Drowning in AP Computer Science

Pre-College Issues High School Life
1

I’m a senior, and I decided to take APCS so I could get some kind of science in my course schedule since I’m not taking AP Chemistry nor AP Physics. I assumed it was going to be okay since it didn’t have the huge reputation in my school for being that rigorous or even difficult! So I took this class for granted and thought the class was easy at first, until it started getting harder. I just really don’t understand these concepts and it’s awfully hard for me to complete the exercises without missing a small, essential line of code or forgetting an important concept. We’re using eIMACS on our own, the teacher doesn’t do anything besides making sure the class doesn’t get that loud and we’re on task. He also incorporates other videos on Java and stuff but it still doesn’t help at all. I’m not failing right now but I definitely don’t want a C in the class for this semester!

So my question is, are there any tutors, resources, anything that would help me? Is there a discussion here that helps out with this kind of stuff? I don’t know much about this forum, so apologies if there was already a post about this. I’m more worried about the exercises and the concepts. I can’t ask my teacher for help because he’s not one to teach nor guide, he’s really just there to facilitate the class. My classmates are usually way ahead of me and my questions have been starting to become a huge annoyance among my friends and classmates.

2

Codecademy.com has free Java tutorials. You might try that and see if it helps.

3

The best path would be to ask someone in the class to tutor you. That’s what my son did and his friend earned some cash for college. It will be cheaper than finding a tutor online or even elsewhere. Having someone sit with you as you are coding will be much more beneficial as the person can help before you stray off into bad code. He is finding his cs class in college much easier than his AP as the teacher is much better too.

4

I felt the same way for awhile, but this class is something you have to practice almost everyday. I recommend codingbat and edhesive to help you understand some of the concepts. AP Computer Science just keeps building so that if you don’t understand one little thing, it gets hard to keep up. I also agree with @SweetTea. There’s probably at least one person in your class who has been coding for a good amount of time. Just ask them for help. They might even do it for free! The difficulty of this class really depends on the concepts your class chooses to cover. You might be going over things that will never be on the AP exam because it’s out of the Java scope.

5

By any chance, are you from either Aloha or Westview?