Why should I take a course in computer programming?

If you’re worried about finding a job in this uncertain economy, then a technical role is a good bet, with eight of the top 25 jobs this year being tech positions.

Programmers (or coders) are often portrayed as a certain type of person: geeks (mostly male) who hide behind their glasses and are socially awkward, or spend most of their time home alone playing video games. Thankfully, we’ve moved past this outdated stereotype, and coding is becoming much more accessible (and useful) to a wide variety of different job roles.

Not only have companies and non-profits introduced initiatives to get a more diverse range of people into programming, but the number of resources available to learn to code has dramatically increased.

Codecademy (and especially the free HTML course) was my saviour when I needed to learn how to code fast, so I could run a leading online news website with minimal technical resources.

Aside from online journalists who need to know basic HTML at the very least, there are other, traditionally less “technical” professions that greatly benefit from computer programming skills.

Take marketers for example. If you want to build landing pages, it helps to know front-end development languages to ensure you know what is and isn’t possible, and to ensure you’re able to make changes with minimal input from an engineering team. Or if you work in any other role at a software company, you need to understand how your product was created and works, for which you’ll need to learn coding.

What’s next?

I hope that, by using my journalistic skills of explaining complex subjects in simple terms, you can now understand the basics of computer programming. It’s a really useful skill to have on your resume, no matter what kind of job you’re applying for, and at what level.

The jobs of the future will involve technical skills, and you need to get a headstart now to be prepared (although you shouldn’t neglect your “soft” skills for when the robots eventually take over).

If you’d like to learn the most useful computer programming (or coding!) skills, then check out the wide range of courses that are available on Codecademy Pro.