
It’s Time to Think Beyond Coding
We’ve all heard the banter. STEM jobs are the key to a secure future and that is often translated to mean “Get a job in tech”. But how many notice that STEM has 4, I repeat, 4 areas of concentration. What are we doing to address careers that live in the Science, Engineering and Math area of STEM? Why has STEM become s”T”em where Technology has become synonymous for STEM? I set out to understand the attitude of the masses.

I conducted a personal survey and asked a few adults to name 5 jobs in Science. A real measured and scientific approach. Cough. Cough. On average, they were only able to name 1 or 2 job title related jobs in Science. The same statistic averaged for Engineering and Math. To the contrary, they mastered the Technology response and unequivocally named coding related jobs related to Web Development. PROBLEM #1.
Worse yet, when I asked them if they personally knew someone in Tech, they often referred to a Marketing type or Talking Head who graduated with a liberal arts degree. What kind of message does this send to our youth? PROBLEM #2.
My unscientific, but reliable experiment proved to me, that if Adults are this uninformed and unaware, then our youth must be clueless and confused. It may also justify why they aren’t responding in droves to STEM careers, despite the money and effort being poured into STEM programs. They can’t correlate the investment with the outcome.
Because they are seeing these erroneous examples of s”T”em success, they opt to forego the foundational education needed to earn a STEM degree. They consider it easier to take the less demanding pathway with hopes of instantaneous rewards. PROBLEM #3

A dire warning must be issued. As we move from the information economy to a knowledge economy, the demand for workers with a Mathematical foundation will be the winners. As an example, Microsoft has issued an industry call for Math majors. Their Machine Learning initiatives and developments are derived of highly sophisticated algorithms that requires a deep mastery of complex math. So, who do we deem more employable? A Mathematician to whom we teach programming, or a Programmer (boot camp variety) who needs to learn Math?

Let’s pay attention and respond accordingly. Young people are pushing back with lack of interest to the heavily funded STEM programs. Our efforts of preparation may be falling on deaf ears. We have to teach, train and prepare differently.
Youth can’t become what they cannot see and what they’re seeing today is dangerously misleading.
Exposure and Awareness is key and that’s one of the primary missions of Beyond Coding. Join us as we introduce a different approach to developing STEM talent.

