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NYC To Open 1st High School Dedicated To Software

Posted by timothy on from the ferris-bueller-memorial dept.

stephencrane writes "NYC is to open The Academy for Software Engineering, with a focus on software design and college preparation. It'll be a 'limited, unscreened' high school, which means admission won't be tied to grades or test scores; solely on interest (and presumably a lottery, once words gets out)." Would you want to go (or have gone) to such a school? Would you want your kids to attend?

5 of 188 comments (clear)

  1. How about a High School dedicated to learning? by Kenja · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This sounds like a trade school. High School should be about learning how to think and process information. Once you've learned how to learn you can go on to learning a trade. Its bad enough so many schools are now about being able to pass tests.

    --

    "Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
    1. Re:How about a High School dedicated to learning? by SJHillman · · Score: 4, Insightful

      My high school was dedicated to passing standardized tests. Learning was just an undesirable side effect that happened to anyone who happened to have a passing interest in the subject at hand.

    2. Re:How about a High School dedicated to learning? by MightyYar · · Score: 5, Insightful

      That's ridiculous. Not every person can follow some ancient Greek ideal of higher thought.

      There were plenty of doofuses that spent high school throwing a pencil at the kid in front of them. Trade school is good for them.

      And back on topic, just because someone is good with computers does not make them automatically wired to go through the traditional liberal arts education routine. Some kids will thrive in a targeted environment like this.

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
  2. Surprisingly probably not by Anrego · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I think I would have jumped at the opportunity when I was in school.

    However, looking back, I don’t think it would have been a great idea. I’ve said it many times, but if left to my own devices, I would have spent most of my free time glued to a computer. As it stood I had a few non-computer geek friends who would figuratively drag me out of my basement every once in a while and looking back, I had a lot of fun.

    Maybe I would be a slightly better programmer .. but I think I would have missed out on a lot of important experiences, and more practically, development of social skills (which I’ve found are becoming more important as I’ve progressed through my career).

    In other words, diversity in peers is a good thing. Not having to “deal with” people who are outside of your interests and being surrounded by like minded individuals may sound great, but that kind of narrow focus so early on just sounds like a bad idea.

  3. Note that "Joel" is involved with this. by Animats · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The "Joel on Software" guy is involved with this, so he's plugging an activity of his own.

    There's no programmer shortage. Businesses want "just in time" employees with exactly the skill set they need this week. Then they whine when they have to pay market rate for them. They're not willing to retrain their own people, or hire competent people with related skill sets and send them to training classes. Anyone who's competent in at least two programming languages can learn a third in a few months.

    (Actually, the headache today is learning APIs. Everything seems to come with an API with hundreds to thousands of functions, some of which work, some of which sort of work, and some of which don't work at all. The documentation usually consists of examples rather than a reference manual. Worst case, it's a wiki.)