LOL what?
Did you read my suggestion about HTML/CSS? Do you think combining coding and design would be more likely to draw her in?
Take a look at the summer programs offered by Smith College. There is an intro to Python programming class as part of the Science and Engineering summer camp.
https://www.smith.edu/summer/programs_ssep_courses.php
Search other women’s colleges to see if they also run camps like this. Taking a class at a women’s college may help with any cultural or stereotypical barriers she has.
IDTECH camp was good for us and is held in many locations.
I will start by saying that my dad tried to force me to take programming - 40 years ago! He loved it, anticipated that it would be the wave of the future and wanted me to get in on it. I had zero interest and to this day, can barely turn the computer on. My H studied some CS in college and when the Internet first came out, he taught himself to code and set up his own first website.
None of our kids has any interest in CS. My best math kid, the one who went through AP Calc BC in HS, took an intro CS class at college and hated it. None of the others has any interest. H bemoans that they take after me.
Techson17 has a very good friend, who is really into coding. He does it for fun. This kid and another I know like him both attended ID Tech camps. They have CS, robotics and other STEM type stuff. They have it at several colleges, including Princeton, SUNY Purchase and Vassar. I tried to interest techson17 into attending with his friend one year and he threatened to run away from home!
To the OP - my suggestion is that you propose to your D that she sign up for a short summer program in coding in order to see if she likes it or not. She should be permitted to choose an activity of her choice for an equal period of time over the summer. IF she gives it a good try and doesn’t like it, drop the subject. If she does turn out to like it, then you will be happy.
I would recommend she just start with a hs class. If she loves it look into the camps, etc. Most camps at the hs level aren’t really for intro stuff (at least the ones I’ve seen). You could also have her do an online lesson with codeacademy or similar and see if she likes it. The people who I know who love programming, and I am one so I know a lot of them, knew right away it was for them. My son picked up coding while playing Minecraft and has done it ever since, his brother codes when necessary (can do it but it isn’t his passion).
I still remember dropping out of a computer programming course eons ago at my local HS- it was so boring. Fortran/cobalt I think. Did get to go on the field trip to the UW computer science building back in the late 1960’s when not all major schools even had the major. Did chemistry and medicine later. PS- I also dropped out of summer personal typing back in the day- never wanted to do secretarial work for any organizations I would ever join- who knew it would become such a good skill to have (as I look at the keys here).
Son majored in math and then finished off the added CS major in college (he initially had some of the theory type classes, including those crosslinked with math). Stated his programming skills were weak when he got his first job as a software developer with a major firm in its field, title changed to software engineer when recruited by another big time player. He did a local CS summer course or two plus some WCATY (like CTY) gifted summer programs. Absolutely no reason/need to learn programming in HS to do high level CS work later. Son’s higher level (did grad level math courses for his honors degree) math work was more impressive to employers I believe. Thinking outside the box. He currently teaches himself any programming language/skills her needs to get the job done.
Make sure any summer courses are ones SHE wants, not YOU (as stated earlier in at least one post). My point is that what you do/don’t do as a teen in summer may have nothing to do with your future. Skills do not need to be learned in HS. Plus, “programming” is merely a part of computer science- it goes way beyond the basics one can pick up later.
Look at Michigan Tech University - summer program called Women in Computer Science. My kid loved it. It has SOME CS but also lots of exposure to info on what computer folks do in the real world and exposure to women working in the field. AND other fun stuff, like a field trip to Lake Superior. Icing on the cake - it is a scholarship camp - so competitive to get into but then nearly free.
IDTech, and others, have camps that are specifically for girls-those can be brief (around 1 or 2 weeks) but can be of more interest. Particularly if your HS computer courses are overwhelmingly male students.
@marian Coding is the kind of thing that many kids simply are not exposed to, so some intentional exposure can help them get a peek and see if it is intriguing to them. And coding will help a TON of students, from the true coding-lovers to those who pursue other majors that use coding as a tool.
And I have to say, there surely are a TON of kids who like programming and will become CS majors of some sort who do not seek out every opportunity in every moment of their spare time, into the week hours of the morning, to find coding opportunities. Seriously! Your post made me laugh!
Funny you mentioned this.
One reason other than finances why my parents…especially mom never forced piano lessons on yours truly was because it was forced on her by her mother back in Taiwan during the early '50s and she hated it so much that she quit after 8 months.
I’m very grateful for this as some older aunts/uncles and some better off parents of HS classmates DID force it on their kids. End result, most ended up hating it so much they wanted nothing to do with piano/classical instruments or classical music period.
A few among the HS classmates are so embittered by the experience I wouldn’t recommend leaving them alone in a room with a piano/other classical instruments unless you don’t mind those instruments reduced to tiny wooden scraps.
Incidentally, I’m currently learning the electric guitar and am enjoying it precisely because I made the affirmative choice to learn it…not prompting from parents or other folks.
@livinginNOLA : What about starting her with Minecraft? Minecraft modding is a great gateway to real coding.
Have her try these at some point:
https://studio.code.org/
https://studio.code.org/flappy/1
https://studio.code.org/s/artist/stage/1/puzzle/1
The camps I know are “Girls who code”.
I felt the same way as a high schooler and it is an attitude I really regret having. I feel like I missed out on trying a lot of new things I might have enjoyed because I was too worried that I wasn’t good enough and that other people would view me negatively.
