Is There a Crisis in Computer-Science Education?

I was fortunate in being able to learn Commodore Basic programming along with my children who were in grade school in the 70s.  When the Web arrived in the 90s, I took one look at HTML and javascript and thought immediately, “This looks like fun!” —  the rest is history.

I hope that our schools will add computer coding back into the grade school and middle school curricula — even though it is not “tested.”  Students who go on to major in computer science are very often “hooked” at a very young age by the FUN of coding.  Shouldn’t all children have the opportunity for a (very well-paid) job that feels  like a game or hobby that one is being paid for?  Why K-12 coding lessons make sense

That could explain the rise in computer-science degrees in the early 80s—students who would have been in grade school in the 70s and had some computer-programming education—and the drop in the mid-90s—the students who were in elementary school in the 80s and learned only how to use a computer, not how to program one.

via Is There a Crisis in Computer-Science Education? – Data Points – Blogs – The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Note: Familiarity with word-processing and social-media apps and an ability to “surf the Web”  are not really indications of “being very good with computers” as many of my incoming college web-design/development students would learn in the late 90s and beyond.  My most successful students came in telling me that they really did not know much about computers but thought that the Web design/development minor looked like a very useful set of skills to acquire along with their liberal-arts courses.  But above all, for the Judson WebTeam  this was all about the FUN of getting the computer to do what you wanted it to!