

Ask HN: How to Inspire young people in computer science? - pj

I was optimistic today when I heard that computer science enrollments went up for the first time in along time.<p>What's important for young people to know, about computer science today and what should they be preparing for upon graduation 4 years from now?
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The same things that have been important for several years:

\- A CS degree doesn't mean you will become Dilbert

\- A CS degree doesn't mean your job will be outsourced to a BRIC country.

\- CS is not just programming.

\- A BS in CS can lead to fields like AI/robotics, bioinformatics, finance
(well, that might be untimely), etc.

\- It's a myth that CS isn't for girls (mention Lady Lovelace ;) ).

I think (the negations of) those are still the most popular harmful
stereotypes about studying CS.

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adammarkey
I would tell them a couple things:

1) Get involved in communities (like HN, and local CS interest groups) -
getting involved while young can lead to many opportunities that "just having
a CS degree" wont lead you to.

2) Most university CS programs stick to 1 or 2 languages at the core (java or
c/c++) - tell them to try and implement some of their homework in ruby /
python / or even things like Scala to learn the similarities and differences
between programming languages. This will only be more helpful as you progress
into higher level courses.

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amichail
Tell them about the opportunities that arise for starting your own company
with minimal resources.

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Rod
Would that be ethical? One does not need a CS degree to start a company. One
needs to know how to program, and a CS degree is far from being the only way
to learn how to program, right?

It would be interesting if there were initiatives aiming at promoting
programming among kids in the 10-12 y.o. age range. Since hi-school is too
easy and kids have way too much free time, if they could get the "programming
bug" before they're old enough to go to college, everyone would win. They
could study math or physics instead of CS, because they already know how to
code. And they could even postpone college for a couple of years and try to
launch a company while they're young and full of stamina.

Just my 0.02 USD...

~~~
amichail
A CS degree isn't needed for most startups probably but it might help for ones
with particularly difficult implementation.

