At a time when more and more digital technologies are becoming indispensable to millions of people, the field of computer science (CS) is in trouble. Enrollment and retention of CS students, particularly those historically underrepresented in the field (women, African-Americans, Native-Americans, and Hispanics) has declined sharply. According to the Computing Research Association, CS enrollment in the U.S. was at its peak in 2000, with 15,958 undergrads. By 2006, enrollment declined by roughly half: 7,798 undergrads. And enrollment among already-underrepresented groups has dropped even more sharply.
i totally think we need to promote computer science to kids in grade school to get the more interested and inspired to want to join our field. i would like to really figure out how i can do that in hawaii. so far, i've been limited to events like lacy veach day of discovery and the college of engineering junior expo. those were awesome events, but i want to reach a broader audience. i often wonder how much career guidance is done in elementary and intermediate schools. do we do any at all? do we need to do more? can industry participate.
here is one idea to reach kids; Pathways in Computer Science. this video is put together by the university of washington Computer Science & Engineering school. its a pretty good video that explains why the students got interested in computer science (its probably appropriate for intermediate kids).
wouldn't it be cool if all students in hawaii watched this video? how would i go about doing that?
btw, UWCSE has a lot of other videos. check it out here.
or maybe we need to teach innovation!
standford's entrepreneurship week is another attempt to foster creativity and innovation. the cool thing is that this creativity and innovation eventually leads to technology.
there are so many great resources here: