Computer Science for fall 2015 here.
I love Computer Science, and I love learning and being ahead.
I’ve talked to people at Purdue and they said your first course is in Java and the second course, the “weed out class”, is in C.
I’m learning C, C++, and refreshing on Java.
Is there anything else I can do at the moment to prepare?
I know you’re excited to get skilled in computer science… so this may not be what you want to hear. I looked at your chances thread and I’m seeing no honors/AP/IB science courses, and a 25 on the Science portion of the ACT. You need to focus on this area, or you won’t even get to the fun programming part of your degree.
Purdue is a strong engineering school. Find out which sciences you will have to take as a computer science major, and which are known to be the weedout courses for Purdue. Do you have to take chemistry, physics or both? (Do you get to choose?) You may want to audit a class spring and summer term at your local community college.
I do really like that 34 on the ACT for your math. I see you’re in Calc AB–how is that going for you so far?
@Picapole
Calc AB is going perfect, A’s in both quarters and 3rd highest grade in the class on the semester exam.
To be honest I’m not sure why I scored so poorly on my science portion on my ACT. I only took it once, so if I took it a second time maybe it could have been higher, who knows.
Actually, thanks for bringing this topic up.
All I can find is that I need to take at least a one-year sequence in a lab science.
Looks like I have a pretty good selection of courses, you can find them here:
http://www.science.purdue.edu/Current_Students/curriculum_and_degree_requirements/approved-sequences-in-laboratory-science.html
Well, if you took regular and not honors/AP science, you probably didn’t cover enough material to earn a higher grade on the science ACT. If you’re doing that well in Calc, I think you can succeed in engineering, don’t get me wrong. But the general science will be harder for you than your peers. Many of them will have taken AP Bio, Chem and/or Physics.
Try to find out from academic advising which science they recommend for you, and try to get on a FB page or similar of current Purdue engineers to see what they suggest. And I do think being proactive–auditing a class at community college or getting onto a free course online through MIT would be better than waiting until fall.
Im not a CS major butitle I am in engineering instead. I think it’s important to brush up on coding knowledge as well as math. Purdue math is ridiculous. I think that calc 2 (math 162/166) was the hardest and most useless math out of all of the 4 I took at purdue. And for a science, I think you will do fine as long as you put in the work without AP knowledge. Chem 1 was super easy for me because of AP but 2 required more effort. Physics was a huge struggle for me because I never did any calc based physics. I also have never heard of there being good professors for freshman physics. And I took bio 1 as well which wasn’t too bad with the exception of the exams. But there are a lot of points from outside the exams in that class so it works out. Those are just my two cents on the different General science classses at Purdue.