1.2 Do I need Excel for this class?

The answer is no. You can use OpenOffice Calc instead.

OpenOffice is an office suite like Microsoft Office. However, OpenOffice is free software. You can download it from the web, or ask someone else to download it, then burn it on a CD for installation. OpenOffice includes the following major components:

• Calc: this is the spreadsheet program. It can read/write Excel formats in addition to its own format.
• Write: this is the word processor program. It can read/write Word formats in addition to its own.
• Impress: this is the presentation program. It can read/write PowerPOint formats in addition to this own.

In other words, in addition to being useful for this class, OpenOffice can be quite useful for most office productivity applications.