartin6 · · Score: 1
      Why not? There is already an EMACS competition

      Yes I know

      --
      This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
  5. Paging.. by Nick · · Score: 1

    Paging r/LateStageCapitalism

    --
    Fuck Ajit Pai
  6. Cheap Publicity by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 1

    This program is, what, a quarter million a year and they get a ton of users and press out of it? Smart move.

    --
    My God, it's Full of Source!
    OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
  7. AKA by bobstreo · · Score: 4, Funny

    The Microsoft Special Olympics.

    1. Re:AKA by dddux · · Score: 1

      Couldn't have been said better. LOL

      --
      "It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." - Jiddu Krishnamurti
  8. I died inside. by Zobeid · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This article kills my soul.

  9. You're doing it wrong. by geekmux · · Score: 5, Funny

    "Past winners have gone on to attend Ivy League colleges..."

    You took on volunteer work. You enrolled in AP courses. You maintained a perfect 4.4 GPA, and never missed a day of school. All in hopes of having that Ivy League college accept you, only to find your bitch ass got passed up by the kid who won a fucking Excel contest.

    Ahh, no one says you're doing it wrong quite like Microsoft.

    1. Re:You're doing it wrong. by thegarbz · · Score: 2

      I'll take some guy who won an excel contest over some brain dead Ivy League can't count to 10 MBA grad any day.

      And why the hell does volunteer work have anything to do with getting into a university!

    2. Re:You're doing it wrong. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I'll take some guy who won an excel contest over some brain dead Ivy League can't count to 10 MBA grad any day.

      And why the hell does volunteer work have anything to do with getting into a university!

      There's a reason "some guy" was paid in gaming systems. He's not worth much more than that.

    3. Re:You're doing it wrong. by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 1

      Hey now!

      --
      Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
    4. Re:You're doing it wrong. by ElizabethGreene · · Score: 1

      >> And why the hell does volunteer work have anything to do with getting into a university!

      Top tier universities have scores of academically qualified candidates. They make the bulk of their decisions on extracurricular activities like volunteer work.

      I don't agree with it, but it is what it is.

    5. Re:You're doing it wrong. by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      So what you're saying is your academic qualification system is flawed in that it caps out and grades top tier applicants equally so they can no longer be distinguished on academic merit, and that rather than your most academically excellent minded youngsters being put forward you've reduced it to a popularity contest.

    6. Re:You're doing it wrong. by ElizabethGreene · · Score: 1

      > Popularity Contest

      Yep, that's how it works. The admissions board has "broad discretion" and makes decisions based on academics, the student essay, extracurricular activities, letters of recommendation, and race.

      I'm not saying that's how it should be; I'm saying how it is.

      Candidly I don't feel that this is the first problem we should work on though. If I could sole one-and-only-one issue with college I'd choose to fix the cost problem long before I worked on admissions.

    7. Re:You're doing it wrong. by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      Yes I agree with that. Resolve the issue that only rich people have a right to education before deciding which rich person is smarter. Sadly I don't anticipate either problem will be solved this generation.

    8. Re:You're doing it wrong. by geekmux · · Score: 1

      So what you're saying is your academic qualification system is flawed in that it caps out and grades top tier applicants equally so they can no longer be distinguished on academic merit, and that rather than your most academically excellent minded youngsters being put forward you've reduced it to a popularity contest.

      Politicians have been kissing babies since the 19th century. That "flawed" system has existed for a long fucking time.

      No matter how irrational it may seem, completely unrelated bullshit appeals to the masses.

      And yeah, I hate bullshit as much as you do.

  10. Re:I have a masters in Excel only 150K in loans an by Darinbob · · Score: 4, Funny

    It's your own fault, you should have gone for a PhD in Excel!

  11. I remember what MCSE stood for by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    This reminds me of the old joke about MCSE. Back in the day, MCSE was supposed to mean "Microsoft Certified Software Engineer", but people read it as "Minesweeper Certified Solitaire Expert."

  12. But did he know about the Hall of Tortured Souls? by Provocateur · · Score: 1

    wiki the Easter Egg in Excel 1995

    --
    WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
  13. Call CYS immediately! by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 1

    Would it count as child abuse? I mean it is already iffy what the Indian parents do putting their children through for the spelling bee championships. Honey Boo Boo also would make one wonder when the line gets crossed. But this is definitely over the top. Friends don't led their friends put their children through MS-Office championships....

    --
    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
  14. Add another prize by myid · · Score: 1

    Congratulations to John Dumoulin, for winning in the Excel category. :-)

    I'd suggest that Microsoft add another prize - the chance to talk with the person in charge of MS Office, and tell them how to improve it.

    It's good to get the perspective of a user. When we write code, we know how it works, so we're not as aware that labels or error messages are unclear. And if we figured out a clever way to solve a problem regarding feature X, it's easy to let pride convince us to include feature X. We might need to hear a user tell us that feature X should be removed, because it's not useful.

