I didn’t know what engineering was…

When I was in high school I had a vague idea of what an engineer did. They built things. Usually with their hands I thought. Bridges and buildings and stuff. I didn’t think I wanted to be an engineer. I wanted to be a math major. My best friend wanted to be a chemistry major. Looking back now I wonder how two people with a passion for Math and Science did not explore the possibility of pursuing the E or T in STEM. Now at a place like Stanford I can’t imagine not understanding how much the world requires engineers and computer scientists. And yet, I didn’t think that way not too long ago. It is amazing to me the lack of exposure I had to engineering and that it took me an entire year to enroll in a Computer Science class at Stanford (only to realize how much I loved it). I think that my Stanford experience would have been very different if I had exposure to computer science and engineering in high school. I think the state of our world requires early access to computer science. I think students, regardless of socio-economic background, should walk into college with at least a minor understanding of what programming is. I know I wish I did.