does outside of school coding prowess matter?

[Anonymous]

It’s very difficult to take your post seriously.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s very difficult to take your post seriously.

It's ok. You don't have to. I got the feedback I wanted, which gives me some things to google and some things to think about. When it comes down to it, it would be hard to do anything other than just let him makes his choices, but at least now I have a slightly better sense of what I should be thinking about and there may be opportunities for me to nudge him in one direction or another.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DS, currently a high school freshman, has been all in on coding for a long time. He's regularly engaged in high-level chats with the guy who wrote Python, has had his projects featured in podcasts and newsletters, has companies paying him to use his work, and has written a program that is part of Python's standard library. BUT, this is all he wants to do. He doesn't play sports; he participates in one extracurricular. He refused to join the coding club. His grades are good (mostly As).

Should I be tiger momming him to do more, or just let him do what he loves? He's happy (has a good group of friends and is a normal sweet kid at home), but I don't want to fall down on the job.

99.9% of all existing CS kids would be doing cartwheels just to be able shake the guy's hand.

Assuming what you say is true, this is the equivalent of becoming a Thiel scholar (maybe an option, regardless of one's views on Thiel)...which is worth 100x any college degree (though some decide to get a degree after their 2-year commitment).

It's real. His name is Guido van Rossum, and my kid was super star-struck the first time he engaged with him. I actually just think it's cool that he (Guido, not my kid!) is still so involved in discussions about the mechanics of Python.

Kid should get him to write an additional rec when the time comes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow. Your son sounds very impressive and you should be very proud of him. You have nothing to worry about. I am amazed that he has already written a standard Python library at age 14. Be grateful that he is not spending his free time playing video games and he is doing something very useful with his brain outside of school. I’m sure he will make smart decisions when it comes time to really deciding the right path. Keep in mind that he can always get a high paying job where the employer pays for him to attend college part-time. Most big companies pay for college classes.

+1
The coolest part is, the son does not have to be sure right now. They can go right away or delay college or change their mind later to drop out or enroll. It will still be ok but I do think most kids benefit from some complimentary enrichment, team work or artful skill that opens their mind. Just observe what random subjects/hobbies spark some interest but there is no immediate need to jump on something. This advice could apply to many 14 yr Olds with any talents or lack of talents.

Yes, I would try to encourage 1 new hobby (preferably something creative). Maybe digital design? And, I'd encourage him to find and maintain a regular volunteer opp. Could be coding related or complimentary.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:He's not wrong! Excellent college essay topic, btw

Coding and CS aren't the same thing though. College isn't, in fact, going to teach him much about python that he doesn't already know. But there's a lot of math, theory, etc. And it will let him discover if he wants to, for example, go to grad school.

I recommend asking him to read this book (free online): https://sicpebook.wordpress.com/ebook/

And go to MIT OpenCourseWare and explore some video lectures, problem set, etc
https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/6-006-introduction-to-algorithms-spring-2020/
https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/6-004-computation-structures-spring-2017/
https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/6-046j-design-and-analysis-of-algorithms-spring-2015/

He'll either get excited about college, or at least his disinterest in college will be better informed!

I am the quoted poster’s husband and I agree with what she said here but wanted to add my own perspective. This is an anonymous board so make of my post what you will. I’m not making things up, and I’m not bragging (there’s no point because it’s anonymous).

First, I do want to engage in a bit of credentialism. Again, anonymous forum so you should in fact be skeptical but I am not going to lie. I am finishing up a Ph.D. in CS from a high ranked CS research school. I taught the introduction to programming class there several times. I also started university at 13 at a state school where I grew up (driving distance from my house) before going to graduate school. I am technically a middle school dropout. I don’t have a GED or anything.

I whole heartedly agree with my wife that CS is more than just the coding. Learning CS theory, systems, etc. will make you a better programmer. It’s one of the things that separates a good CS major from someone who went to a coding boot camp and is one of the reasons I do still think we should have CS degrees.

College isn’t (entirely) about learning new skills. From my perspective, there are four main reasons to go to University in a case like this.

