This last couple of days has been interesting, to say the least!
I was given the task of finding 22 random strangers to show up and watch me speak about The Programming Fundamentals using JavaScript.
At first, I thought that would be a piece of cake! 22 people, come on… I live in a city of 190,884+ people that’s only 0.0116% of the population. I was more than certain that I was going to be able to do this.
My strategy was a simple one, go where the people are. There was a big conference about fitness aka FitCon going on with a bunch of young people, perfect for finding anyone that would want to learn how to code.
I got to it and started to talk to random strangers and tried my best to show the value of learning to code. I did start to see some success at first, but as the day went on I did not get much more results.
I did not give up though…. I continued to pass out flyers and talk to random strangers. I have to do a 10-minute walk to my office, every day before and after work, I would approach random strangers and asked if they had a task that they hate doing, I would then suggest that they could get rid of this task by writing a program to automate it and then I would offer them the opportunity to come and learn to code with JavaScript.
I was surprised by the response that I got. Mostly a bunch of negativity and rejections.
The funny thing about this entire thing was that I got warned about this happening. I reached out to Eli The Computer Guy and asked him about how I could go about marketing the event and he suggested reaching out to High Schools and finding the right people there and he WARNED me about offering this directly to adults.
Eli answered my question with this.
Everyone is willing to pay money for kids, but they won’t want to pay money for themselves. -Eli The Computer Guy
He was completely right! Here is a real example of this.
I was talking to a low wage worker tending tables and I told him if he would spend a couple of hours and learn a new skill, his life could look completely different in just a couple of months. He continued and said
“Thanks but no thanks, I just don’t have the money.”
Then as I was about to explain that if he was a student he could get in for free, but again he stops me from talking and says
“No! I don’t have the time”
and his list of excuses continued to pile on one after another.
Which reminded me of this.
You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink.
Jus thought I would share this story with you.
Talk to you soon,
Rick H.
I always had a passion for the field of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) and I knew I wanted to do something to make a difference in the world. I just didn’t know where to start. I was an immigrant in a new country, grew up in a tough environment, and wasn’t sure how… Read More
