My way to VBA is interesting (I'm biased), and perhaps revealing. My day job is teaching graduate level classes in counseling and school counseling at Suffolk University in Boston. Well, I actually teach night classes. This is my dream job, and I am very fortunate to have it.

To get this job, I had to write a dissertation on something, so I wanted to do something useful for school counselors. After pondering things for a bit, I decided I wanted to help counselors improve their use of technology - in particular, I wanted to help teach counselors how to use technology to facilitate the data analysis aspects of their work. So, I started looking at existing software that could help, and found them all to be too expensive (SPSS), or too difficult to use (Excel). I then surveyed a bunch of counselors on the types of software they had on their computers, and found that 95% reported having Excel - and I suspect the other 5% had Excel and didnt know it. With this knowledge, I started developing a training program to teach them how to use Excel, and realized that I would need several days just to teach them the basic statistical analyses and how that information can influence their practice. Then I learned about some add ins for excel that make excel easier to use - but even these were somewhat expensive, and often more powerful than what counselors need.

At this point, my advisor told me I should just develop my own program. I scoffed at the idea, and tried to find alternatives for six months. I hired a programmer to write the first version of 'EZAnalyze', and he did a great job - but he wrote it in C++, and I needed something that also worked on Macs. Then I hired a VBA programmer to help me implement the add in in VBA, but that was getting expensive, so I started learning things myself - mostly through the code provided. Once I got my feet wet, I loved learning more about VBA and what it could do, and was truly amazed.

What is interesting about this is that I initially got into this to solve a 'training problem' - I only had 2 hours of training time in a computer lab, and developing the add in solved my training problem. What would take days without the add in can be accomplished in two hours. As a group, counselors are not the most tech savvy (of course, there are exceptions), so the notion of selecting ranges was sometimes difficult to grasp...

SO, I consistently lurk here and find it to be friendly and extremely informative. I try to throw in my 2 cents every once in a while, and am often corrected (usually by Ken ) or informed of a different/better way to do something. It's great learning, and even though I am usually wrong I am never belittled.

That's my story, and I am thankful VBAX exists! tim