Hi Vitaly,
Vitaly Repin schreef op ma 20-11-2017 om 15:53 [+0200]:
This Sunday I will have an 1 hour workshop with the teens (age 14-18) with the purpose to explain them what software developer profession is about.
That's quite short for a workshop. What will they be doing, and how many of them will attend?
I found this opportunity as a very interesting but also challenging. I plan to tell them also about FOSS and possibilities to study programming by participating in different FOSS projects.
The angle of using Free Software as a self-study tool is good :) I am not quite sure how you could fit a proper explanation of Free Software into that hour and also use it to teach them about software engineering, though. I feel like it might be a disservice to either topic if one impeded too much on the time of the other.
Perhaps use the hour primarily to teach about software engineering, and use any extra time with individual students to bring up the ethics involved in software?
Also, pretty please make sure to mention this at least:
- Liking video games is NOT a valid reason to study software engineering, and being a video game developer is a stressful, oversaturated, underpaid job.
- You do not need to be good at maths to be a decent software engineer. Being able to communicate (write) clearly and unambiguously is a much better asset for a software engineer, as this is exactly what coding is. If you can write an accurate tutorial that describes how to boil an egg that includes all the steps required (even the often-overlooked ones!) in such a way that anybody can understand it effortlessly, and can follow those steps without having to do any additional thinking of their own, then you possess THE vital skill for programming.
The first should hopefully scare off gamers who would have a miserable time doing software engineering.
The second should hopefully invite people who aren't maths geniuses, but who are communicatively very strong.
I hope this was helpful. Thank you for introducing the wonderful world of hacking to teens!
Yours, a software engineering student
-- Carmen Bianca Bakker Technical Intern Free Software Foundation Europe e.V.