When Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg made a surprise visit to a high school in California, he had a message for the entire country: all students need to learn how to code.

Zuckerberg told students at Sequoia High School that “understanding technology and computers ‘is going to be really critical to having a lot of options and doing what you want,’” in a segment on a Texas CBS news affiliate. The jobs of the future, Zuckerberg said, “will be very different from today’s jobs – and young people can use that to their advantage.”

“If you start with the assumption that everything in the future is going to be different than it is now, then it’s not true that anyone else knows any more than you guys do about what’s going to work in the future,” Zuckerberg said.

Zuckerberg’s appearance is part of Facebook’s campaign, “to encourage more young people, especially girls, to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and math — so-called STEM fields,” the article said.

Rosie Valencia, high school junior, interned at Facebook this summer, the article said. Valencia interviewed Zuckerberg on stage when he visited.

“I really want more girls to be able to code because when I started none of my friends even knew what I was doing,” she said.

Facebook announced that it will donate 50 laptops and help create a class to “teach students how to create their own mobile apps for smartphones” at the high school, said CBS DFW.

“What we’re really trying to do is to create the same types of opportunities for the next Mark Zuckerberg,” said Tim Campos, Facebook’s chief information officer. 

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Article by Kassondra Granata, EducationWorld Contributor