
Ask HN: How to get high school students enthused about software engineering? - ryannevius
I work as a software engineer &#x2F; consultant (primarily for web app development), and have been invited to speak to a local high school STEM Career Paths class. There are 8 students in the class. The teacher has been reaching out to &quot;experts&quot; in fields that some of the students have expressed interest in, in order to get them enthused about the industry and answer questions they may have.<p>Out of the 8, there are apparently 3-4 that are interested in programming, software development, web app development, etc. I&#x27;m looking for suggestions for how I can spend a half-hour to an hour talking about the industry in a way that will keep 16-year-olds engaged. I&#x27;ve thought of doing some kind of demo...but am at a loss for what would be exciting to this kind of student &#x2F; non-&#x2F;beginner-programmer.<p>Any suggestions?
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Gaessaki
TL;DR: build a quick ruby/node.js blog/personal website, a quick game in
unity, a minecraft mod, or a small raspberry Pi robot.

I worked in this area while I was at Microsoft. There are two strategies I
used to reach out to students, based on my past experiences as a teen
approaching software development (which was not too long ago).

Generally, the first thing I'll do is approach students from the perspective
of a teenager. Although students are likely to interested by programming, game
development and hacking for their own merits, deep down what they're really
interested in is how it all bears on how they live their life. Teens are
interested in having successful careers, making friends (and dating), having
an impact on the world, traveling, being respected, making money, etc. So you
have to kind of think like a teen and help them see how software development
can be an outlet for them to realize their goals and desires. Personally, I
used to talk about how programming gave me the flexibility and the freedom to
spend a lot of time with my friends and family, indulge in my passion for
building drones, finish school early and travel. In essence it's similar to
what the army will pitch to young recruits.

The other thing I'd do is have demos that were quick, short and fun. You want
to make sure it's something they can go home and figure out for the most part
without your help. This sets them off on a good path where they'll start
research programming concepts to add functionality to their projects.

Making their own personal website or flappy bird clone generally works well.
It's something they can take home and share with their friends. Often, they'll
iterate on what they made and make more full-fledged projects and eventually
start other ones if they enjoy it.

This is a bit MSFT-centric, but we used to use this kit at certain STEM
education events: [https://www.hackster.io/windowsiot/robot-
kit-6dd474](https://www.hackster.io/windowsiot/robot-kit-6dd474).

------
viraptor
Reach out to people who already do this regularily. There are lots of
raspberry jams and similar event organisers on twitter who deal with kids all
the time. For example start at
[https://twitter.com/teknoteacher](https://twitter.com/teknoteacher) and
[http://exa.foundation/](http://exa.foundation/) and go through the links.
There's lots of material out there and I'm sure you'll find people who'd point
you in the right direction.

