<p>Am I at a serious disadvantage?</p>
<p>Is there anything I should do to prepare myself</p>
<p>I don't even know what comp sci really entails yet, ( besides programming) but I'm interested in finding out.</p>
<p>Whether you are at a disadvantage depends a lot on how far along in college you are. If you just graduated from high school or just completed your freshman year of college, you still have plenty of time to take a CS course and find out if you like it.</p>
<p>S did not plan to major in CS, but took a course in the latter part of his freshman year and liked it. He took another course at the beginning of his sophomore year and loved it. Then he took a higher level course and was hooked. He declared a CS major in the latter part of his sophomore year.</p>
<p>CS involves thinking mathematically and logically as well as programming.</p>
<p>The prerequisites to declare the major are Math 1A, 1B, 54, CS 61A, 61B, 61C, 70, and EE 40 or 42 (note that CS 70 is like a math course).</p>
<p>You can preview the CS courses at [EECS</a> Course WEB Sites](<a href=“http://www-inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/classes-eecs.html]EECS”>CAS - Central Authentication Service) . Some students with no programming experience take CS 10 before CS 61A (and some who take CS 10 as non-majors find it interesting enough to want to major in CS).</p>
<p>You might want to take CS10 if you have no idea what Comp Sci entails. CS61A is “supposed to be” the first necessary CS class, but it’s quite fast-paced and leaps quickly into projects (you do get a partner though).</p>
<p>yes incoming freshman</p>
<p>Try some python over the summer - there are tons of resources available online. If you get the basics down, you’ll have no problem.</p>
<p>You don’t really need any background to take 61a. Just put in the necessary work and you’ll do fine.</p>
<p>[Learn</a> Python - Free Interactive Python Tutorial](<a href=“http://www.learnpython.org/]Learn”>http://www.learnpython.org/)</p>
<p>Link to a pretty nice interactive Python tutorial. You can go through it to see if you like programming, find it interesting and think it is easy. The “Learn the Basics” part have concepts that are pretty fundamental to programming. Don’t worry too much about the “Advanced Tutorials” if you just want to get a feel of programming. If you go through the entire tutorial this summer (all the way to Decorators), you are ready for 61A. If not, you can still take 61A and try it.</p>