Excel

Proficiency Level: Intermediate

As a final-year BCom Actuarial Science student, I have developed solid Excel skills through academic projects and personal learning. I regularly use Excel for modeling, data analysis, and small-scale automation tasks, and I am actively expanding my capabilities.

Excel Skills Overview

Formulas and Functions:

• Comfortable with nested formulas and combining multiple functions
• Experience with lookups (VLOOKUP, INDEX/MATCH), and text/date functions
• Basic understanding of statistical and financial functions

Data Analysis:

• Use of Pivot Tables for summarizing data
• Application of data validation and conditional formatting
• Introduction to Power Query for transforming datasets
• Scenario modeling with Goal Seek and basic Solver usage

VBA Programming (Basic to Intermediate)

Projects and Capabilities:

• Wrote small VBA scripts to automate repetitive Excel tasks
• Designed basic user forms for guided input
• Used VBA for simple reporting and formatting automation
• Introduced error handling and file interactions

Financial and Actuarial Modeling

Practice Applications:

• Built simple insurance models for life and general products
• Modeled financial statements and budgets in coursework
• Conducted sensitivity analysis using input variables and charts
• Used Excel to support IFRS 17-related modeling in mock projects

Visualization and Dashboards

Experience Includes:

• Creating clear, formatted charts
• Building summary dashboards using slicers and form controls
• Designing print-optimized sheets for presentation
• Exploring dynamic chart techniques and interactivity

Integration and Workflow

Familiarity With:

• Importing data from CSV, Excel, and databases
• Automating PowerPoint and Word document generation using VBA
• Outlook integration for task automation (basic)
• Using SharePoint/Teams for document management

Good Practices

Consistently Apply:

• Clear separation of inputs, calculations, and outputs
• Use of comments and documentation within formulas and VBA code
• Organized sheets with consistent layout and naming conventions

Ongoing Development

I continue to build on my Excel foundation by:

• Practicing more advanced formulas and dynamic array functions (e.g. XLOOKUP, LET)
• Studying VBA for broader automation use-cases
• Learning Power BI and Tableau to complement Excel analytics
• Reading Excel community blogs and tutorials

Excel remains an essential tool in my learning and practical work, and I aim to use it more effectively in larger modeling and reporting workflows as I progress in my actuarial and analytics career.