<p>I'm planning to major in Computer Science in my college years, possibly in top schools if I can get accepted.(MIT, Stanford, University of Washington, etc)</p>
<p>This upcoming junior year, I'm planning to take:
AP US history
AP Calc AB
AP Lit
AP Physics C
IT
Business(IT and business are required subjects for my school)
Orchestra
Robotics or Student Aid (for web design teacher).</p>
<p>I talked to the teacher I'm doing student aid with and he said he was cool with teaching me coding and basic web building along with Java and CSS.</p>
<p>However, there's this new class called "Intro to robotics" next year and I wanted to join there because my physics teacher recommended it to both learn physics and simple computer science at the same time...</p>
<p>What would be better for my major in college, Robotics or independently leaning coding?
I heard that if you take robotics, you get to go in statewide competitions for scholarships, and I do need those...</p>
<p>Please leave your opinions. Thank you so much!
(No, I cannot drop orchestra, since I'm the concertmaster and I love being in it.)</p>
<p>I also am going into computer science so I guess I can say a bit on this topic. </p>
<p>I would go with robotics because it involves an application of computer science. Computer science is something that many people learn on their own, like I have done. I basically bought a 700 page on Amazon, read the whole thing, and now have a pretty solid understanding of Java. I also watched a YouTube series on making Android Apps.
I can honestly say that I learned more from the YouTube series since it was all application of Java. </p>
<p>So something you can do is read about OOP (Object Oriented Programming) over the summer and gain the needed concepts to do whatever programming you need in Robotics. Robotics also gives you scholarships so that’s a plus. And lastly, you could probably still come into the Web Design teacher’s class and ask him questions on topics once in a while.</p>
<p>Of course this is just a suggestion and do what you feel is the best decision.</p>
<p>Go with the robotics. Since it is a combination of software (CS), and hardware (Mechanical engineering, electrical engineering) it will expose you to a broader range of topics than your other option. And robotics competitions are always a lot of fun!!! My son is a CS major and I think his experiences in robotics in high school were very helpful. In fact he started out thinking of Mechanical Engineering as a career path, but switched to CS. I think the robotics program helped him figure out what he really wanted.</p>
<p>I think a highschool Intro to Robotics course will only teach you some very basic programming concepts but it will look better on your transcript than Student Aid.</p>
<p>That being said, you’ll be doing a disservice to yourself if you walk into a CS major at a top notch school without any serious programming background. As TenMore suggested, consider figuring out some basic Java in the next two years. It should be easier to jump into after your robotics course.</p>
<p>Many CS majors come to college with little or no programming background, often because their high schools have no courses or because they recently decided that is what they are interested in. So, feel free to learn whatever you want on your own, but don’t obsess about what you think you “need” to know.</p>