<p>Hey everyone,</p>
<p>Just looking for a little feedback here from those who have done it before (and succeeded). I have little background knowledge in computer science (especially Java), but am very interested in it. Is it ridiculous to consider self-studying AP Comp Sci next year? What suggestions do you all have? Any good books out there?</p>
<p>Thanks</p>
<p>Im in the same position, I would also like to know this!</p>
<p>LOL!
Me too!</p>
<p>It’s extremely hard to self-study Computer Science A. I had registered for the test but decided against taking it a month before because I realized I wasn’t prepared at all. You need a lot of programming experience in order to crack the test.</p>
<p>What if you really really like it and put all of your efforts in?
I design websites w/ CSS & XHTML before.
Know JavaScript.
I only need to learn JAVA & C.</p>
<p>The summer before the test I learned java by myself and probably covered about 75% of the exam. I took the class the upcoming school year and for most of the year it ended up just being review, but I eventually learned a few of the remaining concepts (mostly OOD stuff) and the case study. My teacher did not teach, so it was essentially a self-study. I had only programmed in a different language prior to learning java.</p>
<p>If you think you’d be interested in CS then I recommend taking the exam, but if you’re merely taking it for the sake of the AP credit, then know that it can be a lot of work. CS is like calc in that it’s not memorization, it logic. If you don’t know the basic concepts, then you won’t do well. It’s not like psych where it’s just memorization of facts that you can cram for a week before the test. I’d recommend learning the basics of java over the summer so that you can see if it clicks with you and it you think that it would be possible to self-study it. I’d guess that you could learn it all and be well prepared if you study for 3 months for ~1 hour per day. As far as textbooks go, I recommend Java Concepts by Horstmann for learning the material and then use Barron’s to further prepare for the exam. Hope this helped.</p>
<p>I self studied it and thought it was really easy.</p>
<p>I definitely think that the extensive programming problems that you do in courses really helps you’re knowledge of programming and the specific language, but I think you’d be able to self study.</p>
<p>Part of doing well on the test is just writing lots of code, debugging it, and just getting to the point where you can analyze code and immediately see what will occur, what was supposed to occur, and how you can fix it.</p>
<p>The other part of it is learning about the language. Objects are something that you can practice programming with, but for me, I just needed to mess around with class hierarchy, interfaces, and other aspects of OOP until I got it.</p>
<p>I think you can do it, if you start writing code now. Get a book and make sure you start doing things properly, make sure when you write it, you keep it neat (indented correctly, etc…), because you really don’t want to start bad habits before pursuing further Computer Science in college.</p>
<p>Good luck.</p>
<p>Yeah, I definitely interested in CS (as a hobby). I like to design my own program someday.
What other languages do you need to know for the exam?
I decided to take the exam next year because I like CS anyway.</p>
<p>You just need to know java.</p>
<p>i think that a teacher definetely helps in learning comp sci A, but if you’re very dedicated and practice writing code, you can be more efficient and save some time on the ap test</p>