    1. Re:Add another prize by Misagon · · Score: 2

      What would they know? I find it unlikely that these kids would have had anything to compare with. To them, the latest Microsoft Office would already be the pinnacle of user interfaces.
      It is already so much more intuitive than the crap Web 3.0 UI on phones and on the web these days.

      --
      "We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley
    2. Re:Add another prize by myid · · Score: 1

      Another problem is that the same user interface will not appeal to all users, especially those with various levels of expertise.

      Right. But it still helps to test, to make sure that the labels and messages are clear.

      When Apple was developing the Lisa software, they tested it on potential users, to make sure that it was clear how to use it. The proceed/cancel buttons were originally labeled "Do It" and "Cancel". The testers got confused by these buttons. One tester even got a little bit angry. The Apple moderator asked him what was wrong. The tester replied, "I'm not a dolt. Why is the software calling me a dolt?" With the font that was on the buttons, the label "Do It" looked like the word "Dolt".

      So Apple decided to re-label the "Do It" button to "OK".

      An Apple employee named Larry Tesler really pushed user tests like this.

    3. Re:Add another prize by geekmux · · Score: 1

      Congratulations to John Dumoulin, for winning in the Excel category. :-)

      I'd suggest that Microsoft add another prize - the chance to talk with the person in charge of MS Office, and tell them how to improve it.

      It's good to get the perspective of a user. When we write code, we know how it works, so we're not as aware that labels or error messages are unclear. And if we figured out a clever way to solve a problem regarding feature X, it's easy to let pride convince us to include feature X. We might need to hear a user tell us that feature X should be removed, because it's not useful.

      So Microsoft should ask a contest winner about the value of Office features?

      What's next, Jeff Gordon looking for driving tips from the guy who kicks ass at GTA? Perhaps John Mayer would enjoy discussing technical riffs with a Guitar Hero champion.

      Yes, I agree we should ask users for feedback. The kid holding a trophy with exactly zero real world experience, ain't it.

  15. The Onion covered that by Latent+Heat · · Score: 1

    Some while ago the Onion had an article about office workers who wanted to do that to a colleague who tells them they are using MS-Office "wrong" because they are not availing themselves of the latest shortcuts.

  16. WARNING: Goatse re-direct link in parent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Do not follow that link. You will regret it..............

  17. VBA by thegreatbob · · Score: 1

    Augmenting any office product with VBA (hello, VB6, my old and dear fiend :D) can lead to some pretty interesting stuff.

    --
    There is no XUL, only WebExtensions...
  18. you know... by buddyglass · · Score: 1

    This is only slightly more weird than spelling bees.

  19. Does this mean.. by CptLoRes · · Score: 1

    ..there exist people in this word that understand why the autocomplete does the things it does?

  20. xbox prize? by cas2000 · · Score: 1

    $7000 is good but an xbox seems like a bit of a consolation prize - why not a ps4?

    1. Re:xbox prize? by Rolgar · · Score: 1

      The Office Suite and the XBOX are both made by MS?

  21. What a waste! by drolli · · Score: 1

    .. Delaware resident Anirudh Narayanan, 17, prepared all summer to compete in the Excel 2013 category,

    What happened to summer? when i was 17 it was: hanging out with friends in your favourite spot in the evening, playing mutiplayer games on warm evenings, going biking, swimming, and just learn whatever 1-5 evening programming project fit in into this schedule.

    1. Re:What a waste! by Luthair · · Score: 1

      Were your parents rich? Most kids I knew worked the summers.

    2. Re:What a waste! by drolli · · Score: 1

      That described the use of my free time im Summer.

  22. Microsoft Office not user-friendly? by OneAhead · · Score: 1

    Let's see:
    - Running a marathon is difficult and unpleasant
    - There are championships in the discipline of running marathons
    Ergo: Microsoft Office is difficult and unpleasant
    Ergo: Microsoft Office is not user-friendly

    (Disclaimer: yeah yeah, I know this is a textbook example of the fallacy of the converse. It's an attempt at humor.)

  23. What a fucking waste of time and talent by schleimkeim · · Score: 1

    no comment

  24. Re:.. just XBOX! by parkinglot777 · · Score: 1

    He'd disOWN you pardenor! He got himself a XBOX!

    And then he would spend the reward money on XBox games and such... MS is smart!

  25. As a computer apps teacher I find this intersting by Hasaf · · Score: 1

    Frankly, I was not aware of this contest. This article puts me in a direction that I may research more to make the apps class more interesting.

    Yes, I find systems dynamics software more interesting than excel; but Excel is what I am required to teach.

    Good job to the article submitter.

  26. Disneyland? by dddux · · Score: 1

    Disneyland and M$ Office competition in one sentence goes really well together.

    --
    "It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." - Jiddu Krishnamurti