Jade is a junior at UC Berkeley studying Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. She is new to the Breakout Mentors team and hasn’t even started working with students yet! (If you would like to work with her, please contact us soon.) Even though Jade doesn’t yet have experience working with Breakout Mentors students, she has plenty of experience helping other kids learn to code: Jade has brother in middle school she introduced to coding and also taught robotics to high school students. Let’s hear from her!
When did you start programming?
I first dabbled in HTML as a middle schooler because I wanted to make my MySpace profile look awesome. To do so, I explored various tutorials online on (old-school) front-end web development. Though HTML is more of a markup language than a true ‘programming’ language, I was inspired to learn more about programming in general. I wasn’t formally schooled in Computer Science until senior year in high school when I took AP Computer Science and an intro to JAVA class at a local community college.
Why is it important for kids to start programming when young?
In world that is more and more influenced by tech, coding is an universal and powerful skill to have. It gives anyone the power to translate their own ideas and inspiration into something tangible. Also, the skills you learn from programming, such as logical thinking and problem solving, can be applied to many other aspects in life too.
What advice do you have for kids learning how to program?
Don’t give up! For me, the hardest part of learning to code was the beginning stages. As long as you stick to your efforts and keep pushing, the reward will naturally come in your progress.