Coding for All: The Rise of Coding Skills In Bachelor’s Degrees

In 2021, com­put­er sci­ence bach­e­lor’s pro­grams award­ed 59,565 degrees. The ver­sa­tile appli­ca­tions of com­put­er sci­ence degrees make it among the best STEM degrees.

Relat­ed Resource: Tech-Savvy Stu­dents: Nav­i­gat­ing IT Bachelor’s Programs

Importance Of Coding Skills In Various Industries

Stu­dents in com­put­er sci­ence bach­e­lor’s pro­grams are see­ing that incor­po­rat­ing cod­ing skills into their edu­ca­tion will give the many ben­e­fits to enjoy. Even learn­ing cod­ing through stand­alone cours­es will boost your employ­a­bil­i­ty. This is because employ­ers val­ue appli­cants with sat­is­fac­to­ry, if not excel­lent, cod­ing skills. 

Here are the indus­tries where cod­ing skills are val­ued and why. 

Technology and Software Development

Soft­ware engi­neers and devel­op­ers, web­site design­ers and devel­op­ers, and com­put­er pro­gram­mers are among the pro­fes­sion­als with excel­lent cod­ing skills. Their jobs involve build­ing soft­ware appli­ca­tions, mobile apps, and web­sites where cod­ing skills are a must. With their cod­ing skills, these pro­fes­sion­als can cre­ate new tech­nolo­gies, prod­ucts, and services. 

Data Science and Analytics

Data sci­en­tists and ana­lysts use their cod­ing skills in the effi­cient eval­u­a­tion, trans­la­tion, and orga­ni­za­tion of data. Their cod­ing skills also allow them to auto­mate repet­i­tive tasks, build cus­tomized pro­grams, and cre­ate scal­able solu­tions. When these func­tions are done prop­er­ly, data sci­en­tists and ana­lysts can per­form data analy­sis with more accu­ra­cy and in less time. 

Advanced Manufacturing

The advanced man­u­fac­tur­ing indus­try uses cod­ing in sev­er­al ways, including: 

• Pro­gram­ming and con­trol­ling robots and oth­er auto­mat­ed machin­ery (e.g., car manufacturing) 
• Set­ting, mon­i­tor­ing, and adjust­ing man­u­fac­tur­ing vari­ables (e.g., pres­sure, tem­per­a­ture, and flow rates in met­al manufacturing) 
• Main­tain­ing qual­i­ty stan­dards (e.g., com­put­er vision sys­tems in food prod­ucts, elec­tron­ics, and tex­tiles production) 
• Man­ag­ing the sup­ply chain (e.g., inven­to­ry management) 

Employ­ees and man­agers use com­put­ers in their day-to-day oper­a­tions. As such, cod­ing is an impor­tant skill for them. 

Education

Online pro­grams, EdTech plat­forms, and inter­ac­tive dig­i­tal learn­ing tools use cod­ing. Pro­fes­sion­als with excel­lent cod­ing skills cre­ate and main­tain these plat­forms and tools. 

Edu­ca­tors use cod­ing class­es to pro­mote dig­i­tal lit­er­a­cy and com­pu­ta­tion­al think­ing among their stu­dents. Stu­dents learn career-ready skills, too, such as com­mu­ni­ca­tion, col­lab­o­ra­tion, and cre­ative prob­lem-solv­ing skills.

Business, Finance and Banking

These indus­tries use cod­ing in their deci­sion-mak­ing and prob­lem-solv­ing process­es. Busi­ness pro­fes­sion­als use soft­ware and apps in data analy­sis, pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, and process automa­tion. Finance pro­fes­sion­als use algo­rithms in quan­ti­ta­tive finance and high-fre­quen­cy trad­ing. Bank­ing pro­fes­sion­als use soft­ware in finan­cial man­age­ment, risk analy­sis, and finan­cial mod­el development. 

Marketing and Advertising

Cod­ing is vital in sev­er­al mar­ket­ing and adver­tis­ing functions. 

