Programming is taught in cheap educational microcontroller kits aimed at 12 year olds. You can find them in the STEM section of just about any toy store. This idea that few people ever learn to code before calculus seems crazy to me, most of my peers were at least writing simple scripts by middle school. This is because programming is much more easily self-taught than other STEM subjects, and can be used to solve more immediate everyday problems kids who grew up with computers might seek to solve.
I’m not saying everyone learns to code before they learn higher math. I am saying that you shouldn’t be surprised that the comparisons in the OP have proven popular and insightful for a lot of people, because there are a lot of us who learned to code first.
They are high school level where I grew up. Literally everyone with high school diploma must understand at least the sum.
My school district in Utah did not require any math credits beyond Algebra 2 at the time I graduated. trig and calculus were classes I took because I wanted to. But Utah’s STEM requirements are woefully inadequate in my book.
Programming is taught in cheap educational microcontroller kits aimed at 12 year olds. You can find them in the STEM section of just about any toy store. This idea that few people ever learn to code before calculus seems crazy to me, most of my peers were at least writing simple scripts by middle school. This is because programming is much more easily self-taught than other STEM subjects, and can be used to solve more immediate everyday problems kids who grew up with computers might seek to solve.
I’m not saying everyone learns to code before they learn higher math. I am saying that you shouldn’t be surprised that the comparisons in the OP have proven popular and insightful for a lot of people, because there are a lot of us who learned to code first.
My school district in Utah did not require any math credits beyond Algebra 2 at the time I graduated. trig and calculus were classes I took because I wanted to. But Utah’s STEM requirements are woefully inadequate in my book.