1) Credentials. Getting a degree from a major university will help you get a job and help people who you do not yet know take you more seriously. It really sucks that this is the case but it is a fact.
2) Networking. Particularly somewhere like MIT, Caltech, Stanford, or CMU. The alumni network and name recognition can be quite helpful in career advancement, not just securing an initial job. Note: this still applies even if you only go to graduate school there.
3) Research. Going to a research university gives you the opportunity to find faculty to work on research with. This is fun and gives the opportunity to publish papers and is necessary for graduate school if that’s something your son ends up finding interesting in the long run.
4) Facilities. Hardware is fun to work with. That’s hard to do at home. Plenty of universities have maker spaces and the like where you can do fun things with hardware. It’s an underrated skill.


My advice: follow my wife’s suggestion. If he shows any interest in going to college after that (and frankly even if he doesn’t), try to get him interested in taking University classes, ideally enrolled as a student so he can get credit. He should understand that he is likely to be bored out of his mind in the early CS classes and the general education requirements. It sucks. It will feel like a waste of time and money. It’s no more of a waste of time than a similar class in high school. Less wasteful as it is leading towards a degree. But at a University, he can find a professor/lab to do interesting side projects with.

Your son sounds quite autodidactic and could probably learn many of these skills through things like OCW but getting a piece of paper that certifies you in that is worth the time, even if it feels stupid (it does feel stupid). I also want to state for the record that I agree with your son that the way programming classes are taught is often stupid and counter productive.

Last point related to the actual topic of the thread: contributing to open source projects *is* an extracurricular activity. I don’t know if admissions officers at the Ivies agree with me here and I know that MIT’s admissions are looking more like the ivies these days. Caltech’s admissions process hasn’t changed in my understanding and they take people with highly specific technical interest.

For one last point related to things that came up in this thread: people are correct that AI is likely to wipe out a lot of coding jobs in the near future. A lot of programming work for the lower end of the programming skill bell curve ends up being writing very formulaic, repeated code that is easy to replicate with AI. That said, there are a lot of problems with blindly trusting code generated by an AI and bugs are always going to be a thing and hiring a human programmer to fix them and find them is going to be a requirement for real, functional software for a long time. There are a surprising number of people with CS degrees who are working as software engineers who can’t code their way out of a paper bag. There will be jobs for competent programmers for a long time, particularly in things that are safety critical but even things that are not.

But all this is just, like, my opinion man.


P.S. My wife wants me to add that one of the benefits of going to college is making friends and having a social life with other nerds. This is fair. We met via a student group when I was working on my Master’s and we are both incredibly nerdy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s very difficult to take your post seriously.

It's ok. You don't have to. I got the feedback I wanted, which gives me some things to google and some things to think about. When it comes down to it, it would be hard to do anything other than just let him makes his choices, but at least now I have a slightly better sense of what I should be thinking about and there may be opportunities for me to nudge him in one direction or another.

Is this your oldest kid? I wanted to step in with the perspective of three kids college age and post college.

Your kid is 14. Let him follow his dreams. He has chosen this for himself and is invested in it out of an organic passion. Don't "push it over a cliff" by shifting the emphasis to college admissions. It is not your job to steer your 14 year old towards MIT. If he's as smart as you say and this becomes his goal, he will figure this out. Parents take so much of the joy away from their kids when they try and harness hobbies and interests and passions and make it about putting together a perfect college application. This board will say otherwise, but I believe you are doing your thriving child a disservice by getting involved at this point.

Also, you have no idea what he will become interested in in the next few years. Let him choose and follow his passions and he might end up in an even more interesting place than you could have imagined for him.

[Anonymous]

Coding is just one part of cs and ai will be another tool but people still need to run that.

Find other interests.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:He's not wrong! Excellent college essay topic, btw

Coding and CS aren't the same thing though. College isn't, in fact, going to teach him much about python that he doesn't already know. But there's a lot of math, theory, etc. And it will let him discover if he wants to, for example, go to grad school.

