For a second year, the Exploring IT Program, sponsored by Pariveda Solutions in partnership with the Denver Council of the Boy Scouts of America, gave 20 high school students in the Denver metro area who have expressed an interest in computer and technology based careers, a chance to learn what it is like to work in the field of information technology. The program began with a kickoff at the Microsoft office in Denver where the benefits of focusing on IT as a future career was explained. The students visited three additional companies including iBeta (video game, software, and voting machine testing company), MapQuest, and Latisys (datacenter and managed hosting) to get different perspecitives on what it is like to work in one of the fastest growing – and fastest changing – industries in the world today. These companies also provided an overview of their use of information technology and explained about how they spend their days solving challenging problems for their customers.
In addition, the students heard about the many rewards and challenges that come with a career in IT. For example, Computer Science majors have become a dwindling breed in the past few years amid a decline in the stature of Silicon Valley and media coverage of the off-shoring trend. Lower numbers of students are enrolling at U.S. four-year colleges to study computer science or engineering. Ironically, according to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, computer and mathematical science is the fastest growing professional occupation – poised to generate almost 1 million new jobs by 2014.
The Exploring IT program is designed to improve the students' perception that job prospects have diminished and encourage them and their parents that computing is a profession with enormous opportunity.