Maryland Coding Contest Encourages Students to Pursue Comput
Source: Sarah Jacobs
An hour of computer coding might be the first step toward a well-paying career in computer science.
That’s the idea behind the Hour of Code challenge happening across the country and in Maryland Public Schools.
According to Code.org, Maryland currently has nearly 20,000 open computing jobs, but only 2,000 computer science students graduating from the state’s colleges and universities.
“We are not graduating enough students in computers science fields to fill those jobs,” says Cindy Hasslebring, special assistant to the state superintendent of schools.
The average salary for a computer science occupation in Maryland is $98,593.
To encourage more students to learn this profitable skill, the Maryland Hour of Code contest will give a $10,000 technology award to a public school that provides an hour of coding to each of its students during Computer Science Education Week, Dec. 7-13.
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Old Mill Middle School South won last year’s contest.
“The school actually started some clubs after that and then they embedded coding throughout some of their courses within the school day,” Hasslebring says.
Schools have until Dec. 4 to submit their contest applications. Find more information and the application here.
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