Coding skills
Today technology is the area that grows the fastest, regardless where you live. In this technology-driven world, every industry needs to use technology to increase efficiency and to stay competitive. If you are college students, study technology is probably the best choice that you can make. With technology skills, you can work in every industry, every company, from software to finance, from transportation to healthcare, and from agriculture to manufacturing, etc.
The most fundamental skill in technology is programming, and almost all jobs in the future will require this skills. Even if you do not go to college, or do not study technology areas; you still need to learn coding skills. Many students still believe coding is only for information technology or scientific jobs, but today even arts, music, architecture and even fashion design need coding skills. These fields use the computer as a tool to work. By definition, coding skills mean using a computer program to write instructions to a computer instead of using applications. Currently, the most popular programming languages are Java, Python, and C++. However, if you like to build websites, you need to learn JavaScript and HTML. If you work in finance, banking with a lot of analytical works, you need to learn R.
Having coding skills will allow you to get a better job and a higher salary. For students looking to get a better chance of finding employment opportunities, there is nothing better than learning how to code. Today most U.S. business schools require students to take at least one programming course. At Carnegie Mellon, students in business, arts, music, architecture, have an obligation to take a programming course, but most would take more than one because they know what the industry needs.
If you look at the skills that are in high demand? A programming language with broad applicability is always on the top with the highest demand. Following are the skills that you may want to consider:
- Java -General purpose programming
- Javascript -Web development
- C++ -General purpose programming, especially in engineering
- C# -General purpose programming
- Python -General purpose programming
- .NET -General purpose programming
- XML – General purpose programming
- SQL – Databases
- Linux – Computer system operations
To learn these skills may require that you go to college and many technology jobs require a bachelor's degree. However, due to the shortage of highly skilled workers, many companies are beginning to hire more people on their knowledge and skills rather than a degree. For example, Google, Facebook are hiring people with the skills that they need with or without a degree, and this trend is spreading fast among technology companies.
With the popularity of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) many companies are now considered certificates from MOOCs 'such as Coursera, edx, and Udacity as the proof of certain skills to hire. A Google senior executive said: “As many college graduates do not have the skills that we need because their training is obsolete, we prefer to hire people who study from MOOCs because they can meet our needs.” This declaration has been supported by many executives from top companies in both the U.S. and Europe and created a “shock waves” among academic universities.
A new industry research has found that in the past three years, over 25% of new hires in technology companies do not have a bachelor's degree, but all of them do have very strong programming skills. For those who do not go to college, a coding school certification may be a new ticket to get a job in these companies.
Sources
- Blogs of Prof. John Vu, Carnegie Mellon University