• Web­site design and devel­op­ment uses cod­ing to cre­ate user-friend­ly websites.
• Email mar­ket­ing automa­tion relies on cod­ing to set up per­son­al­ized email content. 
• Dig­i­tal adver­tis­ing cam­paigns use cod­ing in cre­at­ing, installing, and opti­miz­ing ad placements. 
• SEO pro­grams depend on cod­ing to increase search engine vis­i­bil­i­ty, vis­its, and conversions. 

Healthcare

Health infor­ma­tion man­agers and med­ical researchers have excel­lent cod­ing skills. Even physi­cians can ben­e­fit from cod­ing skills. Dr. Pieter L. Kubben, for exam­ple, used his cod­ing skills to cre­ate Neu­ro­mind, an app used in clin­i­cal decision-making. 

The uses of cod­ing in the health­care indus­try include: 

• Cre­at­ing elec­tron­ic health records and databases 
• Apply­ing health­care ana­lyt­ics and gain­ing use­ful insights 
• Devel­op­ing robots used in medicine 
• Using med­ical imag­ing diag­nos­tics equipment 
• Devel­op­ing patient man­age­ment and health mon­i­tor­ing systems 
• Pro­duc­ing new drugs and treatments 
• Deliv­er­ing telemed­i­cine services 
• Com­ply­ing with reg­u­la­to­ry requirements

Transportation and Logistics

There are sev­er­al uses of cod­ing in the trans­porta­tion and logis­tics indus­try, including: 

• Improv­ing effi­cien­cy in its routes 
• Man­ag­ing fleets for increased dri­ver per­for­mance, fuel con­sump­tion, and main­te­nance costs 
• Using GPS and RFID tech­nolo­gies in sup­ply chain management 
• Automat­ing the inven­to­ry man­age­ment system 
• Con­trol­ling auto­mat­ed guid­ed vehicles 
• Man­ag­ing and con­trol­ling traffic 
• Reduc­ing safe­ty and secu­ri­ty risks 

Gaming and Entertainment

If you’ve ever played video games or used social media, you can thank cod­ing pro­fes­sion­als. Gam­ing and enter­tain­ment devel­op­ers use their cod­ing skills to cre­ate prod­ucts and ser­vices. Vir­tu­al real­i­ty and aug­ment­ed real­i­ty prod­ucts are also the prod­ucts of coding. 

Look around you and every mod­ern prod­uct and ser­vice has like­ly been pro­duced with cod­ing. You will then real­ize that, indeed, with your cod­ing skills, you will find opportunities.

Learning Resources For Aspiring Programmers

The trend of com­put­er sci­ence bach­e­lor’s pro­grams, or sim­ply incor­po­rat­ing cod­ing cours­es into your bach­e­lor’s edu­ca­tion, high­lights the increas­ing inter­est in cod­ing. While learn­ing cod­ing skills in bach­e­lor’s degrees is rec­om­mend­ed, you can also learn them in oth­er ways. 

Even when you’re enrolled in a bach­e­lor’s degree pro­gram, you can take part in these plat­forms, too. You will learn cod­ing skills that aren’t dis­cussed in text­books but are val­ued by employers. 

Online Courses and Tutorials

The best thing about cod­ing cours­es and tuto­ri­als is that these are avail­able in begin­ner, inter­me­di­ate, and advanced lev­els. You will find many resources, including: 

• Codecad­e­my offers begin­ner-friend­ly inter­ac­tive cod­ing cours­es in sev­er­al pro­gram­ming lan­guages. You can also build your cod­ing projects and tweak them as you learn more. 
• Cours­era has part­ner­ships with pres­ti­gious col­leges and uni­ver­si­ties that offer cod­ing cours­es. These include web devel­op­ment and pro­gram­ming lan­guages for begin­ners and advanced learners. 
• edX offers cod­ing and pro­gram­ming cours­es in part­ner­ship with renowned uni­ver­si­ties, too. 
• Ude­my’s cod­ing cours­es cov­er pro­gram­ming lan­guages taught by expe­ri­enced professionals. 
• FreeCode­Camp offers free cod­ing cours­es in pro­gram­ming lan­guages and web development. 

