4D CS

The Center for Curriculum Redesign is very grateful for the generous support of the Harold Alfond Foundation, thanks to which it has created a world-leading Computer Science course for High Schoolers, starting with grades 9 and 10.

The ultimate goal and outcomes of this “Four-Dimensional Computer Science” (“4D CS”) courseware is broad economic development, and understandings for life.    

4D CS provides all the following employability outcomes:

  • CS students bound for CS in college
  • CS students bound for any college discipline
  • CS students acquiring Certifications
  • CS student entrepreneurs
  • CS teachers (which are in cruel deficit in the US and worldwide)
  • Computational thinkers in all disciplines and job endeavors

One key advantage of CS is that it can be practiced anywhere one has a computer and sufficient bandwidth, so practitioners can join the global economy while still enjoying their locality – no need for uprooting!

But Education quality is also an arms race of sorts:  

  • The practitioners need to be globally competitive, as the “work anywhere” advantage of CS makes it an easy target to cost-based offshoring.  
  • Furthermore,  advances in techniques make some aspects of CS automation probable.

The ultimate challenge is to avoid delocalization and automation through commodification, which implies a significant emphasis of 4D CS on both high-end education which includes competencies such as “learning how to learn”.

 The unique, overall strategy relies on all of the following elements:

    Future Job Prospects

    • There is a huge demand for Computer science in the workforce.

    • Regardless of what students do after school, whether they go into medicine, business, politics, or the arts, knowing how to build technology will give them confidence and a competitive edge.

    • The average STARTING salary for a computer science major is $66,000

    • By the year 2020, experts expect there to be more than 1,000,000 jobs than students!

    • Just In Maine alone, there are currently 871 unfilled computed jobs, that’s 2x the state average demand rate for other types of jobs.  What does that mean for you?   If you pursue computer science, you will likely have many different job prospects!

    • Click here to visit the Code.org site and report that provides more detail on the support for K-12 Computer Science education in Maine.