What You'll Learn

Resources

• Slides
• Code.org Quotes

Video Script

Finally, before embarking on this program, let’s take a brief minute to review what you’ll learn by the time you complete the program.

Of course, the biggest and most impactful outcome will be learning how to write computer programs. Throughout the Computational Core program, you’ll learn either the Java or Python programming language, and get to a point where you are quite proficient with your language of choice. You’ll be capable of building your own programs from scratch to meet many of the challenges you’ll encounter in your career or elsewhere. This skill alone will set you well above your peers.

There are many additional benefits beyond just learning how to write programs. For starters, programming involves a large amount of problem solving and computational thinking, and these courses will help sharpen you skills in both areas. In addition to programming, you’ll also learn about software engineering methods that will help you build better programs, but also data structures and algorithms that will make your code more efficient and useful as it manipulates and stores data. Of course, you’ll also pick up some new math and logic skills, as both are vitally important to understanding computer code. Lastly, we’ll spend a bit of time discussing how computers actually work, so you can see how your code actually gets a computer to perform the tasks you desire.

Finally, you may be asking yourself why this is important. I could absolutely bring out large numbers of statistics stating how many computer programming jobs are available right now, and how we have a distinct lack of capable graduates to fill these positions. I could also talk about how much more money you could make as a computer programmer than in many other fields. But, instead, I think it is best to just present this quote from Stephen Hawking, one of the most brilliant people to ever live:

Whether you want to uncover the secrets of the universe, or you just want to pursue a career in the 21st century, basic computer programming is an essential skill to learn. - Stephen Hawking

This is just one of the many great quotes encouraging you to learn computer programming from Code.org. I highly recommend checking out their quote archive whenever you need additional inspiration.

That should cover all of the background information you’ll need before you start this program. The rest of this module includes the full course syllabus and a few assignments that you should read through before beginning the course, but you don’t have to do anything else for them right now. Finally, this module wraps up with a quick quiz making sure you are 100% ready to take this course.

Best of luck to you on your adventure through this program!