While Most Americans Are Worried About North Korea

I am worrying about the future prospects of the American economy. It’s no secret that today we are more interconnected than ever, and while it has brought about wonderful leaps and bounds in terms of convenience and ease of life there is one thing we overlooked……we are not teaching the skills needed in our school system. Computer science is not just the way of America’s economy it is the way of the GLOBAL economy, and looking at projections we are in a very very bad place.
 

We Are Failing Our Children

Only 10% of American high schools teach computer science, even though the tech sector is projected to grow faster than every other sector but five by the year 2020. The US is in such a desperate SHORTAGE of tech workers that they are planning on building an 1,800 person floating city out in international waters of the coast of San Francisco to bring in more H1-B foreign visa holders. Now I want you guys to think about this for a moment. The average tech worker makes $78,730, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (last year as a senior software engineer I made more than double that at the age of 24). Now let’s say these guys are making $78,730 (trust me those 1,800 engineers will be mostly if not all senior level so they will be making much more but for sake of simplicity we use this figure). That is $141,714,000/year that could have gone to home grown American workers.

There Is A Specialty Shortage In America Not A Job Shortage

I taught myself programming at the age of 8, it’s not because I’m a genius that I picked it up so early, it was because programming makes sense in a kid’s mind. It’s basically playing with theoretical Legos(programming language) and building Lego castles(programs). Furthermore I taught myself for free, and that is the key part I want to address. It is obvious our education system does not care to increase the amount of computer science education in public schools. IN FACT it has declined in the last 20 years from 25% student participation to 19% participation. Listen, MIT has it’s whole CS course online for free on Youtube for God’s sake sit your child down, sit next to them and both of you learn how to code, it only requires your time. I don’t have a degree and I was the youngest senior engineer on Apple’s mobile apps team at the age of 21. Don’t believe the hype that you need a 4 year degree. The economy needs you now! Don’t wait for the school system to teach you, knowledge is power, empower yourself!

What Is Going To Happen If We Don’t Change?

If we don’t start teaching computer science on a mass scale we simply will not be able to compete in the global economy in the long run. Automation is already replacing more jobs than anyone can count, the majority of the populace cannot make an immediate transition into another sector don’t believe me? Go ask a coal miner from Eastern Kentucky how their job transition has been. We need to teach not only technology skills but encourage entrepreneurship so that we can continue to have economic growth. If we don’t our economy is in trouble. Subscribe to my blog for free coding tutorials and if you haven’t already start your web development journey here.