I recommend asking him to read this book (free online): https://sicpebook.wordpress.com/ebook/

And go to MIT OpenCourseWare and explore some video lectures, problem set, etc
https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/6-006-introduction-to-algorithms-spring-2020/
https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/6-004-computation-structures-spring-2017/
https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/6-046j-design-and-analysis-of-algorithms-spring-2015/

He'll either get excited about college, or at least his disinterest in college will be better informed!

I am the quoted poster’s husband and I agree with what she said here but wanted to add my own perspective. This is an anonymous board so make of my post what you will. I’m not making things up, and I’m not bragging (there’s no point because it’s anonymous).

First, I do want to engage in a bit of credentialism. Again, anonymous forum so you should in fact be skeptical but I am not going to lie. I am finishing up a Ph.D. in CS from a high ranked CS research school. I taught the introduction to programming class there several times. I also started university at 13 at a state school where I grew up (driving distance from my house) before going to graduate school. I am technically a middle school dropout. I don’t have a GED or anything.

I whole heartedly agree with my wife that CS is more than just the coding. Learning CS theory, systems, etc. will make you a better programmer. It’s one of the things that separates a good CS major from someone who went to a coding boot camp and is one of the reasons I do still think we should have CS degrees.

College isn’t (entirely) about learning new skills. From my perspective, there are four main reasons to go to University in a case like this.

1) Credentials. Getting a degree from a major university will help you get a job and help people who you do not yet know take you more seriously. It really sucks that this is the case but it is a fact.
2) Networking. Particularly somewhere like MIT, Caltech, Stanford, or CMU. The alumni network and name recognition can be quite helpful in career advancement, not just securing an initial job. Note: this still applies even if you only go to graduate school there.
3) Research. Going to a research university gives you the opportunity to find faculty to work on research with. This is fun and gives the opportunity to publish papers and is necessary for graduate school if that’s something your son ends up finding interesting in the long run.
4) Facilities. Hardware is fun to work with. That’s hard to do at home. Plenty of universities have maker spaces and the like where you can do fun things with hardware. It’s an underrated skill.


My advice: follow my wife’s suggestion. If he shows any interest in going to college after that (and frankly even if he doesn’t), try to get him interested in taking University classes, ideally enrolled as a student so he can get credit. He should understand that he is likely to be bored out of his mind in the early CS classes and the general education requirements. It sucks. It will feel like a waste of time and money. It’s no more of a waste of time than a similar class in high school. Less wasteful as it is leading towards a degree. But at a University, he can find a professor/lab to do interesting side projects with.

Your son sounds quite autodidactic and could probably learn many of these skills through things like OCW but getting a piece of paper that certifies you in that is worth the time, even if it feels stupid (it does feel stupid). I also want to state for the record that I agree with your son that the way programming classes are taught is often stupid and counter productive.

Last point related to the actual topic of the thread: contributing to open source projects *is* an extracurricular activity. I don’t know if admissions officers at the Ivies agree with me here and I know that MIT’s admissions are looking more like the ivies these days. Caltech’s admissions process hasn’t changed in my understanding and they take people with highly specific technical interest.

For one last point related to things that came up in this thread: people are correct that AI is likely to wipe out a lot of coding jobs in the near future. A lot of programming work for the lower end of the programming skill bell curve ends up being writing very formulaic, repeated code that is easy to replicate with AI. That said, there are a lot of problems with blindly trusting code generated by an AI and bugs are always going to be a thing and hiring a human programmer to fix them and find them is going to be a requirement for real, functional software for a long time. There are a surprising number of people with CS degrees who are working as software engineers who can’t code their way out of a paper bag. There will be jobs for competent programmers for a long time, particularly in things that are safety critical but even things that are not.

But all this is just, like, my opinion man.


P.S. My wife wants me to add that one of the benefits of going to college is making friends and having a social life with other nerds. This is fair. We met via a student group when I was working on my Master’s and we are both incredibly nerdy.

OP here. I love this post, and it gives me perspective I don’t have because I don’t come from this world at all. Thank you for taking the time to write it.

