This has been asked before, but without real help. Mostly a lot of commiserating among parents. The consensus is most teens find the subject boring, take a summer class (at the parent’s request) and never pick it up again. Kind of like taking two years of piano lessons and quitting. Or asking your kids to take a summer math class for fun (who in their right mind suggests such a thing sarcasm). High schools don’t encourage it, which downplays its importance. But reading a recent news article that pointed out how MIT grads were swooping up jobs at Google and Apple (in design, no less!) and how computer skills were highly sought after in the finance industry, make computer skills an undeniably important asset when it comes to applying for a job.
Ok, so here’s the question: to experienced parents, can you recommend a computer summer course (overnight camp is ok) that your child loved? And other ways to stimulate interest. She is not a “gamer” type. Uses her phone for some social media only, laptop for homework, does very well in STEM subjects (but would rather pursue fine arts given the chance). There was some mention of U of Michigan CAEN camp. She has not taken the SAT, so doesn’t qualify for JHU-CTY or Duke (sibling did CTY to little gain, so I did not put her on this track). Thanks, all.
You can’t make a kid want to do this. Kids who lived these camps likely were interested to start with. You are wasting your time trying to force feed it just because you as a parent like the job prospects. That is why you aren’t getting “real help”.
Does SHE want to take the course or are YOU trying to get her to take one? I’ve had zero trouble getting my S interested in taking technical classes/camps during the summer because he’s really interested in STEM (coding in particular, but also biotechnology and other topics). Even without a computer class, students are picking up necessary computer skills just through their own courses. If your D would rather pursue fine arts, I’d suggest finding summer camps related to her preferred art instead of your preferred computer science. Trying to force an interest is likely to backfire on you. My S actually is a kid for whom it would be appropriate to suggest a summer advanced math class…he would be miserable if I tried to convince him to, for instance, go instead to speech & debate camp because I think public speaking skills are important. Start by asking your daughter what SHE wants to do and go from there. There’s no rush; it’s not necessary to have prior coding skills to major in computer science, so even if your D ends up wanting to major in CS she will not be held back by a lack of demonstrated coding skill in high school.
Does your kid WANT to learn coding? Is your kid interested in computer science?
We sent our kids to summer programs for things that were of interest to them already. We didn’t send them because we wanted them to become highly interested in something.
I can’t imagine going to a computer science camp unless I was REALLY interested in computer science.
Sorry…but I would follow your kid’s lead. You know…not every kid is interested in computer science or coding…they just aren’t.
as someone mentioned in a previous post, it’s about building skills. must start somewhere. @intparent, that’s exactly the sarcasm i wasn’t soliciting and what is offered on previous queries such as mine. i’m not “making” (i.e. forcing) my kid to do anything. american schools have failed our kids with respect to STEM subjects, math in particular. we lack passionate teachers who know HOW to teach the subject to children. the reasons for this are multi-fold. but the result is simple, that american kids think they’re “bad at math” because they have not had positive exposure to it. in encouraging a computer camp for my daughter, i am filling the void that was left by the school system. would you be as nasty if i were encouraging my daughter to take shop class? she would be resistant to that, too (“i’ll be the only girl”, “i’m not good with tools”). yet learning the craft is also a potentially valuable skill. i asked for help, not your short-sighted judgment.
You have to like it. My son is an avid coder. He spends hours a day coding and challenging his brain, self-teaching Java and other languages. He says there is no way you can force this on kids, other than maybe an easy introductory course.
Yes, if your kid isn’t interested in shop, I would say the same thing. And guess what? I have a D who didn’t try any coding except a bit of Python with friends senior year of HS. She ended up as a CS major and did CS research for two summers in college! She eventually changed her major to physics with a secondary concentration in CS. She also was not exposed to physics until senior year of HS, either. I’m not being sarcastic or short sighted. You risk at best turning your kid off completely to the subject, and at worst damaging your relationship with your kid if you try to force them into your area of interest.
