I have learned a lot of technical skills at my internship here at Indium Corporation. Much of what I do revolves around the use of Microsoft Excel. Not only have I mastered the basics, but I have learned many more advanced functions. Personally, I would say one of the most valuable Excel add-ins I have learned are Power Pivot and Power Query.
Right now, I am using Power Query to pull information from the web and import it to Excel. This shapes the data into the exact form that I need by just using a URL and writing a formula. On the other hand, I am using Power Pivot to establish relationships between tables. Once these tables are connected, I use Power Pivot to display and analyze my results.
After I learned these two skills, I wasn’t quite sure what I was going to do with them, other than analysis work at Indium Corporation. I knew that Clarkson University does not do anything with their classes and these Excel add-ins. So, I came up with the idea of starting my own project. This way, I am able to practice what I am learning at work.
My idea is to analyze professional baseball athletes' performances. With the algorithm that I created I am able to automatically pull stats from the web and update my model daily. This model revolves heavily around data and statistical analysis. It is impossible to guess exactly how each player is going to do, but I have found that there is a strong positive correlation between our model and actual performance.