You can earn entry-lev­el cer­ti­fi­ca­tions on these plat­forms, too. The IBM Data Sci­ence Pro­fes­sion­al Cer­tifi­cate is a good example. 

YouTube Channels

If you’re a visu­al learn­er, you will learn cod­ing skills faster through YouTube chan­nels. You will enjoy the demon­stra­tions and expla­na­tions in the cours­es. There’s also a wide vari­ety of con­tent for every skill lev­el, free access, and sup­port­ive online communities. 

Check out these YouTube channels. 

• The Net Nin­ja has many web devel­op­ment and pro­gram­ming tutorials 
• Tra­ver­sy Media offers instruc­tion­al pro­gram­ming tuto­ri­als and web devel­op­ment technologies 
• Tech With Tim pro­vides a wide range of tuto­ri­als on pro­gram­ming and coding 

Be sure to use the inter­ac­tive cod­ing and pro­gram­ming exer­cis­es offered. Your cod­ing knowl­edge should be trans­lat­ed into use­ful cod­ing skills. 

Official Guides and Platforms 

The reli­a­bil­i­ty of the infor­ma­tion, com­pre­hen­sive cov­er­age, and com­mu­ni­ty sup­port are the best things about using offi­cial guides for learn­ing cod­ing skills. You will also enjoy the reg­u­lar updates on these offi­cial guides. Your cod­ing skills will be up-to-date when you’re informed about their lat­est updates. 

We sug­gest these offi­cial guides for all skill levels: 

• Mozil­la Devel­op­er Net­work for JavaScript, CSS, and HTML 
• MIT Open­Course­Ware for com­put­er sci­ence cours­es offered by MIT 
• The Odin Project is for indi­vid­u­als inter­est­ed in free full-stack web devel­op­ment courses 
• Java Tuto­ri­als for Java pro­gram­ming skills 

Books and E‑books

Check out your col­lege library and book­stores for excel­lent books and e‑books on cod­ing and pro­gram­ming. Books and e‑books pro­vide com­pre­hen­sive infor­ma­tion in portable form. You can use them for ref­er­ence pur­pos­es, too. 

If you’re a begin­ner, you can build your basic cod­ing skills by read­ing one or more of these books. 

• The Self-Taught Pro­gram­mer: Defin­i­tive Guide to Pro­gram­ming Pro­fes­sion­al­ly (Cory Althoff) 
• Pro­gram­ming Pearls (Jon Bentley) 
• Python Crash Course (Eric Matthes) 

Remem­ber that the infor­ma­tion in books and e‑books may be out­dat­ed. If pos­si­ble, look for their lat­est editions. 

Interactive Coding Games

Cod­ing can be chal­leng­ing for begin­ners. But it can be fun, too, thanks to inter­ac­tive cod­ing games. You will enjoy the hands-on learn­ing, imme­di­ate feed­back, and game-like adven­tures used in inter­ac­tive cod­ing games like: 

• Code­Com­bat (JavaScript and Python) 
• Robocode (Java) 
• CodinGame (Ruby, Rust, and Type­Script, and more) 

These plat­forms use puz­zles, com­pe­ti­tions, and games to teach cod­ing skills to all ages and skill levels. 

Online Communities and Forums 

If you are not enrolled in com­put­er sci­ence bach­e­lor’s pro­grams and are learn­ing cod­ing skills on your own or out­side of your col­lege degree pro­gram, you will want a sup­port­ive com­mu­ni­ty. You will learn more with peer-to-peer learn­ing, get con­struc­tive feed­back, and gain expo­sure to diverse expe­ri­ences. Your access to resources expands, too, because many peo­ple share their knowledge. 

Con­sid­er these online com­mu­ni­ties and forums. 

• Stack Over­flow is a pop­u­lar com­mu­ni­ty for pro­gram­mers where mem­bers engage in Q&A.
• GitHub, a code host­ing plat­form, encour­ages col­lab­o­ra­tion among programmers.