[Anonymous]

To the Caltech/MIT middle school drop-out, would you mind clarifying what you mean about MIT admissions become more like ivy admissions? Is it popularity?

Also, great post.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s very difficult to take your post seriously.

It's ok. You don't have to. I got the feedback I wanted, which gives me some things to google and some things to think about. When it comes down to it, it would be hard to do anything other than just let him makes his choices, but at least now I have a slightly better sense of what I should be thinking about and there may be opportunities for me to nudge him in one direction or another.

That is one thing. The title of your post is ridiculous. And you know it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DS, currently a high school freshman, has been all in on coding for a long time. He's regularly engaged in high-level chats with the guy who wrote Python, has had his projects featured in podcasts and newsletters, has companies paying him to use his work, and has written a program that is part of Python's standard library. BUT, this is all he wants to do. He doesn't play sports; he participates in one extracurricular. He refused to join the coding club. His grades are good (mostly As).

Should I be tiger momming him to do more, or just let him do what he loves? He's happy (has a good group of friends and is a normal sweet kid at home), but I don't want to fall down on the job.

Leave him be. If he wants elite college, he will need almost all As in the most difficult classes, and top scores, but his EC of in depth programming is fine how it is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DS, currently a high school freshman, has been all in on coding for a long time. He's regularly engaged in high-level chats with the guy who wrote Python, has had his projects featured in podcasts and newsletters, has companies paying him to use his work, and has written a program that is part of Python's standard library. BUT, this is all he wants to do. He doesn't play sports; he participates in one extracurricular. He refused to join the coding club. His grades are good (mostly As).

Should I be tiger momming him to do more, or just let him do what he loves? He's happy (has a good group of friends and is a normal sweet kid at home), but I don't want to fall down on the job.

If he wants to go into CS or Computer Engineering, then he is fine. He needs to make sure his college applications indicate clearly what he has done, particularly for contributions to public/open-source software projects, but resist the temptation to exaggerate. CMU, Harvey Mudd, and several other CS-oriented schools definitely will like that kind of applicant, provided grades and test scores also are solid.

If he is not committed to CS or CompE, then he needs to broaden himself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:He's not wrong! Excellent college essay topic, btw

Coding and CS aren't the same thing though. College isn't, in fact, going to teach him much about python that he doesn't already know. But there's a lot of math, theory, etc. And it will let him discover if he wants to, for example, go to grad school.

I recommend asking him to read this book (free online): https://sicpebook.wordpress.com/ebook/

And go to MIT OpenCourseWare and explore some video lectures, problem set, etc
https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/6-006-introduction-to-algorithms-spring-2020/
https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/6-004-computation-structures-spring-2017/
https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/6-046j-design-and-analysis-of-algorithms-spring-2015/

He'll either get excited about college, or at least his disinterest in college will be better informed!

I am the quoted poster’s husband and I agree with what she said here but wanted to add my own perspective. This is an anonymous board so make of my post what you will. I’m not making things up, and I’m not bragging (there’s no point because it’s anonymous).

First, I do want to engage in a bit of credentialism. Again, anonymous forum so you should in fact be skeptical but I am not going to lie. I am finishing up a Ph.D. in CS from a high ranked CS research school. I taught the introduction to programming class there several times. I also started university at 13 at a state school where I grew up (driving distance from my house) before going to graduate school. I am technically a middle school dropout. I don’t have a GED or anything.

I whole heartedly agree with my wife that CS is more than just the coding. Learning CS theory, systems, etc. will make you a better programmer. It’s one of the things that separates a good CS major from someone who went to a coding boot camp and is one of the reasons I do still think we should have CS degrees.

College isn’t (entirely) about learning new skills. From my perspective, there are four main reasons to go to University in a case like this.

