The US Economy Needs More "Cool" Nerds

Hugh Pickens writes "Steve Lohr writes in the NY Times that the country needs more 'cool' nerds — professionals with hybrid careers that combine computing with other fields like medicine, art, or journalism. Not enough young people are embracing computing, often because they are leery of being branded nerds. Educators and technologists say that two things need to change: the image of computing work, and computer science education in high schools. Today, introductory courses in computer science are too often focused merely on teaching students to use software like word processing and spreadsheet programs, says Janice C. Cuny, a program director at the National Science Foundation adding that the Advanced Placement curriculum concentrates too narrowly on programming. 'We're not showing and teaching kids the magic of computing,' Cuny says. The NSF is working to change this by developing a new introductory high school course in computer science and seeking to overhaul Advanced Placement courses as well. The NSF hopes to train 10,000 high school teachers in the modernized courses by 2015. Knowledge of computer science and computer programming is becoming a necessary skill for many professions, not only science and technology but also increasingly for marketing, advertising, journalism and the creative arts. 'We need to gain an understanding in the population that education in computer science is both extraordinarily important and extraordinarily interesting,' says Alfred Spector, vice president for research and special initiatives at Google. 'The fear is that if you pursue computer science, you will be stuck in a basement, writing code. That is absolutely not the reality.'"

Comments

'Cool' Nerds

[Orion Blastar]

Many of us Nerds are already Cool. I majored in Computer Science but minored in Physics and Engineering, then in Information Systems and minored in Supervision Management, and then I went for Business Management and minored in e-Commerce and Computer Science. I've taken a wide variety of college courses from many colleges. Mostly I can do computers and business as I ran two small businesses in the past. After the Dotcom bubble burst many of us programmers learned a second or third career skill in order to survive.

You'll have an easier time getting current comp sci graduates to go back for business, art, law, science, etc than you can get non-comp sci majors to go back for comp sci. Computer science and programming is not for everyone. We've already had the market flooded with comp sci graduates that barely know what they are doing after the Dotcom busts as the high programmer salaries got many copycats but very few that are talented enough to be competent.

One of my friends Michael, he had a physics degree but he learned programming on the side, and worked at Apple debugging Macintosh System 7.5.X and after Apple laid him off he has worked for many different companies and even started up his own business. He is one of those 'Cool' Nerds but he struggles to find work due to his schizoaffective disorder that he suffers from.

Now me I have schizoaffective disorder and I did great at art and music when I was in school, but I had to hide those talents as employers didn't like me having them and I had to take them off my resume to get hired. I owned an Amiga 1000 and Deluxe Paint II and I used to paint stuff and use Music Construction Set to design music. But I don't have the software these days to do that anymore, although I could find FOSS music and art programs if I looked hard enough. But I used to design web sites and created my own art as well. Many who create web sites and program them already have art and music skills but we hide them.

I think I can better serve the FOSS community via writing, doing business and legal software and documents and templates and trying to meet the needs of small businesses like I used to run. But I can do art and music with the right software if I wanted to and become a 'Cool' Nerd.