Check out the online forums on cod­ing and pro­gram­ming plat­forms, too. Codecad­e­my has its own. 

You may, of course, choose one or more of these DIY ways of teach­ing your­self cod­ing skills. You should choose based on your skill lev­el, spe­cif­ic inter­ests, and learn­ing style. You may, for exam­ple, start with begin­ner-lev­el books and progress to chal­leng­ing inter­ac­tive cod­ing games.

Career Prospects For Computer Science Graduates

The com­put­er and infor­ma­tion tech­nol­o­gy occu­pa­tions are the best fit for indi­vid­u­als who have earned their degree through com­put­er sci­ence bach­e­lor’s pro­grams. These occu­pa­tions are among the most well-paid occu­pa­tions, with a medi­an annu­al wage of $104,420 (May 2023), accord­ing to lat­est Bureau of Labor Sta­tis­tics data. About 377,500 open­ings, on aver­age, are pro­ject­ed every year for these occu­pa­tions, too. 

The bot­tom line: Earn­ing a bach­e­lor’s degree in com­put­er sci­ence pays off. You have the com­pet­i­tive knowl­edge and skills that employ­ers in diverse indus­tries look for. Your bach­e­lor’s degree is also a step­ping stone toward career advance­ment opportunities.

Here are the entry-lev­el occu­pa­tions that you can qual­i­fy for with a bach­e­lor’s degree in com­put­er sci­ence. (Amounts in paren­the­sis are medi­an annu­al wages as of May 2023) 

Web Developers and Digital Designers

($92,750) 

These pro­fes­sion­als can take the cred­it for our enjoy­ment of web­sites. Web devel­op­ers design, main­tain, and trou­bleshoot web­sites. Dig­i­tal design­ers, or web­site design­ers, ensure that the web­sites are user-friendly. 

Computer Programmers

($99,700) 

Their cod­ing knowl­edge and skills are vital in soft­ware devel­op­ment and engi­neer­ing. Com­put­er pro­gram­mers write, change, and test pro­grams in sev­er­al pro­gram­ming lan­guages. Their main job is to ensure that soft­ware solu­tions and apps func­tion as expected. 

Computer Systems Analysts

($103,800) 

These pro­fes­sion­als work with man­agers in choos­ing the best tech­nolo­gies for their com­put­er sys­tems includ­ing their hard­ware and soft­ware. With their exper­tise, orga­ni­za­tions can achieve more effec­tive and effi­cient operations. 

Database Administrators and Architects

($117,450)

Their pri­ma­ry duties include build­ing, main­tain­ing, and trou­bleshoot­ing data­bas­es in orga­ni­za­tions. These data­bas­es must be safe and secure from inter­nal and exter­nal threats but are effec­tive and effi­cient dur­ing operations. 

Information Security Analysts

($120,360)

These pro­fes­sion­als plan, install, and main­tain secu­ri­ty process­es and pro­ce­dures that pro­tect com­put­er net­works and sys­tems. Infor­ma­tion secu­ri­ty ana­lysts are in high demand because of many cyber­se­cu­ri­ty threats. 

Computer Network Architects 

($129,840)

These pro­fes­sion­als design, install, and test intranets, WANs, and LANs, among oth­er data com­mu­ni­ca­tion net­works. Their job also involves upgrad­ing these net­works’ hard­ware and rec­om­mend­ing new technologies. 

Software Developers

($130,160)

Soft­ware devel­op­ers are the brains behind many of our every­day gad­gets, such as smart­phones. Their main duties include design­ing soft­ware solu­tions and apps that pro­gram­mers can use their cod­ing skills on. 

Keep in mind that your bach­e­lor’s degree can open doors of oppor­tu­ni­ties for these entry-lev­el posi­tions. But if you want to climb the cor­po­rate lad­der, you must show good work ethics, lead­er­ship skills, and excep­tion­al competencies. 

Frequently Asked Questions