Tennessee State University Opens New Coding Hub

Tennessee State University Campus

According to a recent study, of some 26 million job listings online right now, more than half of the ones that come with higher incomes require at least some basic understanding of computer coding. While computer science continues to be an attractive job prospect moving forward,  black students are still underrepresented in the computer science field. With this in mind, Tennessee State University, an HBCU in Nashville, is opening a coding hub for students from all black colleges and universities all over the United States.

Dubbed the HBCU C2 initiative, the program will focus not only on teaching students to write code, but also on showing them the ins and outs of app development. The “C2” part of the name is actually a play on the term ‘coding and creativity.’ The new hub is part of Apple’s Community Education initiative, which aims to bring access to coding and professional development to underserved communities.

“Coding and app development are a growing part of the global workforce,” Morehouse College professor Monique Earl-Lewis told WREG. “We want to help make sure people of color, especially our students, are equipped with the knowledge and skills to be competitive, and successful.”

Software development is a really multifaceted field which requires programmers to learn several code ‘languages’ . The TSU coding hub will make good on a real effort to prepare students for the world of practical  skill building within software development moving forward. As a result, in this partnership with the Tennessee State University coding hub, there will be focus primarily on teaching participants to use “Swift” Apple’s main coding language. The Apple app store alone has over two million apps in it, but in order to sell your app in their store, you have to learn the language that their developers use.

Article by Raz Robinson, journalist and freelance writer, based in New York City and Philadelphia. You can connect with him on LinkedIn, email at Rrob0904@gmail.com, or follow him on Twitter @razrobinson.