" there surely are a TON of kids who like programming and will become CS majors of some sort who do not seek out every opportunity in every moment of their spare time, into the week hours of the morning, to find coding opportunities. Seriously! Your post made me laugh!"
The fact is, the kids that are passionate about CS and truly interested in the field are, in fact, doing this for fun. And those are the kids that she would be “collaborating” and “competing” with in a classroom in college. I’m not dissuading anyone from the field. Just saying it is true this is what those kids do, who love programming. And it is not easy stuff.
Look guys, she has to start somewhere. She’s 14.
We lack girls in tech. Telling a parent that it’s too late for their daughter at 14 because she never expressed an innate interest for CS, has no clue what it is, and may or may not like it, isn’t the way to get more girls to be interested.
How many kids express innate interest for most things? If you don’t take them to films, museums, register them for sports or camp or music lessons, they stay at home and play videogames and are 100% happy with it. They’re just missing out.
Coding and everything about CS is going to be essential in our lifetime. It’s worth it for her to investigate a little if she might like it.
She can easily do a 2-week camp and figure out whether she likes it or not.
That’s what being a kid is for: try out a lot of things in order to see what you like.
Kids can start with small things that drive their interests before learning to code an actual programming language for CS.
One of my kids learned how to use LaTeX to draw math symbols and graphs for his math classes. These were his first programming lessons.
Some kids learn their first programming lessons by writing HTML files for the browsers.
Some kids learn some easy sample programming when participating in robotics teams.
Learning how to use a calculator to produce a math graph could be helpful too. Or an Xcell worksheet.
Basically in order to write programs, kids need to know how to follow written instructions to produce something new. This will help to demystify programming languages.
Hello living in NOLA I sympathize with you. If none of us did things we didn’t like I think basically none of would have graduated high school (I am remembering you, physical education). I agree also with MYOS… I have asked two children (mine) to give things a try because I don’t want their reluctance to turn into fear in the future or even the uber embarrassing sentence “I am hopeless at X”. I asked them to take a taste of things they were.not interested in, such as asparagus and … programming. In our case we turned to ID tech camp . In our area it was mostly boys as campers but the counselors were 50% women. The carrot was other camps later in the summer. We did not ask rising freshman to be interested, only to give it a chance. The counselor reported that child was really good at programming . Oh well there is still not a lot of interest but they can not honestly say they have never done it or that they “are stupid at programming”. Mission accomplished chez thingamajig.
Kudos to MYOS1634! Everyone should have some exposure to coding in the 21st century.
Yeah, I have to strongly agree with @MYOS1634 here. I’m surprised at how many terrible reactions there have been here, especially with people cross posting on this thread:
A pretty common conclusion there was that young kids should have the opportunity to be exposed to CS early, just like they are with History, Math, Science, and all the other subjects most people see regularly in school. The previous post (#33) really said it pretty well, so I don’t have too much to add.
I really loathe this idea that you must be using lots of free time on CS to be good at it, and in this case, the implication that you must be doing it when you’re a young teenager. Pushing this idea that you need to be this type of person to enjoy CS is part of the problem. I know plenty of great programmers who are talented and have plenty of opportunities and see it much more as a day job or a tool, not an acute focus. Yes, there are obvious advantages to being immersed in a field outside of work, but you don’t see this idea being pushed with financial workers, with aspiring doctors, with aspiring lawyers, etc.
I think it’s fair to point out that your statement really didn’t make any big claims. Really, it was self-fulfilling. Of course kids who are passionate and interested in a field are going to be working in it outside of a job or classroom. The problem is the implications that come with this, which you don’t attempt to clarify against. You’re also not wrong with your original claim about needing to love the field (though I think that can be a bit weaker than love) to really be successful. I think this also is general advice to most fields if you include happiness in your definition of success. The point being though, you don’t need to be an intense nerd who spends every day with CS to have a successful and happy life with it. And I think we need to be saying that explicitly.
Scratch (https://scratch.mit.edu/) is another great tool you can direct your daughter to. I don’t think you necessarily need to send her to camp for this. At the very least, see if she enjoys the basics on Scratch or elsewhere before sending her, and don’t send her if she’s against it. The other posters are right there, even if they did jump to many conclusions.
I’m a math major who doesn’t particularly like computer science. To me, at least, they are very different subjects and liking one doesn’t imply liking the other. I discovered this by taking math and computer science classes, so I don’t mind the idea that everyone should take a CS class at some point. A lot of people think they won’t enjoy it and then change their minds.
One other thing…has your daughter been to any other kind of camp and enjoyed it? Personally, I didn’t like camps in high school and would have learned more from just taking a class during the school year.
I was just stating facts. I know for sure that many kids ARE coding for fun in their free time. That doesn’t always make them total nerds either (and I resent your implication as many of these kids also play sports etc).
I agree that all schools should expose students to computer programming. Our schools do this through Scratch in 5th grade and middle school, Hour/Week of Code, and electives in high school. Back in my day, computer programming was a required HS class - we programmed in BASIC on the TRS-80.
The reason the OP got strong reactions is because it looked like 100% mom’s idea and not the daughters…and a lot of people would like to see a shift away from activities just done to build resumes.