<p>Ok, so here's the story:</p>
<p>I'm a prospective student hoping to major in Philosophy and satisfy the requirements for the Neuroscience Concentration. Now, to satisfy this concentration, one must take two intro to science + lab courses from two different departments. Seeing as I'm more interested in cognition (philosophy of mind/cognitive science), I think it would be best for me to take the lab courses in physics and comp sci. I'm also interested in taking the comp sci course Artificial Intelligence for a different requirement.</p>
<p>That being said:
Could any of you current comp sci majors (or intro class takers) recommend me some starting point review books to get a head start on the material? I've never taken any sort of comp sci class and am somewhat hesitant about going into my first one blind. Keep in mind I'm not going to study thoroughly, I'm just going to familiarize myself with some of the concepts listed in the course catalog.</p>
<p>Thanks for any help.</p>
<p>I'm reading Python Programming: An Introduction to Computer Science by John Zelle to prepare me for CS152, even though I already know Python. It's a very good low level CS text, and if you have no background in programming or computer science you might want to start with it. I have to imagine what's in this book will be a large portion of what's in CS152 and even CS153, because it's kind of impossible to get heavily into OS and hardware stuff early on in a cs curriculum.</p>
<p>RE: AI, I'd not spend money on anything, honestly. Free</a> Online Course Materials | Courses | MIT OpenCourseWare and Free</a> Online Course Materials | Courses | MIT OpenCourseWare should be more than enough, and I wouldn't try and jump heavily into AI before you get through your first CS course.</p>
<p>Oh, I understand that my first post is a little misleading. I'm not asking for any intro to AI books (as that would probably be like asking for an intro to calculus book before you even get to alg 2). I was just stating that as an interest of mine, and the reason for my interest in comp sci intro classes.</p>
<p>Thanks very much for all the help, tetrishead! However, if anyone else has any comments/suggestions, I would greatly appreciate those as well. Keep em coming.</p>