And just because a kid is good at STEM classes, that is no guarantee he/she will be good at coding or enjoy it. My S attends a STEM magnet program in his high school. Part of the required curriculum for the program is a computer science course, and the majority of students hate that class and can’t wait for it to be over. And this is a select group of STEM-loving kids. Out of 70-80 students who graduate from this STEM program each year, generally fewer than five go on to major in computer science or computer engineering. Most of the kids in the program would run screaming from the idea of a summer coding camp. Seriously, unless your D has actually shown interest in coding you will do her no favors trying to get her into a summer program for computer science.
folks, i am asking for recommendations to computer summer camps. i have no motive other than to expose my daughter to a good, fun computer learning camp. the last relies i’m getting make the assumption that i have big dreams for my kid to be a computer expert. nothing could be further than the truth. if your kid hated fine art, said things like “i’m bad at drawing,” does that mean you shouldn’t encourage them with a very good art class? why so judgey, people??
i thought i would get some good recommendations here; i was mistaken. you all haunt these forums so you can come off as being some expert in parenting. if this is how this thread is going, please do not bother commenting anymore. thanks anyway.
MIT has a computer science camp for girls. My BIL tried to force it on my niece, which ended up in her throwing a temper tantrum in front of everyone on New Years – because it is his interest, not hers.
I think it’s because people (parents) go after CS because of the jobs and perceived income in that field. But it’s a field that students tend to love or hate. And if you don’t love it, you won’t be good at it…even a couple days of camp will NOT be fun. Also, kids should follow their own passions by HS age.
Would learning something like HTML/CSS be more interesting to her? I taught myself to code webpages when I noticed people making awesome personal pages on a kids’ website I used to frequent. It has more of a design element to it.
Re #12, yes, that is exactly what I would do. I would never try to steer my art-averse kid into a drawing class. You asked for recommendations for computer camps for your kid who appears to have no interest in computer science at the moment, and you were advised to go instead with what she IS interested in rather than what YOU WANT her to become interested in.
My S is excellent in STEM subjects. He possesses all the skills to make a fine doctor or engineer, except that HE DOESN’T WANT TO do those things. He wants to study CS. So this isn’t about STEM vs fine arts or anything like that… I just pay attention to what he actually wants to do, and research summer options that will help him explore HIS interests and not MY interests.
If your kid liked programming, @livinginNOLA, she wouldn’t need a camp. She would seek out the information she needed on the Internet so that she could teach herself to code. She would do it instead of doing her chores or finishing her English homework. She would find herself fooling around with coding at 4 a.m. on a school night, and you would be horrified to see the light under her door when you happened to get up to go to the bathroom.
I was (and am) bad at drawing. If my parents had forced an art class on me, I would have been appalled. It would have been humiliating to be stuck in a room with a bunch of kids who had experience and talent in art when I had none. I would have prayed for the earth to open up and swallow me whole to avoid the embarrassment of having them laugh at me.
I suspect that a kid who is not interesting in coding and is forced into a computer camp would feel much the same way.
because of the early insinuation that i was a clueless/pushy mom, i felt a parallel needed to be struck to other kinds of subjects. i mention art classes in particular bc i am in art education and encounter a great deal of negativity, laments such as “i hate art”, “i’m bad at drawing” are all too common. what is the reason for this self-doubt? the answer is so simple, because they have had barely any exposure to it. they’ve had no opportunity to learn, never mind to develop any skills (to the degree where giving up might be an option). dance? i can relate – i was a terrible ballerina. i’m happy, too, my mother did not force me to keep at it. this is simply not the case. my daughter has had zero computer instruction and is a freshman in high school. before committing to a class next year, it would be nice to test the waters at a fun camp. such a simple query, really. this is how a thread get to be 7-8 pages long without one single reply to the original question. the MIT answer doesn’t qualify, as the child did not attend it. hardly a “recommendation.”
i see now that the person who could best answer this is an infrequent visitor to this website, not a disingenuous attention-seeker with 500 - 10,000+ posts to their name. ridiculous.