Some students go to college knowing exactly what they want to do. I did. But for most 18 year olds the decision of choosing a major can be overwhelming.  And for my son, sending out a college application as “undecided” has a negative feeling, putting even more pressure on his decision making.

Growing up in an artistic family, he has a passion for the digital arts, with sights set on the gaming industry as so many young people do. It’s difficult to predict the employment market, but one thing is for sure, computers are everywhere and they are here to stay. In such a competitive industry, he was encouraged when we saw a story about a website called Code.org, perhaps opening doors to even bigger and better and more creative applications.

Hadi Partovi, co-founder of Code.org recently sat down for an interview with Ryan Seacrest and explained that, “most of the schools in the country don’t teach computer programming and coding. The jobs outnumber students 3-1 in computer programming, so if we got more students to study this and to major in it, we’d be able to add a half a trillion dollars to the U.S. economy, which is a big deal.”

Code.org describes itself as a “non-profit dedicated to growing computer programming education. Our vision is that every student in every school should have the opportunity to learn computer science. We believe computer science should be part of the core curriculum in education, alongside other science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) courses, such as biology, physics, chemistry and algebra.”

To learn more and to try out some simple coding for yourself, visit Code.org.