S28 wants to be an engineer, and has since he was tiny. Probably civil, maybe mechanical. He seems to be a strong student, and is hoping to apply to selective schools. He has no desire to major in computer science in college, or to pursue CS or CE as a career, but is happy to take some CS classes and use coding in his eventual job.
He has some coding materials that he explores on his, and an uncle who is computer scientist who is always happy to answer questions. In 8th grade he asked me if he could take the AP CSA exam, to see if he could skip levels in school, and I ended up saying yes, and he got a 5. So, he has some skills. However he has no interest in any coding related EC’s, or competitions. He is on the robotic team but he loves to build not code, and his other EC’s are not STEM related at all. He’s super busy so not looking for more EC’s anyway.
His school has 6 periods, so the first 3 years there’s only one elective slot each semester, and they require a full credit of art in either freshman or sophomore year, and another taken in junior or senior year. He’s taking art this year and loving it, so next year he could choose another art class or one of an array of CS/Tech classes. Now, it’s time to choose his classes for sophomore year, and he needs to choose between visual arts and CS/Tech. There are also music and theater classes, but he doesn’t want those.
If he sticks with art all 4 years, will that look bad? He’d like to keep the option of applying to selective schools open. Will those schools expect a prospective engineer to have evidence that they know how to code, or have chosen CS/Tech electives? He loves the art classes, and the art teacher, and I like that he gets to do something different during the day. My guess is his coding skills will continue to grow, whether he takes the class or not. Is there some way to show that on an application that’s not a contest, or a time consuming EC?
I’m all for taking the elective he prefers which sounds like visual arts. He can always send the 5 score in AP CSA in as part of his admission materials.
IMO, if he submits the 5 in AP CSA and keeps up with robotics, that’s “proof” he can code and he should take the electives he wants.
That said, there is no getting around doing some CS in college as an engineer, regardless of discipline.
I do think that for some of the more “hands on” engineering schools, having the eng/tech/cs electives can help with admission, but those aren’t necessarily the highly selective programs as they are defined on this site.
5 on AP CS A does demonstrate some computing skills.
Civil and mechanical engineering majors do take computing for engineering, usually using MATLAB. However, no computing experience is necessary before taking such a course.
Anecdotally, our high school only offers an Intro to CS class and we have sent a handful of kids in the last few years to MIT and Harvey Mudd. CalPoly and Colorado School of Mines are super popular and take several kids each year. Everyone seems to do well.
I think if he already has a 5 in AP CS he’s doing great and should take what he likes best.
My son in Industrial engineering at a selective engineering Big Ten didn’t want to code. He left knowing like 5 coding languages.
He also did this after school program in high school and loved it. It was a lot of fun and had a 1:1 mentor that was a first year engineer. Did I mention it was a lot of fun but it teaches them to work in a group and what different specialties do. They went to a real site that they were working on. In Chicago these were world wide companies. Got a nice college recommendation. Etc.
I think that showing an ability to be creative, to visualize artistically, etc. could be a positive attribute in his application. And more importantly, he enjoys it. I’m all for continuing with art.
I really really agree with happy1. I, too, would strongly encourage his interest in visual arts if he likes to build, design and tinker.
Our D prefers to code, rather than build, for her robotics team. She also really enjoys music, math and learning languages. They all work together nicely.
I’m a big fan of nurturing different but complementary pathways for their brains. Plus, he enjoys it! That means a lot
It not just in Chicago. There might be one by you. Just look up Ace Mentoring in your region.
Also besides some engineering camps my son didn’t do anything engineering during his high school year’s besides taking rigorous classes. Have him do what he enjoys. Engineering isn’t just coding etc.
If he would like to learn more coding, he can consider a couple of python classes at the online provider Art of Problem Solving.
My kid took a couple of classes with them and I was really impressed. They will also provided a written report as well as a grade. My understanding is that they are pretty highly regarded.
To OP’s question, no. S24 is currently majoring Aerospace ENG in UCD. He also got accepted to other top ENG schools such as uDub, TAMU and Ohio State. He never took any AP class in science or CS (even his HS offered them). And his EC were not related to ENG, major EC was colorguard
