GE's CEO Jeff Immelt is right. All new employees should learn how to code.

GE’s CEO Jeff Immelt has a plan for new young hires — they are going to learn to code. This is just one of Immelt’s initiatives to drive innovation for the 124-year-old company.

“If you are joining the company in your 20s, unlike when I joined, you’re going to learn to code, Immelt wrote in a LinkedIn post last Thursday. “It doesn’t matter whether you are in sales, finance or operations. You may not end up being a programmer, but you will know how to code.”

As a Computer Science major, I have seen the importance of learning how to code firsthand, and I am in favor of GE’s newest decree. A study from Oracle Academy and Burning Glass Technologies stressed that coding skills are not just valuable for programmers, such skills are valuable for employees across different job roles — including data analysts, artists, and designers.

Every employee should learn to code

Having a basic knowledge of coding helps employees automate workplace tasks such as generating invoices, gathering relevant data from hundreds of files and compiling weekly reports from information on the internet.

That doesn’t mean that every employee has to be able to write a program using his or her coding knowledge to complete a task at hand. Rather, it means employees are able to think of more efficient solutions for solving everyday problems at work, and perhaps get help in implementing these solutions.

Let me give you an example. Last summer, I worked as a litigation paralegal at a law firm. I had to complete a job that would have taken me two weeks; yet, with within a couple of hours, it was completed. How? Coding.

I had only taken an introductory Computer Science class, and I was definitely not proficient enough in coding to be writing a program to complete the task I needed to complete. But, I was able to use an innovative coding mindset and think of more efficient ways to complete the task at hand. I had a basic idea of how it could be done, and although I didn’t know exactly how to write the code to implement it, after a 5-minute conversation with someone  who worked in IT at the firm, he knew exactly what I wanted and how to get it done. Within a couple of hours, a program was written. Within seconds of running the program, the task was completed.

This summer, I have relied extensively on Excel and used it in ways I would have never thought about, had I not learned how to code. Whether it is using a basic IF function or creating macros, I am able to complete workplace tasks in a fraction of the time.

Learning to code doesn’t mean you have to major in it

One of the reasons I think Immelt’s announcement is brilliant is because he isn’t requiring all new hires to know how to code prior to landing a job at GE, he’s giving them the opportunity to learn how to code. And he doesn’t expect all new hires to end up as programmers — he simply wants them to have basic coding knowledge.

When I share my major with others, too many times have I gotten a response along the lines of: “Computer Science is such a useful major, you are going to get a job after college.”  I realize that Computer Science is seen as a so-called “useful major,” but that isn't why I decided to spend my four years in college studying it. The truth is, I took an introductory class during my first semester of college, thinking it would just be a fun class where I had the opportunity to learn a new, useful skill — and I ending up loving it.

A student who loves history shouldn’t major in Computer Science just because it is “useful” — he should learn what he loves to learn. I am in favor of students entering the workforce with a vast array of interests, majors, and passions. I believe that for companies to be successful, it’s important to have employees who command a vast knowledge in ancient Roman history, and employees who are fluent in Python, Java, C# and other programming languages.

We don’t all have to be programmers — we just have to think (even if only somewhat!) like programmers

Learning to code helps you think with an innovative mindset, and continuously think of more efficient ways to complete tasks. Once you have that mindset, you don’t have to be a full-time programmer, but you can turn to someone who is one and ask if it’s possible to write a program to accomplish the task you intend to complete.

We can’t expect the software engineers to know the exact tasks we want to complete and be able to write code for them, just as they can’t expect us to be able to write all of the code to complete those tasks. But to even realize the different ways we can continue to improve tasks we are approaching in an obsolete, ineffectual manner, we have to have that “coding mindset.”

As of now, even though I am a Computer Science major, I don't think I want to become a programmer or a Software Developer after college. But, what I do know is that learning how to code has helped improve my problem solving skills and will help me be an efficient worker when I enter the workforce.

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