This week is the first ever Computer Science Education Week. Some of the statistics on the official site are sobering (“The percent of high schools with rigorous computer science courses fell from 40% to 27% from 2005-2009”), while others are exciting: “Computer software engineer jobs expected to grow 45% over the next five to seven years.” Just think, for every two software engineers you find today, there will soon be a third. An incredible amount of growth.
Computer science offers students avenues of self-expression, improved reasoning skills, and the ability to look at the bigger picture while not discounting the details. These opportunities alone are too good to pass up; it is essential that we work on increasing exposure to computer science and decreasing the surrounding stigmas, from elementary school onwards.