Are you Programmed for Success?

We all know about the employment side of perks when it comes to knowing how to program – money, jobs, flexibility, just to name a few. But how do these abilities translate into “real-life” experiences? This week we look at some of the top ways that skills affiliated with programming can help you in everyday situations.

Problem Solving:
It’s been shown that learning to code can improve performance in other areas of study. Programming teaches how to break a problem down into smaller, individual steps and to use a combination of logic and language to create a program.

Your way of seeing problems changes as your experience in programming grows. You can learn that no situation is as complex as it may first seem once you bite into it.

In life, this mindset translates into looking at the big picture and adapting to changes, rather than opting for frustration. By learning how to think first before learning, programming sets up the mind to tackle large and complex problems, both on paper and in real-time situations.

Logic:
Because of the way computers and code operate, there is no way to remove logic from most of a days’ work for many programmers. Therefore, chances are, they will take this approach to home and play environments too, which is great.

Critical Thinking:
Coding is often considered the language of critical thought. It relies on the literal application of syntax and semantics to “speak” your way through problems, transforming ideas into reality. Learning to code not only brings about the knowledge directly related to coding skills, but it will help to fine-tune critical thinking and takes problem solving to a whole new level.

Analysis:
Similar to the ideas in critical thinking and problem solving, these methodologies can transfer into real world events. In one study, children were given broken toys and assessed on how they dealt with the situation. Kids that learned to code paid more effort in understanding why that thing wasn’t working. Besides that, they also tried various solutions to fix it. This persistent ability to analyze and solve a task, as opposed to abandoning the idea, is vital to growth and development at all ages.

Jobs, Jobs, and more Jobs:
According to burning-glass.com, programming jobs are growing 50% faster than the job market overall and 12% faster than the market average. You know then, equipped with these skills, you’ll be ready to take the market by storm and find the job that’s perfect for you.
At VTRAC we offer many opportunities to advance your programming career. See them here!

Priorities:
As one expert points out, “Sitting in the realm of code, one learns quickly what bits are important and which are not. Great skill to take into the real life.”  Experts found that children who were involved in programming courses gave more attention to prioritizing day-to-day tasks. Compared with the other children who started to do tasks according to their importance, the programmers tended to start with tasks that were the smallest. Some of them remarkably grouped the small tasks and finished quickly by solving in parallel. This behavior is associated with “Multi-threading” principles and also with “Queues” and “Stacks”.

Development: Since the speed of change in computer sciences is so great, one thing each and every programmer has to take for granted is the value of an “always ready to learn more” approach.

Anticipating Mistakes: Programming teaches you to be fully aware and prepared for making mistakes. The ability to anticipate yours and others’ future mistakes often extends to being ready for the unexpected.

Language:
International businesses rely on multi-linguistic communications. Code is becoming a favourable language for global communications.

Empowerment:
Knowing you accomplished something big and complex, and on your own, is a great feeling. Being able to turn that accomplishment into something useful is a great confidence booster that can easily carry-over into other aspects of one’s life.

Interaction:
There are any tech related events that go on making the tech industry a great place to meet new people with similar interests. They’re available online too so anyone can participate.
You can develop platforms and communicate with people with similar interests and ideas at various times all over the world.

Maintaining Order: Just as code will not work when certain strings are missing or out of place, neither will a real life. Some of the smartest programmers have this figured out 😉

Assessment:

Did you know? “During experiments it turned out that kids who learn programming have made decisions based on a more objective evaluation. Experts associated this behavior with the conditional statements from programming (IF, WHILE, SWITCH). While the other kids did not even considered secondary options (options considered not a direct advantage), the little programmers actually compared all options before choosing one.”

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