Most parents think that their child
is getting a decent education at their local public or private school. For
example, high schools in Palm Beach County offer a wide variety of classes such
as Graphic Design, Chemistry , Pre-Calculus, Spanish and other classes that can
help us choose our career paths. One class which should be taught at every
school, but isn't, is Computer Science. Society is changing and so are the jobs
available to us. Technology has improved greatly in the last few years, and it
is altering and changing the way we live every day. Computer Science classes
need to be a universal component to our educational system.
Computer
Science is basically code or “programming”. It is defined as “the systematic
study of the feasibility, structure, expression, and mechanization of the
methodical processes (or algorithms) that underlie the acquisition,
representation, processing, storage, communication of, and access to
information, whether such information is encoded in bits and bytes in a
computer memory or transcribed in genes and protein structures in a human cell”
according to the department of Computer Science at Boston University. Some
people believe that high school students do not need to be exposed to these
types of classes, since it is not a traditional science class, and that it
wouldn't benefit their child. In reality, these are the classes that need to be
offered because our society is changing and requiring more computer-driven
jobs. Many schools do not have the budget required to offer these classes,
which may be the main reason why they are not taught at school.
In
the 1980s through 2000s, doctors and lawyers had the best paying jobs. Many
high school students would take pre-medical classes and anatomy classes because
they knew they wanted to pursue this career path,or they would take government
and history classes to prepare to become a lawyer. In our current generation,
computer programmers make the same amount of money or more than lawyers.
According to US News, computer programming salaries have reached new heights. A
computer programmer or software developer can easily make an average of $90,000
a year. Depending on where the individual lives, he or she can make an average
of $115,000 a year. According to US News, a lawyer would make an average of
$100,000 a year. Schools should be exposing our generation to some sort of Computer
Science so we can get an early start to this path, just like the students that
want an early start to law or medical professions.
Giving
this opportunity to our generation would allow us access to a field that is
growing in importance and potential payoff. Since these jobs pay very well,
they need people with this type of experience all over the world. The website
for ObamaCare launched on the first week of November and was shut down the day
after launch due to “technical problems”. Computer programmers and scientists
are the ones who would fix the site. These jobs pay so well that people
educated in computer science would not want to teach these classes since they
wouldn't make as much money in teaching. There are a few more reasons why these
classes are not being taught, one of them being that budgets for public schools
and private schools are lower than before. Due to the fact that we are in a
mild recession, schools are cutting back and are focusing on main core classes
rather than secondary classes and because of this, students are not getting the
opportunity to take computer science as a class. In defense, Computer Science
can be a core class because it is a science and a language at the same time.
Like
learning another language, Computer Science is a different way of thinking. You
have to use different parts of your brain that you are not used to using in
your day-to-day tasks in order to understand and comprehend that language.
Whether it be Java, C++, C or even visual basics, learning Computer Science is
like learning Spanish or French, and the only difference is that it involves
math, making it a bit more challenging. For example, if I wanted to learn how
to say “Hi” in Spanish I would just say “Hola”, but If I wanted to say
"Hi" in Computer Science, I would have to say, depending on the
program, "Hi" like this: public class hi { public static void
main (String [] args) { System.out.print( “ Hi “); } }. There are tons of
different ways to say "Hi" so a computer can understand it, making
learning very difficult, but learning different languages helps the brain grow.
So, learning Computer Science should make the brain improve even more because
you are learning math at the same time as a language. According to (science
daily.com), Swedish studies say that people who are bilingual have increased
certain areas of the brain such as the hippocampus, which is involved with the
learning of new material and spatial navigation, and three areas in the
cerebral cortex. What seems like an unnecessary elective class could actually
be more beneficial than the required classes in today's high schools.
Technology is something that will last forever. If one
studies Computer Science in high school or even follows that path to college, a
job will always be available to them. Computer Science is the next big thing
for our education system and will be a great benefit for the future to our
society.
Work
Cited
Computer Science Department. Ms. Jennifer Streubel, 3 Apr. 2003. Web. 6
Nov. 2013.
Lund University. "Language learning
makes the brain grow, Swedish study suggests." ScienceDaily, 8 Oct. 2012.
Web. 6 Nov. 2013.
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