By Atli A.

Recently, there has been a big push to get students to learn to code. These classes are considered good for students because programing jobs are some of the highest paying jobs and those who work  at tech companies tend to enjoy their jobs. Google is ranked as the eighth best company to work for by Glassdoor, and is frequently near the top in similar surveys.

The average student with a high school diploma earns $30,500 a year, while the average programmer salary is $71,757, according to Sokanu’s Career Explorer.

Like any spoken language it is easier to learn programming and stylesheet languages at a young age. Sadly, schools are not funding enough computer science. Luckily companies like Google are funding computer science education efforts in the United States.

Jobs for coders are very wide ranging and well paying; they range from web developer to data analyst. Both of which have a median salary more than double the average salary of a person with only a high school diploma.

Many schools have realized that teaching programming is not only good for students, but appreciated by parents as well. There are many languages for students to learn, such as C++ or python. With all these different options most students will probably enjoy at least one programming language.

Learning the basics of any coding language is much easier than learning the basics of a spoken language. To be able to have a proper conversation in a language takes at least half a year of learning, but to learn enough to write simple code in any coding language takes less than a month.

Coding is one of the fastest growing job markets in the word and is projected to continue growing for years. “In the future, not knowing the language of computers will be as challenging as being illiterate or innumerate are today,” said Dan Crow in The Guardian.

Another aspect of coding languages that makes them easier to learn is that unlike spoken language, it is easy to move concepts across different languages easily.

Blach Intermediate School is lucky enough to have a dedicated part-time computer programming teacher. Most students enjoy it and all of them learn enough to make them ready for high school programming courses.