Computer science is the career of the future, and Columbus School teacher Avery Berkowitz is helping students prepare for the job market of tomorrow using an online course.

Computers have become a huge part of the lives of millions, and that is only going to become and more inevitable as time goes on. This hasn’t gone unnoticed by 9th grade Algebra teacher Mr. Berkowitz as he started an afterschool club for students to learn web development.

“Two years ago a group of students and myself, independently became interested in web development” Said Mr. Berkowitz. “But there wasn’t really a space for students to explore actual web development.”

Using an internet service called Udemy, Mr. Berkowitz is learning alongside his students about something he has been passionate his whole life, but never had the opportunity to learn.

“I asked a couple of students if they wanted to code with me Mondays after school and we have been doing that for basically a year and a half now,” explained Mr. Berkowitz. “We bought an online course through a website called Udemy a full academic course with video for each lesson as well as activities and projects.”

Pedro Velazquez, a fellow Junior and an attendee at this club told The Discoverer that learning to program had always been something he had been interested in, but didn’t pursue it since he would’ve faced a hard and tedious journey alone.

“The reason that I didn’t try to learn to code before was that I just didn’t want to do it alone. I mean, having to learn everything from scratch and not having anyone to fall back on or ask for help, not  understanding something was something that didn’t appeal to me,” Said Velasquez.

Velasquez is definitely not alone anymore. Berkowitz expressed that there are several students who are now part of this program. Not only that, but he innovative Algebra teacher is looking to expand the program in the future.

“We’re looking to, next month, make it an official club here at the Columbus School,” said Berkowitz. “We’ll be holding interest meetings in my room [906] on the 19th and 20th of October during lunch.”