Speaking to 7th Graders Today – How To Be a Software Engineer
Posted by Keith Elder | Posted in Uncategorized | Posted on 18-05-2007
In a few minutes (about an hour to be exact) I will be speaking to an entire 7th grade class about the wonderful profession of a Software Engineer. This is one of the speaking engagements that I have been looking forward to the most for some time. I really do miss teaching sometimes and interacting with the kids. This is truly going to be a fun experience getting to talk to the kids about the software industry. I’ve got my slides prepared and my demo of building a calculator ready to go! Quicken Loans also sent a bunch of those pop-out Frisbees. If I start to bomb, I can always resort to passing those out and I’ll be a hit.
For those that want to keep track of what is going on today, just hit my Twitter site. I’ll be keeping you up to date with things as they happen.
I had a good time talking to the 7th grade class yesterday. Although they won’t remember half of the stuff I said, hopefully it sparked enough interest for some of them to pursue a computer science degree once they graduate.
The main thing I tried to stress to them was they could learn about things now. They just have to take the initiative. The information is out there. I wish I was their age and could turn back the hands of time. What an opportunity they have to take advantage of all of free tools, open source software, tutorials and more available on the Internet.