EDUCATION: Blockchain at University and my experience

in #steemit8 years ago

As I mentioned in my previous post, I’m a final year student at University in the UK. Having now finished exams I wanted to reflect on a few things now my degree is completed, to give the community a point of view from a University student.

I mentioned in April about a gift card scheme as a means to lock away liquidity for a period of time in order to preserve the market price of STEEM. Overall, I received some really good and valuable feedback, however one question was brought up by @steevc, “DO THEY TEACH BLOCKCHAIN IN COMPUTER SCIENCE COURSES THESE DAYS?”. This intrigued me.

The straight up answer is “sort of”. Two modules in third year have introduced the concept to us, one from a security point of view and the other from a more functional point of view. I think it’s great that that we’re being taught about the underlying concept but both modules taught us “Bitcoin” not “Blockchain”.

Over the past year or so, I’ve asked some non-technical friends on what they think “Blockchain” is and their response has almost always been “Bitcoin”, which represents a problem to be addressed – EDUCATION.

I’ve explained the concept of Steem to friends and colleagues of which several people have signed up including @fanouropittas, who thought Steem/Steemit was an amazing idea!

I believe it’s important to have programmes such as #promo-uk run by @StephenKendal, since it’s a great way of spreading the word and this needs to keep happening for education purposes.

It’s a case of making Blockchain/Cryptocurrencies accessible to younger individuals, but also teaching us the investing mindset.

This is from my experience at University and thus may differ between institutions. It would be great to hear the point of view from other students across the wide range of subjects available at University.

I hope this provides an insight into what is happening at University currently, and I’ll happily take any questions about this :)

Kind Regards,
Kiran

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Hi Kiran. Once again welcome to Steemit. It was great to talk to you earlier and I am looking forward to you joining the #promo-uk Team to help out with the Marketing and Promoting of STEEMIT in and around Universities in the UK. I will catch up with you later and talk about #promosheffield. I am expecting the flyers to arrive from the printers later today. Thanks Kiran and have a great day. Stephen

Thanks Stephen, looking forward to it! It'll be interesting to see what they think.

Hi Kiran, great to hear from you! What do you think the best sources are to understand the concept of Blockchain on a not too technical level.
Thinking about an explanation akin to how to drive a car, don't want to be a car mechanic...

Also I would genuinely be interested to hear your ideas on my article on the IDEA economy
from your perspective as a recent graduate! Congrats by the way!

Thanks for the feedback and it feels good to be graduating!
I used several sources including Google and Youtube to understand Blockchain. I generally like to think of Blockchain as a data structure which normally cannot be changed. However the application is different. I'd suggest looking at videos on Bitcoin and then videos of "How blockchain applies to the financial sector" etc. You get the feel of it over time!

Thanks for the invite and I'll certainly have a look!

Best,
Kiran

I think that if you understand and can express it in laymans' terms there is a nice opportunity for you to make an online course on Udemy or Skillshare or something like that. I am in the situation where I am curious but not curious enough to go digging through specs etc. ... probably to my detriment. I saw a programme recently on Bitcoin and they treat BTC and Blockchain as synonymous, obviously they have not understood the finer points either.
If it is true that blockchain technology is going to revolutionise the internet as some of the people I follow on the internet say, I'd like a good argument how specifically it will accomplish that and how I can benefit from the early adopter opportunities...

i think in the future very much will run on blockchains. but the people using it wont know that they are using it. it's like the internet; i don't think many people really know what the internet is: a interconnected network of computers.

I too agree with this. It's a relatively new technology which will gain traction over time. Thanks for the comment!

Its still in the early stages of actually realizing on an academia level that this technology is here to stay. I've only really heard of a few student bodies organizing their own "blockchain" meetups.

I belive in a few years applied cryptography will really see an influx of interest, as well as advanced distributed systems.

This field can, and will only grow.

I completely agree with this! I think it's a case of people starting to get used to the idea of "blockchain" and to trust it too. Thanks, Kiran

Welcome to Steemit Kiran. There are 1000 job posting on linked for block chain programmers. I currently recommend all my life coaching students to explore this space. Either you control this new exponential technology or it controls you.. upvoted, resteemed and following

Hi traderdad, thanks for the recommendation, I certainly will!

This is the video I Used to educate my fellow traders on how pervasive the blockchain impact will be. Please watch and give me feed back..

Blockchain:massively simplified - Richie Etwaru Tedx

The world is changing before everyone eyes.. Nice post. I like your page. We should connect! I gave an up vote.

PS. Follow @ENAZWAHSDARB for entrepreneurial value content, my blog!