This SlideShare takes you through my journey on the way to becoming a World Champ in PowerPoint 2007.

1. The Story of Tyler Millis

2. Leading up to this year’s world competition

3.  Freshman year at Dunbar High
School, the first Microsoft
certified school in the world.
 I was in the technology program,
earning certifications.

4.  When I took the PowerPoint 2010
certification test, I got a perfect score, 1000.
My proctor told me about the Microsoft
Office Specialist World Championship,
which tests students on their exceptional
knowledge of a certain Office program.

5.  A month or so later, I also took
the Excel 2010 test, receiving a
975, a near-perfect score.
 My proctor recommended
going for Excel 2010 instead of
PowerPoint 2010, since it was a
more challenging program.

6.  For months, I trained in Excel 2010, learning the
program and making sure I could do the
certification test perfectly.
 Come May of 2013, I learned that I qualified for the
national competition and if I won that, I would
proceed to the worldwide competition.

7.  Certiport flew all the participants to Park
City, Utah for the competition.
 The competition consisted of the
certification test and an interview.
 I messed up on the certification test and
did alright during my interview.
 During the award ceremony, I found out I
didn’t place.

8. Back to prove myself

9.  My sophomore year, I was
determined to return to the
competition.
 This year, I would be focusing on
PowerPoint 2007.
 I trained even harder, making
sure I knew ALL the ins and outs
of the program and test.

10.  Again, I qualified for the national competition.
 This time it was in Atlanta, so we drove since we’re
from Florida.
 This year, I aced the certification test and felt very
confident with my interview.
 When awards rolled around, I was nervous, yet
confident, but still wasn’t sure how I would place.
 They started calling the winners for my category and..

11. I won first place, advancing to the worldwide
competition!

12.  Leading up the Microsoft Office Specialist World
Competition, Certiport assigned me a mentor to help
me study.
 Every day leading up to it, I had an assignment I had to
work on.
 I was also dealing with interviews, something I was
new to.

13.  The competition in Anaheim, California
brought 126 competitors from 83
countries.
 I met and became friends with not only
Americans, but people from around the
world.
 The actual competition consisted of us
creating a PowerPoint following their
guidelines and adjusting it to look like
pictures they provided within 50
minutes.
 I felt pretty confident after the test, but
used up all of my time.

14.  During the award ceremony, nerves were rising as they
gave everyone their certificate of participation.
 My category came first and they immediately started
calling off names.
 3rd…
 2nd…
 My mom clutched my hand tight, my heart beating
like crazy...
 1st…

15.  It took me a second to realize they even called my
name, as I hear screams coming from all around me.
 I go up on stage, happiest I’ve ever been, legs shaking,
knowing I was the first person from the United States
to ever win first in my category.

16. The drive is even stronger

17. My junior year of high school is starting up
and I know I will be working on qualifying
again this coming year, but for Word 2010.
 I’ll be pushing myself and others to try for
this because I know it can be done and my
drive is stronger than ever.