About NextGen's Summer Computer Courses
It’s obvious that to have a strong career today you need to have some computer literacy. It’s pretty clear, too, that the most lucrative careers involve computers in some way. The real question is, which technical computer skills should you learn to prepare for your future?
Should you learn design, coding, or both? Maybe you just want to focus on research. When it comes to computers what you should learn falls into these three categories: development, design, or data.
Should I learn Design or Coding?
Development encompasses web, software, and application development. It requires learning coding languages for specific devices. You’ll learn the architecture of developing for computers and understand the user experience of what you’re creating.
Design can be anything from how an app caters to a specific audience to the visual graphics on the front of a book. Designs can be tangible, like product labels, or intangible like defining the journey a user will walk through when using a mobile app.
Data is broad. It usually involves some form of coding. It can mean analysis, architecture, or automation. Generally speaking, students start with learning how to analyze, visualize, and organize data.
Is a data, design, or coding career best for me?
There are creative aspects to each choice because they all require some aspect of problem solving and visual decision making. But they also all require some technical skills from using complex design software to learning to code and write algorithms.
Some careers will even combine two or three of these options. For instance, web designers choose the visual layout and user experience of a website and often code the front end (the part that the users see and interact with). Then there are data analysts who use design to create visualizations and coding to clean up the data and glean insights that power their visualizations.
No matter which learning path you decide to embark on, learning these foundational technical skills can power your entire future, provide you with lucrative skills, and give you adjacent opportunities that allow you to change careers later – just in case.
Why learn Computer Skills in high school?
There are very few well-paying jobs that don’t require computer skills. Whether it’s design software like Adobe Photoshop, coding skills like Python or Java, or data skills with Microsoft Excel, you’ll probably need to be proficient in at least one industry-specific computer skill to gain meaningful employment after high school.
When you learn these skills in high school, you get a head start on your career. Plus, almost all of these skills are easily transferable so you don’t necessarily need to know what you want to do for the rest of your life to find the things you’ll learn at NextGen useful.
What can you create with Computer Skills?
You can use the technical skills that you learn at summer camp or after school to kickstart your entrepreneurial endeavors, boost your admissions to college, land an internship after high school, or find an entry-level job at a startup.
More than that, you can use your new skills to express yourself in a way you never could before. Make creative graphics, build websites and apps, or predict the stock market with the skills you learn! You can build a portfolio of projects to serve any of your future goals.
Why you should attend a design, coding, or Excel summer camp
Summer is the perfect time to learn new coding skills. You’ll have the time, space, and freedom to actually learn and have fun creating projects with your new skills without the pressure of school and homework.
You can make a portfolio to apply for internships next year, to use in your college applications, or your Fiverr profile. Maybe you just want to ace your senior year AP computer science class or visual arts project.
Learn design and coding live online over the summer
Don’t worry, learning over the summer doesn’t mean your whole summer is gone. Our classes are on weekdays only and don’t span the entire summer. You can take your computer skills interests down two distinct paths: coding or design.
Summer design classes for high school students
Design is the perfect career for creative high schoolers. You can choose to do visual and graphic design or apply your design ideas to websites and apps. You can learn over the summer on weekdays with live online or in-person options.
If you’re interested in learning Adobe Illustrator, InDesign, and Photoshop, check out the Graphic Design Summer Course online for high schoolers. If you want to learn Sketch, HTML, and CSS, you should take the high school live online Web Design Summer Course.
New York locals can take graphic design and web design classes in person at the Midtown Manhattan NextGen location. There’s a Graphic Design Summer Camp in NYC for high schoolers or a high school Web Design Summer Camp in New York.
Summer coding classes for high school students
When it comes to coding you can focus on data or development. Some coding languages are designed for data science, while others are for web development or software development, still others can do both data science and development!
The good thing is, you don’t necessarily need to know whether you want to do data science or web development forever. No matter which programming language you choose to learn, once you know one language every other language will be easier to learn.
If you can’t decide which focus you’re interested in, you can get a comprehensive education with the high school Computer Science Summer Certificate. You’ll learn both Java and Python, the two most popular programming languages in the world.
Python can be used for both data and development, while Java is mostly used for development. This program provides a certificate too which you can add to your resume or college applications!
If you’re ready to commit to data science, the Python Data Science summer high school course is a great choice. You’ll learn Python, essential Python libraries, and the fundamentals of data science.
If you know you’ll be taking AP computer science or you know you want to commit to development, the Java Programming Summer Course for high schoolers is perfect for you. You’ll learn development fundamentals, Java, and procedural paradigms.
Get a head start on your computer skills in high school
The earlier you start learning these skills, the better. The thing with technology is that, yes, every year there’s an update or a change, but the foundations will always be important and will not change much from year to year.
Getting started early will boost your entire career whether you plan to go to college, do a gap year, want to go freelance, think you’ll be an entrepreneur, or simply want to learn these skills for fun. Every single skill you’ll learn in our program can be applied to what you’re learning during the school year.
Learn design and coding at NextGen
At NextGen, our programs are designed for high school students specifically. All of our instructors use our proven methods that have been used around the world to help you learn with hands-on projects, live instruction, and small classes.
You’ll leave with the ability to use your new skills right away, a sample project that you can build your portfolio around, and new friends who are interested in design and coding too! It’s the perfect way to learn online for high schoolers over the summer.