<p>Hi, I have a problem right now. I have no experience whatsoever in programming, but I will be taking a pretty hard course in it next year. Is there any way that I can prepare for it over summer? I tried looking it up in community college classes, but they all have prerequisites that make you learn the very basic before teaching u the languange.....is there anything I can do so that I will be ready for the super hard programming class next year? Thanks in advance for your advice.....</p>
<p>what programming is it,.</p>
<p>if its java or c++, and you think its hard change ur major</p>
<p>if its assembly then its acceptable.</p>
<p>I started out in CS with no previous experience and I got killed. Some people put a lot of emphasis on learning the structure of languages. But the key to being successful in programming is knowing how to use the code to solve a variety of problems. So you want to learn how to go about solving problems in a very methodical way.</p>
<p>So get a book on the language you will be using, and practice solving all kinds of problems with it. It would be best to get a book that also has programming projects for practice. I don't know how detailed your class will be but courses beyond the freshman level start going into theory of CS, such as data structures and algorithms (linked lists, tress, graphs, sorting algorithms, etc). That stuff is very important if you plan on being well-educated in CS. </p>
<p>I'm a very practical programmer. I can use languages like Visual Basic and Matlab to write programs that are pretty straight-forward. But when I had to use Java to write a compiler in a CS class, I was completely lost.</p>
<p>The point of programming is not to learn how to program. Thats why they dont teach syntax in colleges. It is to teach problem solving.</p>
<p>Buy a cheap book on some programming language and read it. If it's a C++ couse i'd read a book on C++, PHP, or some other similar language. It'll help you out a lot.</p>
<p>Start running, keep running and don't stop until your ankle breaks. Programming classes are tedious and will annoy the crap out of you if you have no experience.</p>
<p>^ True that. Maybe switching out of CS next year.... depending on how my summer internship goes.</p>
<p>I am also, Im doing MIS</p>