Programming in Mathematica

Hello there! My name is Shad. I've been a Software Engineer for over 10 years. I studied Computer Engineering at the University of Toronto where I got my bachelors and masters in Computer Engineering. I really love to teach logic and programming. I've taught Lego Robotics to 5th graders and Swift and iOS programming to the Girls Who Code – a group of high school girls interested in promoting STEM to girls in high school.

I believe that logic and reasoning are not sufficiently well developed in schools. We teach math starting from kindergarten, but we don't talking about logic and reasoning until high school. This is a problem because programming is an application of logic and reasoning. While math is certainly a related field, it's somewhat tangential.

My goal is to bring logic to everyone. We live in a world where everyone walks around with a computer in their pockets. I'm not advocating that we all learn to program – I'm advocating that everyone be exposed to the basics at an early age and encouraged to understand what it is that they are carrying around in their pockets. Those that are interested can then take it further.

I'm an expert in Java, Python and the Wolfram Language. My first job was at a company in Toronto – it was a Python shop. My second job was at Wolfram Research which worked primarily with the Wolfram Language. My third job was at Yahoo where we worked with a lot of Hadoop and Java. My fourth job was at Amazon where I worked on Alexa. I now work at Google. I also have a myriad of experience in other languages and my knowledge of how computing works is diverse. 

I've seen how kids think about logic and computing at various ages. Teaching programming is a challenge especially given how broad existing knowledge can be – completely illiterate of logic and computing to very familiar – however, I believe that given the right examples and the appropriate motivation, anyone can learn to do it, and I will do my best to make sure that my students succeed.