After the academics, extracurriculars come in a close second in the New Trier community. Sports, theater, yearbook, service—students usually go above and beyond in order to put the ‘extra’ in ‘extracurricular’.
But if sports aren’t exactly up your alley, and you’d rather leave theater up to the professionals on Broadway, how exactly do you stand out in a sea of 4,000 students?
Senior Kevin Brennan strays from the traditional, expected after-school route, and instead turns to the computer. In some respects, this is nothing special. Like most students, his after school routine follows as such, “After school, if I don’t have work, I’ll usually go online,” Brennan said.
At first glance it seems quite ordinary, but more than just scrolling on Facebook, Brennan channels his energy and passion into computers.
Brennan describes his love for computers and technology as starting from a young age. “When I was growing up, I always had access to a computer. I loved seeing how it worked and what all the parts did,” Brennan said.
Starting freshman year, Brennan began to learn to code in Web Design 1. He practiced using Photoshop, creating web pages, making professional quality graphics and, something that’s really stuck with Brennan, coding. And while freshman year is long past, Brennan still enjoys coding in senior year.
As part of the Computer Science Club, Brennan and fellow coders of varied skill level meet once a week to work with a variety of languages (how instructions are communicated to a computer) and environments, including C++, Python and Game Maker, according to the club description.
Even with joining Computer Science Club and taking Web Design, Brennan will typically code after school. When describing his favorite extracurricular, Brennan said, “If [on that day] I want to learn any programming, I will go to Codecademy, which is a great site to learn many different languages.”
Using his knowledge, Brennan uses his computer to create: “I love using some of the Adobe apps like Photoshop, Dreamweaver, and Premiere,” Brennan said.
Such apps have become increasingly popular, as more and more people are discovering a passion for graphic design, just as Brennan does.
From freelance bloggers to professional coders, in an age where computers, smartphones, tablets, or anything with a screen dominates much of our time, ‘playing’ on computers becomes a lot less of an activity for schlubs, the un-athletic and the anti-social.
As playing computer games turns into making a simple website turns into coding, a passion for how computers work has evolved into a viable extracurricular, much like theater or sports, although largely unlisted on most applications.
Although New Trier has had Computer Science courses in its curriculum for some time now, the rest of the country is catching up. Last December, over 60 school districts committed to offering computer science courses to their students, reaching over 4 million students nationwide as part of a movement to connect students with technology skills at younger ages.
Though coding is not Brennan’s only passion—“I love playing guitar. Whenever I’m doing homework or relaxing, I’m always listening to music,” Brennan said—coding is something that takes a lot of time and skill to master, much like playing tennis or singing a solo on stage.
Even though Brennan comes across as what we may imagine as a ‘computer nerd’, it’s hard to place him in exactly one category.
Coding has become an integral, very serious part of how we communicate and live our daily lives. It’s due in part to many people just like Brennan, those who code and spend a lot of time doing it because they love it.