Naturally and intuitively you would think that coding is just for coders. Who could blame you since only coders code right? That’s an obvious assumption, but you’d be incorrect in making this assumption. Everybody can code now! And actually everybody should learn to code now! 

At theCoderSchool, the goal is to help teach coding to all kids. That’s right, “All” kids. We are not just trying to teach kids that want to major in computer science in college or only those that want to work as a software developer when they grow up. The target is absolutely all kids. We believe that all kids will benefit from learning to think like a coder.

Language Agnostic

The key is to be language agnostic. Don’t focus on forcing your child to learn a particular language such as java or any other language. The better thing to focus on is teaching them to improve their logic and problem solving skills and to think like a coder. The logic skills that they learn can forever be utilized, whereas the nuances of a particular language that are learned may end up useless. It’s quite likely that any language they’re learning now will be defunct by the time they’re in college or in the workplace. There’s certainly not a lot of value in knowing the syntax of Pascal or FORTRAN which are two of the languages that I learned at a young age. The more important learning is what comes to mind when presented with a problem such as “How would you write a program to write out all prime numbers from 1 to 100?”. The logic that enters your mind is what’s critical and can be employed in any language, and even a new language that hasn’t been invented yet.The logic to solve the prime number problem will always remain the same. It’s the languages that will keep changing, so no reason to focus on a particular language as a young child. Learning to code is not about memorization of the nuances of a coding language, but rather learning logic skills and how to solve problems. Now that we know this, we can better understand why coding isn’t just for coders. And of course why learning to code would benefit anyone. 

Sports

Learning to code will improve a child’s ability to solve problems. This can be helpful in places that are not so obvious. For example, it can help kids with sports. Beyond the physical skills needed to play a sport, many times sporting events are decided by the mental toughness of the athletes. By learning to think like a coder, children learn to solve problems which is a skill they can use when strategizing their X’s and O’s even in sports. They will be better equipped to change their strategy to fix something that is not working. 

Personal Life

A second not so obvious example is that learning to code can help children dealing with personal problems too. It teaches them to never panic and how to break large problems down into smaller ones that can be solved one at a time. It also teaches them that if they’re persistent and keep solving the smaller problems eventually a very large problem can be handled and solved. This same mentality will also without a doubt help them when dealing with personal problems completely unrelated to coding.

Financially

A third example is that in the workplace, those that have learned to code will on average make more. “Jobs requiring coding skills pay $22,000 more than positions that don’t, and the demand for employees with such skills is expected to grow 12 percent faster than the overall job market during the next decade.” according to Burning Glass Technologies. The findings from market research firm Burning Glass Technologies also shows nearly 7 million job openings in the U.S. required coding skills last year, representing 20 percent of the total market for “career-track” jobs. Coding is quickly becoming a necessity in positions outside the tech industry that never used to require it, including finance, manufacturing, health care, and art design. It’s getting tougher and tougher to escape.

Summary

In summary, I have to refer back to the title itself. Simply put, coding isn’t just for coders! It
truly is for and will benefit anyone that learns it no matter what professional field they are
targeting. As always, if you need some help or guidance in learning to code, don’t hesitate to utilize one of our Code Coaches®.

Learning to code is a process that won’t happen overnight. It’s true that some people get it faster than other things just like everything else in life. The reality is that everyone has to go through the necessary steps. Remember, learning to code is the process of learning how to think and skipping steps doesn’t mean you’ll get to the end faster.

Actually, there is no true end when learning to code. There are always going to be problems to be solved, processes to improve and new languages to learn. Learning how to do this quickly and efficiently is what learning to code is all about.

While coding can be frustrating, it can also be very fun and rewarding. The worst thing you can do is stress out about not learning something fast enough or getting mad at yourself for getting stuck on a single concept.

Learning to code takes time. You will get stuck on one concept for months and then one day it will click! When it does click it’s one of the most refreshing things that will happen to you. In other words, you’ll have an epiphany. Once you have the foundation in place, learning another language becomes much easier than it did the first time.

It’s also very important to take it one step at a time. Skipping steps could frustrate the learning process. How do you eat an elephant (if you ever wanted to, of course)? One bite at a time! Coding is like one massive never-ending elephant and stuffing too much in your mouth at one time will create an unpleasant experience.

Practice makes perfect but trying to be perfect will hurt your practice. Break stuff and mess up and you’ll learn faster. Make sure it’s in a structured environment, preferably with a code coach®, who can explain their thought process as you learn to fix it along the way.

Finally, learning with a group of people with the same end goal in mind makes coding more fun and much easier to learn. Coder school is an excellent after school environment that lends itself to learning how to code much faster than doing it by yourself.

Mindset tips I wish I knew when I started programming

Lose 10 pounds?  Exercise more?  Be more positive?  I got one – how about learning to code?

Learning to code is about so much more than just making a lot of money. It’s challenging, fulfilling, teaches you to think and helps you make improvements to the world you never thought imaginable.  With that being said, everyone needs to make a living some way or another. That’s the nice thing about learning to code as the jobs pay a lot more than anything else. How much more do they pay?

