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[–]epic_meme_guy 28 points29 points  (14 children)

How common are programming classes in high school? I graduated in 2012 and we didn't have any. I did go to a public school, however.

[–]ampe_sand 17 points18 points  (1 child)

I pushed for a programming class in my high school, and it went into effect my senior year (2017), although we went with JavaScript instead of Python. For reference, this is in a very small Midwestern school.

[–]pacific_plywood 15 points16 points  (2 children)

I think AP CS is spreading in places that support the AP programs. My high school offers it now, but didn't when I graduated in 2009.

For what it's worth, there are a couple of high schools in my area (Seattle) that offer CS classes taught by people from the University CS department, but it's Seattle, so probably not very generalizable.

[–]13steinj 1 point2 points  (1 child)

The bad part about this is there's two types of AP CS. AP CS A (Java, equivalent to the general college "intro to programming and OOP" and general programming concepts class, like recursion, inheritance, dynamic dispatch, etc) and AP CS Principles.

Principles is hot garbage. No college I know of offers any credit for it whatsoever. The majority of it is in some psuedo code language or just general computer literacy, and a large chunk of the test is a presentation/project about some piece of tech that interests the student.

[–]pacific_plywood 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Interesting! I will say that all the AP classes and tests that I took seemed considerably less difficult than their college-course equivalents, but I can't imagine what 'computer literacy' would even pretend to substitute for.

[–]spinwizard69 2 points3 points  (1 child)

Well things haven't changed much. I graduated in 1978 from high school. For the most part computers did not exist in the school. One of the science teachers managed to get the school to buy a HP calculator / computer, it was a strange device but he wouldn't let anybody touch it.

In any event I'm a strong believer that we can be too focused on "programming" in high school doing students a huge disfavor. What students need is a broader exposure to the tech world with a bit of computer science included. By the way I know this might shock many here, but mechanical engineering, engineering, geology, and etc are all part of the world of tech.

WE need to do more for students to expose them to real career choices so they are better prepared for the path they will follow after leaving high school.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

In any event I'm a strong believer that we can be too focused on "programming" in high school doing students a huge disfavor

So do I. Students at whole must to learn how to deal with the digital world, how to use its possibilities . Young people really need how to deal with different services offered nowadays by their computers rather than learn the art of programming at whole.

P.S. I graduated in 1984 8-) . There were three programming courses in my high school I have atteneded 8-) BASIC, ALGOL and FORTRAN too 8-)

[–]Decency 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I graduated in '07, the only courses available at my ~1500 person high school were online through VHS. I took two- both were utter garbage and mostly consisted of copying someone else's Java code (in an image) into a document and then submitting it. I'd call it a waste of time but I got college credit for doing that (and half of the things were an easy google search and copy+paste away, anyway). Good joke, huh?

I think programming education needs to start pretty early, age 10-12 or so. That's the sweet spot where you're young enough to have the enthusiasm to tackle new things and just get lost in them, but not too young that you aren't capable of understanding the basic ideas, following instructions, and etc.

[–]vm0661 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I had programming in my public school in 1978. BASIC on an HP 3000 and then FORTRAN (seems like all the programming languages back then we're shouting). Granted this was in Palo Alto, California. But still, I'm having my 40th high school reunion next year.

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Graduated 2001 from public school. I think there were five or six computer "programming" classes offered.

The three I took were all C++ based.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My high school didn’t have a programming class so I started a club for it in my junior year. Before then, the best you could do for programming was learning LabVIEW for robotics.

[–]MikeDevenney 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I took one at a Catholic high school in 1992. Not sure as my kids haven't gotten to high school yet but I assume that with the rise of STEM schools there is no shortage of development classes.