The Value of Online Universities Courses for Learning Programming Languages
Contemporary society is consumed with technology ? and as such, trained computer scientists fluent in multiple programming languages often enjoy lucrative careers. Unfortunately, some traditional public schools and higher learning institutions continue to shy away from programs that specialize in these languages, many of which are extremely difficult to master. But in recent years, several prestigious colleges and universities have begun to offer online programming language tutorials ? and most of the time, these web courses are free of charge.
Twenty years ago, computer science, much like biology, chemistry and other sciences, was an isolated field, and its applications had little relevance in other professions. Many people had computers in their office, but without the Internet these machines were little more than expensive typewriters and filing systems. Beginning in the mid-1990s, online access started to become prevalent in the United States, in households, workplaces and schools. According to a survey by NPR, 68% of adults used a computer for work in 1999, but only 34% had access to the Internet. In 2001, the U.S. Department of Labor reported that 38% of workers used the Internet for work; two years later, the number had risen to 41.7%.
The upward trend has continued ever since. In April 2012, Digital Trends reported that 94% of adults with a college degree utilize the Internet on a regular basis (household and/or workplace), while 80% of the total U.S. population uses the Internet at least sometimes (compared to 50% in 2000). As web access has become ubiquitous and more businesses have transitioned to online operations, computer science has become a field with ever-expanding reach. Virtually every office building employs an IT specialist to assist with computer problems, while some of the largest employers in the U.S. are software firms like Microsoft, Apple, Amazon and Google.
Despite all this, many experts argue that today?s computer specialists are not nearly as ?specialized? as they should be. InfoWorld contributor Neil McCallister recently noted that mandatory computer education for all students in public school ? and an emphasis on programming languages for CompSci majors ? would improve the overall rate at which our society functions. But so far, the public education system has hindered progress on this front. ?The problem isn?t that computers don?t fit with the standard educational curriculum,? he wrote. ?The problem is that the curriculum hasn?t evolved to incorporate the realities of the Internet Age.? Another problem, according to an April 2012 story by NPR, is a lack of computer science graduates. At the University of Washington, for instance, many students are unable to study computer science because the program has not increased its enrollment quota since 1999 ? despite thousands of technology/IT positions in Seattle alone that need to be filled every year.
To amend this problem, many prestigious universities have come to the rescue in an unconventional way: by offering free online tutorials that teach web users programming languages such as Ruby, JavaScript, C++, and Alda. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology offers courses such as ?Introduction to Mathematical Programming?, ?Computer Language Engineering? and ?Multithreaded Parallelism Languages and Compilers? to anyone with an Internet connection who wishes to take them. University of California, Berkeley is another school that offers a large number of online programming courses. Their current list includes ?Java: Discovering Its Power? and ?PHP Programming for the Web?; the site also announces future term courses, such as ?3-D Graphics and Game Engines?, ?MATLAB and SCILAB for Economists, Scientists and Engineers? and ?Programming with Ruby?. There are even online courses for experienced computer science students. Stanford University, for example, launched a series of free online courses last year; the only stipulation for students is that they are already fluent in at least one programming language.
These online courses provide a short-term solution for the shortage of experienced programmers. However, the problem will not be effectively amended until public schools and higher learning institutions begin emphasize computer science as an essential field of study.
In September 2010, guest writer Geoffrey Grosenbach discusses how to learn Ruby (or any other programming language). In today?s guest post, Jennifer Jenkins adds a new insight into the discussion as she emphasizes the widespread availability of free online coding classes for prospective programmers and IT workers. Jennifer also regularly writes for http://www.onlineuniversity.net/, a website dedicated to revealing online resources for students of computer science and other fields. Please feel free to post your thoughts as comments to this post.
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