Advice for first year computer science major

<p>What advice could you give someone when it comes to computer science? When it comes to class work, ex curriculers, studying, internships are just anything in general?</p>

<p>Become familiar with the unix/linux command line and associated tools. In general, if you’re familiar with the tools you use, you’ll be much better off.</p>

<p>Apply for internships as soon as possible. Fall is not too early to look for a summer internship. You won’t have much experience as a freshman, but you can probably find /something/ that will give you valuable experience (research is a good option, too). Once you have experience under your belt, getting internships in future years at top-tier companies will be a lot easier.</p>

<p>Do some personal projects in your spare time. Having things you can point to on a GitHub account (even if they’re not so advanced yet) is valuable. Alternatively, contribute to open source projects (start off with low hanging fruit and work your way up).</p>

<p>Data structures are really important for nailing interviews. Know them, love them.</p>

<p>Find an area of interest and explore it in depth. All of the super awesome CS people I know have that one area that they just love and focus on.</p>

<p>To start off with, learn at least one scripting language (I suggest Python) and one more heavy-duty language (C++, C#, and Java are decent options). Over time you’ll learn which one is useful for a given task.</p>

<p>Web programming is a useful thing to know.</p>

<p>Edit: I might post more later, but this is a good enough list to be getting on with.</p>

<p>Thank you. I’m working on learning python now. I’m starting with no experience but I feel like I’m getting the hang of it </p>

<p>Sent from my DROIDX using CC</p>

<p>That’s a good list, but could be ovewhelming for someone just starting out in CS. So try what you can, but don’t overwhelm yourself so much that you dislike CS. There’s definitely a learning curve, so stick with it. Follow c++ tutorials when you get there. Also the sooner you get good at googling the problems you encounter the better (pros do it too). When you’re at college, check out ACM and other CS related groups to see if you want to join them, and participate in hack-a-thons if the orgs do them.</p>

<p>See if course syllabi for previous semesters’ CS courses are available so that you can preview them.</p>

<p>I actually already know what classes I’ll need to take. First sem is into classes calc bio </p>

<p>Sent from my DROIDX using CC</p>