1) Credentials. Getting a degree from a major university will help you get a job and help people who you do not yet know take you more seriously. It really sucks that this is the case but it is a fact.
2) Networking. Particularly somewhere like MIT, Caltech, Stanford, or CMU. The alumni network and name recognition can be quite helpful in career advancement, not just securing an initial job. Note: this still applies even if you only go to graduate school there.
3) Research. Going to a research university gives you the opportunity to find faculty to work on research with. This is fun and gives the opportunity to publish papers and is necessary for graduate school if that’s something your son ends up finding interesting in the long run.
4) Facilities. Hardware is fun to work with. That’s hard to do at home. Plenty of universities have maker spaces and the like where you can do fun things with hardware. It’s an underrated skill.


My advice: follow my wife’s suggestion. If he shows any interest in going to college after that (and frankly even if he doesn’t), try to get him interested in taking University classes, ideally enrolled as a student so he can get credit. He should understand that he is likely to be bored out of his mind in the early CS classes and the general education requirements. It sucks. It will feel like a waste of time and money. It’s no more of a waste of time than a similar class in high school. Less wasteful as it is leading towards a degree. But at a University, he can find a professor/lab to do interesting side projects with.

Your son sounds quite autodidactic and could probably learn many of these skills through things like OCW but getting a piece of paper that certifies you in that is worth the time, even if it feels stupid (it does feel stupid). I also want to state for the record that I agree with your son that the way programming classes are taught is often stupid and counter productive.

Last point related to the actual topic of the thread: contributing to open source projects *is* an extracurricular activity. I don’t know if admissions officers at the Ivies agree with me here and I know that MIT’s admissions are looking more like the ivies these days. Caltech’s admissions process hasn’t changed in my understanding and they take people with highly specific technical interest.

For one last point related to things that came up in this thread: people are correct that AI is likely to wipe out a lot of coding jobs in the near future. A lot of programming work for the lower end of the programming skill bell curve ends up being writing very formulaic, repeated code that is easy to replicate with AI. That said, there are a lot of problems with blindly trusting code generated by an AI and bugs are always going to be a thing and hiring a human programmer to fix them and find them is going to be a requirement for real, functional software for a long time. There are a surprising number of people with CS degrees who are working as software engineers who can’t code their way out of a paper bag. There will be jobs for competent programmers for a long time, particularly in things that are safety critical but even things that are not.

But all this is just, like, my opinion man.


P.S. My wife wants me to add that one of the benefits of going to college is making friends and having a social life with other nerds. This is fair. We met via a student group when I was working on my Master’s and we are both incredibly nerdy.

I guess DCUM doesn't have a word limit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s very difficult to take your post seriously.

It's ok. You don't have to. I got the feedback I wanted, which gives me some things to google and some things to think about. When it comes down to it, it would be hard to do anything other than just let him makes his choices, but at least now I have a slightly better sense of what I should be thinking about and there may be opportunities for me to nudge him in one direction or another.

Is this your oldest kid? I wanted to step in with the perspective of three kids college age and post college.

Your kid is 14. Let him follow his dreams. He has chosen this for himself and is invested in it out of an organic passion. Don't "push it over a cliff" by shifting the emphasis to college admissions. It is not your job to steer your 14 year old towards MIT. If he's as smart as you say and this becomes his goal, he will figure this out. Parents take so much of the joy away from their kids when they try and harness hobbies and interests and passions and make it about putting together a perfect college application. This board will say otherwise, but I believe you are doing your thriving child a disservice by getting involved at this point.

Also, you have no idea what he will become interested in in the next few years. Let him choose and follow his passions and he might end up in an even more interesting place than you could have imagined for him.

Thank you for this. He is my oldest kid, and as a result, I often feel like he's the guinea pig because it takes me at least one kid to figure things out! I hear you. When I was trying to get him to do at least one extracurricular, he went to a robotics interest meeting. As he was describing the interest meeting, I started to advocate for him signing up, and he said, "Mom, you should just stop talking. The more you talk, the less I want to do it." (I did stop talking, and he did sign up, and has very much enjoyed it.)

[Anonymous]

CS degrees shouldn’t exits. Should be a trade school thing. Not sure why he’d waste his time in college studying CS. He’d be better off just going into the workforce or expanding his extremely narrow intellect and studying something completely unrelated to became an interesting person to engage with.