A talk I gave to elementary school students about my life as a computer programmer.

1. Computers & Chicken
Kesha Williams February 16, 2017
My Life as a Computer Programmer

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3. Who Am I?
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— Name
— Where I Work
— Core Business of Chick-fil-A

4. What I do?
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Use computers and technology to help Chick-fil-A sell more
Chicken and to help people to do what?
Computer
Programmer

5. Questions
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—Who knows what they want to be when they grow
up?
—Why do you want to be this?
—Anyone else?
—When did I find out that I wanted to be a computer
programmer?
BOG

6. Computer Programming
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—Who Has Heard of Computer
Programming/Computer Science?
—Who Knows a Computer Programmer?
BOG

7. What is Computer Programming/Science?
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• Telling the computer what to do
• Speak the same language as the computer, that’s called programming
• Who has someone that tells them what to do?
• Don’t you wish you could tell someone what to do?
• Well if you’d like to tell a computer what to do, learn computer
programming

8. Computer Science (CS) is
posing a problem in a
way that a computer can
help us solve it.
Official Definition of Computer Science
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9. Chick-fil-A One Example
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Problem: Want customers
to order food online
Solution: Build a mobile
application

10. Computer Science is designing computing devices
and programming them
Another Definition of Computer Science
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11. Cell Phone Example
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Think about cell phones. They are just
tiny computers. Any time you change the
ring tone or screen background or
launch an app you are running a
computer program.
Computer programmers write computer
programs.
Have any of you ever wanted to make a
phone work better or differently?
A lot of computer science is about
improving technology-- making it faster,
smaller or able to do new things. It’s
powerful!

12. My Journey
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• 9th Grade
• Played Around
• Wrote Programs
• 11th Grade
• Studied
Computer
Science and
Chemistry
Computer Science and
Mathematics

13. Why I picked Computer Science
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• Love problem solving and figuring things out
• Love building and creating
• Love to play with new gadgets
• Love computers

14. Places I’ve Worked
All of these places need computer programmers
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15. What my day-to-day job look like
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16. What’s it like being a computer programmer?
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Always learning and solving problems

17. Benefits of being a Computer Programmer
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18. You may like Computer Science if you…
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— Are curious about how things fit together and work
— Like to build things from scratch
— Love to learning new things constantly
— Like to tinker and play to figure out how things work
— Like to save time and do this efficiently
— Want to build things that do things for you (robots)
— Like to model and design things
— Like to play video games

19. pharmaceuticalsagriculture
banking law automotive
safety systems science
health carepolitics transportationjournalism
sportsveterinary medicine
the artsadvertising engineering accounting
photography military
criminal justice recreation
manufacturingbusiness communicationsmusic
entertainmentarchitecture medicine design
Everybody needs Computer Programmers
Only 50% of
computer jobs
are at computer
companies
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20. How can you get started with Computer Science?
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— Hour of Code
— Tutorials that use “blocky”
— Tutorials that use JavaScript like Code Combat
— Playing and Building New Video Games
— Roblox – Luau Programming Language
— Learning how technology works (Kindle, Cell Phone,
Computers)
— Learning about web browsers like Internet Explorer
and Chrome work
— Learning how to type on keyboard

21. Programming Jobs
Among the fastest growing,
stable and flexible
offering good salaries
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Sample look at Computer Code
https://www.khanacademy.org/computer-programming/1-
welcome-to-codecanvas/882454257

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Questions?