<p>I took an HTML and VB (lol) class in high school and was really good at it. Other than that never programmed. Would I get destroyed since all the other kids have been programming since middle school?</p>
<p>Shouldn't be that big of a deal if you don't mind playing catch up.</p>
<p>You have the summer to do some self-study. Consider reading "The</a> Universal History of Computing: From the Abacus to the Quantum Computer" to get a good background on Computer Science. </p>
<p>Having a bird's-eye view of the field you're going into is often very helpful.</p>
<p>Also consider joining a local computer club and develop a good network of similarly minded students via blogs or social networks.</p>
<p>If you really wanted to get a head start, you can start contributing to open-source</a> projects and/or develop public mashups using google-maps and other public APIs.</p>
<p>Some friends I have who are going to well respected CS grad schools within top 7, has never touched programming before coming into college.</p>
<p>IMO, college is the place to find your passion and prepare for it... not high school. Have fun during the summer~</p>
<p>KillerTree:</p>
<p>You will be fine. Most CS programs have 1-2 semesters of mandatory introductory programming classes, anyway... some let students out if they do well on the AP CS test, others not.</p>
<p>You will be fine if you like problem solving in all its forms. Being good at math helps, too... but as long as you're computer literate, CS isn't a bad major at all. Programming is just a means to an end, and the end is solving computational problems. It's much more important to understand how a problem is solved than to know the details of how to implement the solution in a given programming language.</p>
<p>keep in mind universities want their students to learn everything their way from the ground up. This means that the program will more than likely treat their students as if they have not programmed before</p>
<p>It will be annoying at first, because you'll feel like everyone else is way ahead of you, but it will level out, and you'll be okay. In some respects, you'll be at an advantage. Many kids who started programming young have learned all sorts of bad habits, or are too set in their ways.</p>
<p>CS is a lot more than programming, anyway. For that matter, software engineering is a lot more than programming. Most of those kids who have been programming since they were in middle school know nothing about design, documentation, usability engineering, unit and integration testing, etc.</p>
<p>most kids in CS have taken the AP, and it is not a big deal
if you want to just take it your first year</p>
<p>
[quote]
Should I bother being a CS major if I have never programmed before?
[/quote]
What kind of question is this? Here's one of my own: Should I bother being a ME major if I have never done any engineering related stuff before?</p>
<p>Don't worry about if you have programmed before or not. If you're truly interested in the area, then you will succeed.</p>
<p>More appropriately, asking</p>
<p>Should I do CS if I've never programmed before?</p>
<p>Is like asking</p>
<p>Should I do ME if I haven't used a wrench before?
Should I do EE if I haven't used a digital voltmeter before?
Should I do Math if I haven't used a graphing calculator before?
Should I do Physics if I haven't used a triple-beam balance before?</p>
<p>CS isn't about programming.</p>