Kids Who Code

Kids who Code gives BYU students the opportunity to mentor and teach kids how to code. For those with coding experience, this is a great way to give back your coding knowledge to the community and for those who don't know how to code, working with the young kids is a great way to learn! We currently volunteer at schools and community centers throughout Provo City with an emphasis on teaching females and low-income kids. With this emphasis, we believe that our program can help in making a more diverse and equal workforce in technology. Our Fall/Winter programs teach kids in 3rd-12th grades and our summer programs teach kids in K-8th grades. We need volunteers willing to work with kids of various age groups who are excited to code! We welcome all volunteers regardless of their background in programming. 

I love when people ask if kids are old enough to understand coding. They do! My favorite moment from teaching this past year was when one of the 5th grade kids had finished our coding challenge we had given and wanted something harder. I told her what a factorial is and she decided that she took that as her next challenge. With a little bit of help from me and a lot of thinking from her, she figured it out and had the biggest smile on her face and screamed with joy when she saw it work with any number.

-Ryan O'Laughlin