Alternative STEM Education: A Noncollege Path to Jobs for Students from Underrepresented Groups
About one and a half years ago, Isaiah Hickerson woke up in the middle of the night having dreamt he was a coder.
The dream was totally random, as dreams so often are. He didn’t know a thing about coding.
He was 23, and though originally from California, he’d been living with his uncle in Miami. By day, he was answering phones in the grooming department at PetSmart. After hours, he was trying to figure out what to do with his life.
He’d tried social media. And he’d taken some community college classes in business and biology. He was lukewarm on both.
“I just felt empty,” Hickerson said. “I wanted to do something different, but I just didn’t know what it was. I didn’t have a passion for anything. And I didn’t know what passion felt like.”
He knows how far-fetched it sounds, but seeing himself coding in the dream changed him.
