<p>What would be a good programming language to learn for a mechanical engineering major beginning college who wants to get a little background in this before actually taking classes that involve working with computer systems?</p>
<p>Your college/program will assume you don’t already have any experience with these programs and should start the material at an introductory level giving you plenty of time to learn the programs throughout the duration of your time in college. I’m not a MechE myself, but my roommate has had to use a lot of MATLAB for his homework. This will probably be necessary in college, but not in the work force. SolidWorks is a program MechE’s use a lot in school and will continue to use in the work world. If you’re going to get a head start on learning a program/computer language I’d choose the one that will continue to have utility beyond the scope of academia, and might help you get internships/co-ops while there’s still very little to set you apart from other MechEs. MATLAB, while an excellent utility and not too hard to learn, is generally not encountered in industry, at least from what I’ve seen.</p>
<p>start with a basic language like Python to get the hang of computer programming then move to something like MATLAB or MathCAD etc…</p>
<p>Thanks. I did take SolidWorks last semester, and figured that MATLAB would be a major force in my future before too long. I guess I was thinking about general-purpose type languages. For example I know a lot of people who use Arduino microcontrollers for hobby projects, and it appears that C (or C++?) is the language usually used to program them. So I didn’t know if I should jump into that right away, or start off with something easier. (Strictly speaking this kind of application probably isn’t a core MechE thing, but these days it seems like knowing how to program is good for any kind of engineer.)</p>
<p>I would learn Java in such a case… It’s the least evil between C, C++, and Java B-) If you know people who use Arduinos and such is great, but straight Java is easier to learn because it does not involve hardware etc. I’d say learn something like Java first then if you like the idea, you can learn C/C++ pretty quickly. The other way is definitely not as easy (learn C/C++ first).</p>