Integration of Computer Studies in Practical Curriculum.

        It may be hypocritical of me to advocate that more people should develop an understanding of my field of study in the event that I would rather drop dead than take a semester of biology, but with the rapid rise of technology, it is about time that the public school system recognize the impact of computer studies and integrate it into their everyday curriculum. As a computer science major I firmly believe that the logic of this discipline is as necessary for the educational background that encompasses general schooling as mathematics, English, and the sciences are.

          I recently completed my first technical job working as a programming intern under the eLearning division of a bank. Several of the projects I was given were on course maintenance and the original code provided was a mess. Additionally, the old software that no one had used for the last two years was so outdated that there weren't even yahoo answers threads about it; I ended up contacting the provider for information on fixing certain issues. These problems were mildly annoying to deal with, but most definitely not a significant issue. However, one director I worked with near the end of my internship really solidified my assertion that people need some type of educational background in this field of study to work even in positions made strictly for managing content.

          The last project I was assigned was to create the wireframe for a website that served as an online course. To start the project I was given the draft wireframe that had various formatting issues and set up problems, so I contacted the head of this project and asked her various questions regarding the type of website she was trying to create (stand alone or a collection of pages housed on a pre-existing site), the source of the pictures provided, and database housing all of the hyperlinked documents. The responses I got to these questions were, as you could imagine, less than helpful. The director had a very hard time understanding my first question. She also told me that all of the pictures used were placeholders, none of the documents were created, and she did not know what section of the company’s online file storage site they should be put in or how to add documents to the database. (The file storage site is used very commonly so it is organized by department. Regardless of how often this site is referenced, much of the employees are not aware of how to use the storage site.)

         Problems like these are far from being uncommon at home and in the work place. There is a tumblr account that conveys this lack of understanding well called Clients from Hell in which a programmer and web developer shares his experiences with less than educated clients making absurd requests. While comical, it illustrates the harsh reality of how little the general population understands of modern technology. The internet has become such a staple for corporations that it is imperative for them to employ teams of well educated programmers and web developers to create and maintain mediums for the their influence online, but providing the remainder of employees with the basic necessities of technological understanding would surely do no harm. 

          Because the spread of computer science has come to light only in the past couple of years, it is not held to the same regard as core subjects like math, English, and science. As a child I was put through typing courses in elementary school and given a very brief introduction to programming in my high school trigonometry and pre-calculus class, but that was not nearly enough to develop the necessary understanding that computer science brings to academics. Yes, part of the reason I would like to integrate technology studies more heavily in education is to make my future easier to deal with, but that is only a fraction of my concern. This field of study is its own entity; an independent way of thinking and large contributor to developing skills in problem solving and creative thinking. Allowing these courses to be more readily available to students at a younger age will not only prepare them for working with technology as adults, but also allow them to develop skills in problem solving that will guide them in life.