In the past, I eschewed Excel. However, I now use Excel frequently and enjoy it very much! What changed?

Starting my Excel Journey

During last academic year, my degree program required me to do three laboratory rotations. My first two rotations were computational where I did work in bioinformatics of biochemistry and genetics data. However, for my third rotation, I choose a rotation that was 100% biology lab bench work, with no computational component. Since I didn’t have any serious computational demands, I set myself a challenge: no R or Python for 90 days. Instead, I would use Excel for all my data analysis needs. And what I found was surprising. What have I found Excel useful for?

Data Wrangling and EDA

When data starts in Excel, it can be fruitful to take the first steps of exploratory data analysis (EDA) and data wrangling directly in Excel. Doing basic EDA with pivot tables and pivot charts can make simple dashboards quickly and reveal interesting parts of the data for further exploration in R or Python. When the time comes to export that data out of Excel, Power Query can make quick work of turning messy data, in particular data made to be aesthetically pleasing for humans but unreadable by scripts, into a variety of convenient forms for streamlined analysis with more powerful scripts in R and Python. ## Interactive “Apps”

It is quick and easy to make many interactive “apps” in Excel, with plots of data that respond in real time to user input. This doesn’t even require VBA. I have built many interactive “apps” in the past few months: Enzyme kinetics, Benjamini-Hochberg FDR correction and minimum detectable effect demonstration, and even the basic quantum mechanics molecular vibration system, to name a few of many.

What Is My Future with Excel?

Will Excel replace my use cases for R and Python? Certainly not! But the use cases I am turning to Excel for are numerous, and much more than in the past. I will certainly be using R, Python, and Excel much more in 2024!