Advice for future CS major - summer

Hi! My son is a HS junior who’s finishing up AP Computer Science this year and just loved it. Previous to this course he was interested in engineering but now he wants to apply to colleges for something related to CS.

Looking ahead to summer, his internship fell through so he’s looking at taking a Python course online at our local CC (his class this year covered Java). He and I don’t know what colleges look at for CS applicants - would this be a good path for him? Any other courses that you suggest?

(He goes to a small HS where the CS teacher is really a math teacher mainly and therefore is of limited help with this)

Thank you!

I know exactly what your son is going through. I was planning on doing Civil Engineering, but then did the Koding with Klossy program. I applied for CS at all my schools, and now I plan to attend Northwestern as a CS major.

First of all, a lot of universities are going to be judging college applications different this year, so many will be more understanding that his summer plans are not as exciting as they could have been.

Second, I think it’s important that he make sure that his classes for his senior year relate to Comp Sci(Calculus, Stats, Physics, Chem, etc.) and are college-level(Honors/AP). He should also look at clubs(robotics, science club, engineering club, etc.) that he might be able to do at his school so he can add them to his application.

Okay to finally answer you question about summer plans:

I think the python course at your local CC is a great idea. Competitive colleges love seeing students who take college-level classes before college. I would also suggest that you guys check on the internet to see if there still any STEM summer programs that he can do online which would also look great. If he gets really good at coding, he could do some personal projects like creating his own website or app. Things like this show the university that he truly likes CS and that he can handle doing it in college.

Sorry for the long post, but I hope this helped.

If he wants to learn on his own (non-credit), he can go through the materials for some introductory level college CS courses:

In school, he should choose the usual college prep curriculum covering all of the usual academic subjects. Be sure to include math to the highest level available to him. Since some CS majors are engineering based, having physics and chemistry in high school will ensure readiness for the college courses in those subjects that may be required for engineering based CS majors.