What do Will.I.Am, Bill Gates, and Chris Bosh know that only 1 in 10 students will learn?
The first time I was able to create a small program and make a button display certain text, it felt like I had discovered a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. I was on cloud nine. I did that!
When I turned 16 I joined a software company where I learned ASP.NET, HTML, and CSS. Those acronyms sound kind of scary, but I was able to self-learn really quickly using tutorials, websites, and just playing around with the code myself. Eventually I was able to do complex things like creating full websites, contact forms, and build programs in VB.NET that could do complex calculations with the press of a button.
I absolutely echo what everyone in the video said. You can code programs and websites to do virtually everything you can think of, and you can learn quickly even if you don’t think you have a natural bent for coding. (I’m serious.)
When you stare at your screen and think you can’t finish a project, but with just a little bit of determination you’re able to spot and fix the bugs and turn a lifeless program into a fully-functional piece of software … It is an absolutely incredible feeling. Personally, it makes me feel like I can conquer the world.
The tech industry is only growing now, too. As stated in the video, there are computer jobs available in nearly any industry field you can think of. And unlike some professions, coding is not locked up in some fancy, expensive institution somewhere: it’s literally available at your finger tips!
Pick a link below and feel the magic, superpower, and joy that is computer coding for yourself!
To Get Started…
If you’re excited to try it out, go to Code.org to start your first lesson!
To learn Ruby on Rails, a flexible, elegant web application coding language using zombies(!) for free, click here.
For a great website that teaches you about all the elements about your favorite programming languages and gives you lots of interactive examples, go to W3Schools.
Or start at the beginning and go step-by-step to learn HTML, which is what many websites are built with, click here.
For tutorials on how to build virtually any type or program, app, or web functionality, visit NetTuts.
Photo credit: YouTube, “What Most Schools Don’t Teach – Short Film”
This site has a consistency problem, in other article male nerds are said to wimpy unmanly creatures while in others like this they are shown to be some of the smartest people in the world
Make up your mind guys, other than that this is a great piece, I am surprised Will.I.am is a programmer.
This is a great and very important post. Thanks for all of the links!