“Jobs requiring coding skills pay $22,000 more than positions that don’t, and the demand for employees with such skills is expected to grow 12 percent faster than the overall job market during the next decade” –Burning Glass Technologies

Teaching and learning to code has become a global movement. Getting ahead of this trend can help position you for a very long and lucrative career in any number of fields, including of course coding. How did Burning Glass Technologies figure this out? They analyzed 26 million online job postings published in 2015 that were posted on job boards, newspapers and websites. They combined this data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

“Data from the College Board suggest not enough students are getting an early start in the field. Only 2 percent of students in the College Board’s advanced placement program studied computer science last year, and only 22 percent of those students were female. Computer science was the fastest growing Advanced Placement test in 2014 and 2015, however, as the number of students taking those tests increased 25 percent.”

At Coder School, we can help you get ahead of these trends and carve out a long lucrative career in any industry – including computer programming.  So if you need a great New Years Resolution, maybe learning to code fits the bill!

Learning to code is important. Everywhere we look, we’re implementing technology and/or software into everyday things to improve our lives and change the world. Computers are now used to automate everyday tasks, make us more efficient, build amazing things or help us keep in touch with loved ones.

Everyday household items like your lights have code in them to save energy and set the correct ambiance in whichever room you want it to. Our cars have software in them to make parallel parking easier, connect to the internet and eventually drive themselves. Who would have ever thought a company like Airbnb would change how we traveled or Uber would change the way we got around the city? It’s an exciting time as industries such as finance embrace technology to make it easier to manage our finances and prevent unnecessary fees.

While learning to code is extremely important, learning to think is the primary benefit of learning to code and what really ends up impacting the world. The process of learning to code lends itself to a new way of thinking that has resulted in everyday improvements in life we never thought possible. Some of this, such as the hyperloop or the smartphone, are straight out of a sci-fi movie. When you learn to code you can literally think something into existence!

Check out this TED talk video called “Teaching Creative Computer Science” for kids, a great talk about how Comp Sci education for kids is focusing too much on the technology, and not enough on ideas.  Sure, learning Java or Python is great – but how about that big picture?

When you read this article it may stir up nostalgic memories of Terminator 2: Judgement Day and Skynet. It may even fuel Elon Musk’s everlasting paranoia about how AI may one day overthrow the human race. Whatever ends up happening, we think it’s super-cool that Google has created something that optimizes its existing code without human interference. AutoML now “produces better code than its programmers” and is “designed to be a solution to the problem of the lack of machine learning talent.” In a few hours it can accomplish what takes a human weeks to do.

Whether you believe automation will eliminate jobs or create more, you have to be excited by what the future holds in the world of AI. Google of course is leading the way in automatic machine learning AI which some coders may pause and ask “Why should I even bother to learn how to code if machines can do it for me?” The answer is simply that someone has to build the programs that engage in this level of machine learning and AI. There will be a shortage of people who understand how AI and machine learning works for a very long time which means demand should sky rocket. As a coder, you can be a part of the next generation of coders that does this, improving the world in ways never thought imaginable.

As coding solves these problems it will free up time for people to take on others. As people, we are problem solving entities and coding is a part of our tool chest to make this happen. Have you ever felt like there isn’t enough time in the day to do everything? Well, we can create more time so we can do more of the stuff we enjoying doing instead of wasting it on mundane tasks.

When you’re studying to become a doctor, you have to memorize a lot – bones, symptoms, medications, you name it.  When you’re studying law, it’s the same thing, legal precedents, past cases, and what all those latin words mean!

But what happens when you’re a coder?  Despite what many think, you memorize very little.  There’s a bit of a myth out there that learning to code is about learning the words of a language, that as a coder you need remember what all the commands do.

How many kids have told me “I’ve memorized every command in Scratch, so I know the language”.  News flash – you don’t!  I remember I was teaching a high schooler Java, and at the moment I forgot the command to print some text.  Flabbergasted, my student said “You don’t know system.out.println?  I thought you knew how to code!!”.

Ah, kids, right?  The fact is that coding isn’t about knowing the commands – it’s about the ability to think through the logic and recognizing (and re-using) patterns of logic.  It’s about how to put the commands together.  Sure, I didn’t remember the command to print something in Java, but I sure knew how to put the rest of the program together, and I found out what the command was 2 seconds later through my buddy Google.  And thusly, I saved face with that student!  =).

The moral of the story here, the commands themselves are actually unimportant, mostly because they can be found on the internet…  But also because while coding languages have their own syntax of commands, the underlying logic of how the commands interact is the same in any language.  THAT is what makes a good coder – the logic.  Even back in my day before the world of internet I wouldn’t remember my commands, and just use my reference books and sheets (granted, I did remember more commands because hey, it’s not easy using reference books!).

And that’s exactly why at theCoderSchool, we’re language-agnostic and really believe that a language is a tool to learn what’s most important – the logical thinking skills, applicable to any language, and any career.

Myth busted!