<p>My son is a senior in high school. He thinks he wants to major in computer science in college. He is taking his first computer science class this year. They're starting off learning Processing and then they will move on to Java. I know absolutely nothing about computer science so I'd like to know if learning/using those languages will give him a good idea if CS is for him.</p>
<p>Yes. Java is a very standard language in both industry and academia (i.e. many companies use it and many college classes will also use it). Processing is a simplified variant of Java.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that programming is just a way of implementing the ideas of computer science. The language that he learns first isn’t really important as long as he gets the concepts of writing a good program down. If he wants to get a feel for what CS is like I recommend reading up on data structures and algorithms, which are very fundamental concepts in the field. That’s not to say he needs to learn all about them, of course, but it’s good to get an idea of what they are.</p>