answer:I use both Access and Powerpoint. Access is used to analyze data and to make reports. Powerpoint is used to make slides so you can give talks. You can’t do serious analysis with Powerpoint. You can’t make good presentations with Access. The answer to your question has to do with what the students will most likely need. That depends on what they will do. If they will be in sales, then Powerpoint will be of more use. If they are going to be analyzing data, Access will be more useful. As a data analyst, I think Access is much more important—and it is important to me. I use it much more than Powerpoint, but I use them both. There’s another factor, and that is learning curve. Access is far harder to learn than Powerpoint and that is because most people don’t know much about data. Powerpoint is much easier to teach yourself. You can’t teach yourself Access unless you are the kind of person who reads the manual. So no matter what they plan to do, I would teach them Access on the principle that they should have a broad range of skills and this is a skill that if they ever need it, they will really wish they had been taught it.