Hello Everyone

[Debonairist]

Hi! I'm Debonairist. I'm 27 years old. I'm from from California. I work in the entertainment industry and live in Hollywood.

I function as a financial analyst. I am in the process of completing an online class in VB. It's been nice to learn the basics of OOP. However, I will probably never program a stand alone app so learning VB has not been all that practical, especially on the job (where I need the most help).

The value of programming for me will be making myself more efficient at work by using VBA to automate tasks, run models, and manipulate the MS Office Suite of programs in general.

I'm particularly interested in learning to automate/manipulate Access and Excel and making these two talk to each other programs and other programs such as SAS.

It's an uphill battle since besides one 12 week course I have no programming experience. Right now I'm struggling to get concepts such as looping. I cannot really express the solutions to problems in code yet either. However, I know if I meet the challenge, I will be much more efficient as well as a better problem solver. So with a little determination and some help, I think I'll be okay.

[Bob Phillips]

Well, you are certainly in the right place, so welcome.

I don't know a lot about SAS and whether VBA can automate that application, but VBA in the Excel environment is so powerful it is amazing what can be done with it.

[CreganTur]

Welcome to the forum!

VBA can do some amazing things, especially within Access and Excel. Once you learn the basics, it opens up a whole new world for you!

Right now I'm struggling to get concepts such as looping.

I wrote an Article for VBAX called "A Discussion of Loops" that goes through all of the available looping structures. It explains how they work, and in some cases why you shouldn't use them. Click on the Articles button under my username and you'll see it. I hope it helps

[Esgrimidor]

Welcome

[MZavoluk]

Hi--My name is Mike, and I just signed up for the VBA Testing and Certification an hour ago. Total newbie at programming(I'm a financial analyst at Bank of New York, and am going for the certification to enhance my resume)A couple quick questions here:

1. How is the training delivered? Does it come in a CD/DVD type that gets mailed to me, or is it delivered online?

2. I understand that everyone's learning speed is different, but I'm trying to get a grasp of how I need to budget my time. If I can devote 3 hours a day or so M-F during the week, and maybe an hour or so on on Sat and Sun, is that sufficient? And how long will it take me to complete everything if that's the timeframe I use? Thanks--any help will be appreciated.

Mike Zavoluk

[CreganTur]

If you're taking VBAX's training certification course, then you login to the training site with the username and password you're provided. All of the content is delivered via the web. I would suggest printing out the lessons, that way you can write notes on them an dhave them handy for review in the future.

It's completely self paced, so you can set your own schedule. I finished the course in a week, but that's because I had been working with VBA for a few months before taking the course. If you're a total beginner, then I would say allow yourself 3 weeks to a month.

The best way to learn is to take what the classes teach you, and use them to create your own programs from scratch. Even if you don't build anything work related, as long as you're writing code, you're learning code.

HTH