How Programming is Used in Unexpected Fields

Note: This article was written by Miranda Scardina

Programming is widely known to be used in app creation, game coding, data analysis, cyber security, and other jobs similar to these. However, since technology is widely accessible, programming skills can now benefit nearly all fields of study and employment. This includes areas that most would not associate with programming at all, and these are the areas that will be elaborated on in this article.

Sports Science 🏈🏀⚽:

In the minds of many, sports seem to be the exact opposite of sitting at a computer and programming away. Computer programming and athletic sports have generally been seen as the antithesis of each other, but in reality, the field of sports science benefits greatly from having people who can program. There are many time-consuming and repetitive tasks done in the field of sports science that require numerous hours of attention each week. Having programming skills to automate those tedious tasks can make the whole workplace more efficient. Using python is ideal in this field as it is a fairly simple language that is easily readable and can help complete menial tasks like create football heat maps, sort and analyze data, or make interactive data charts for all the teams that need this information managed.

Graphic design and Promotion 💻:

Knowing a programming language or two could majorly boost the ability to make web pages user friendly, interactive and more effective. Internal development and control of a page for the team enables the team to customize it exactly as wanted and is an example where using programming skills can benefit any team in the sports industry. Technically, this improves any internet promotion and assists in establishing greater fan engagements. Having the skills to create a web page exactly the way you want it is a great advantage to have at your disposal.

Custom/More Professional Communication 💬:

This one is honestly one of my personal favorites. Even if your work has little to do with programming, all companies run on good communication. If your workplace communicates mainly on one platform, such as Slack, programming can be used to modify, organize, and customize your messages from the platform’s code before you send them out to the company. This is extremely handy for announcements that require many files and photos that all need clear labeling, along with text that highlights the most important parts of the paragraph that you need everyone to read. Programming skills used with tools like the Slack Block Kit make the post look organized, clean and understandable.

Music 🎵:

It’s no secret that music producers use software to create melodies and compose their music. Knowing how to program allows the musician to go beyond what the software offers and create effects and compositions that could not be made with the software alone. Being able to manipulate music composition software with programming again makes the finished product more customized and unique. In addition to this, there is even a coding language similar to Python called Sonic Pi that was made solely for creating music. Being able to program in this simple language could very easily give musicians an edge with creating unique sounds and beats with just a few lines of code, as well as saving a large amount of time that might have been spent moving around sound blocks in a composition software.

Manufacturing 🏭:

In the manufacturing business, the machines that make each workday so productive are run automatically by code. Although someone working a manufacturing job usually would not need advanced programming skills, it would be extremely useful to the whole shop to have a couple people who speak the same language as the machines in case of an error, or a specific job that would be much easier to automate correctly if the code was inputted or changed directly. As more factories utilize robots, computer skills grow more important to sustain costs, increase efficiency and productivity.

Overall, knowing how to program is a highly valuable skill for a multitude of professions, and having said skills could even give you an advantage when trying to find a job. Nearly every type of job can benefit from the automation, efficiency, customization, and communication that programming makes tangible.