By Heather Pascua and Glaiza Salanio

On Saturday, January 27, the Ateneo Senior High School (ASHS) Council of Student Organizations (CSO) conducted its project “Formula S: A Google Sheets Workshop,” at the second floor of the Formation Learning Center (FLC) and through an online video conference.

The event consisted of various activities that covered a diverse range of industries, namely management, data, finance, marketing, and innovation. 

Different guest speakers were invited to impart their knowledge about navigating Google Sheets and its applications in the various aforementioned industries. 

Through this event, CSO aimed to encourage participants to optimize their skills by adding to and enhancing their current knowledge on maximizing modern technology.

Organization and management

The event began with opening remarks from the CSO Vice President, Mx. Hazel Medina. 

“May this workshop serve as a catalyst for not only cultivating technical proficiency but also a [workshop] that thrives curiosity, innovation, and adaptability in the age of technology,” she concluded in her speech.

This was followed by the first speaker, Mx. Reuter Jan Camacho, the organization head of  the ASHS Programming Varsity.

In his talk called “This Sheets So Easy!: Data Automation and Functions,” Mx. Reuter talked about the intersection of programming and Google Sheets, particularly through using Google Sheets as a personal classroom.

He maximized the use of existing formulas to further enhance Google Sheets’ application beyond its conventional use. 

“Google Sheets is not just simply Math operations lang. Google Sheets is more on data manipulation wherein you can manage things, you can use this in finance, IT, etc,” Mx Reuter stated in an interview.

He also expressed how Google Sheets helped him personally as a student in managing not only his files, but also his time.

This was then followed by “Sheets at Work: Organization and Management,” a talk prepared by CSO External Secretary Mx. Rheign Teodoro. 

In her talk, she focused on managing and organizing files using the application, particularly for projects.

Diverse participants

Aside from Ateneans, students from various schools, such as the University of the Philippines (UP) Diliman, Adamson University Senior High School (ADUSHS), Southville International School affiliated with Foreign Universities, La Salle College Antipolo, as well as many others, also attended Formula S. 

“When I heard about this seminar, Formula S, and it is about Google Sheets, I was pretty excited kasi Google Sheets is an application, a really useful application that when it is utilized, it is really good,” Jennylyn Cepillo Sta. Ana, a student from ADUSHS expressed.

“Seminars like these will teach me how to organize my documents, especially as a student who uses Google often,” said Dindin Tandog, a UP student.

Student leaders, in particular, also benefited from this event as they learned how to organize their files and how to better communicate both inside and outside of their councils.

“As business manager of UFC, basically we plan to converge or kind of combine all the Google Sheets into one to have somewhat of a master file. And apart from that, we can also utilize more features of Google Sheets that I learned today so that we can have more easy communication inside and outside of the council,” Matty Rodrigo from UP stated.