Elias is a creative person. “I like coloring, drawing, painting - creative stuff,” said the Cedar Hill 8th grader. He joined Bold Idea’s ideaSpark program two years ago at his Dallas middle school. He had no idea then that he could be creative with computer science. But that quickly changed with his first project, a mobile app. “I got into it. Just - poof! It all came to me.”
Computer science has given Elias another creative outlet. Website development is his favorite of all his coding projects. Languages like HTML and CSS give him the freedom to design and create, he says.
“I think I’m most proud of myself when I’m being creative,” he said. “Technically, your whole life is based on creativity, and you use it throughout school and really everything.”
And that creative mindset will help students like Elias go far. In LinkedIn analysis, creativity topped the list of soft skills that employers are looking for in 2019.
Every Wednesday Elias meets with a team of students and his mentors, volunteers from Pariveda Solutions and Texas Instruments. Many of the same people have mentored Elias since he started Bold Idea, like Nicki Hames. He said, “It takes a lot for the mentors to be here at middle school. It’s a privilege for them to be here. They get up in the morning, go to work, and get in their cars and drive themselves all the way over here. They care a lot.”
“For a long time, I thought computer science would be fun, and then I found this group,” Elias added.
While he couldn’t nail down a career choice when he entered middle school, Elias is now thinking about a job in computer science or psychology - careers where you can listen to people and design solutions. Next though, Elias feels confident that he’ll do well in a high school computer science class and wants to mentor students younger than him.