Using Corporate Advertising to Promote CS Education

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I’ve attended quite a few Computer Science conferences over the years including many years of SIGCSE and the past two years of the K-12 Workshop at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing. Typically, I sift through the big bag of stuff and create piles.
One pile is composed of anything that I can pass off as a generous gift to my own two children. These items include pens, mirrors, pens, travel nail clippers, pens, sticky notes, notebooks, pens, cell phone holders, pens, screen cleaners, lanyards, pens and of course pens.
Another pile is advertising from companies or schools recruiting and desperately trying to convince people to work for them or attend their programs. That stuff is historically the throw-away pile since I’m not the intended audience. Then I had a thought….why not save these pamphlets and prove to parents or guardians and students that there are companies and colleges begging for employees and students?!
Don’t take my word for it, here are examples after examples of major companies like Intel, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook, Google, Oracle, Yahoo and a ton of others vying for the chance to get your attention.
So, on my latest flight home from Portland to Chicago, I brought these pamphlets along with me to show to my students and their parents or guardians with the hope that these pieces of paper may help show that Computer Science isn’t defined by outsourced tech support centers, but by exciting and innovative companies and educational institutions working collaboratively on the challenges we face today and tomorrow.
Jeff Solin
CSTA Chicago Chapter
Northside College Preparatory High School
Chicago, Illinois
[email protected]

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3 thoughts on “Using Corporate Advertising to Promote CS Education”

  1. Wait! Aren’t these the same corporations that outsourced a slug of CS/Software Engineering Jobs a decade ago?
    I think so. Moreover, I can tell you that my students are too young to remember this, but their unemployed/underemployed parents remember all too well, which is why they may “allow” their children to take “one course in programming or computers,” but implore them in the most strenuous manner to major in business or finance so that they can outsource jobs too!
    This message, by the way, is brought to you by someone who has first-hand knowledge of this.
    Tom R

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