Computer Science preparation

[Jackeh]

I'm currently thinking about my university choices. Initially I wanted to do pharmacology (had to leave it out because I needed biology for most courses) and organic chemistry. I couldn't choose between the 3 but I'm leaving out the chemistry now just as a hobby, so I'm wanting to do computer science.

I've learned a few web languages and I'm in the progress of learning a few programming and scripting languages too. Apart from programming books, I was wondering if there were any books or resources people would recommend specifically to prepare for a computer science course?

Thanks in advance.

 

[double ewe]

MIT puts a lot of their course materials online for free

 

[Jackeh]

I didn't think of looking on uni sites for resources. Thanks for that, will make sure to take a read whenever I'm free.

 

[Psyduck]

Computer science is much more than "programming." Actually, knowledge of programming languages is not that relevant, problem-solving skills are much more important. Furthermore, CS has an unexpected overkill of abstract non-sense (mathematics, logic, formal langauges, etc.) if you happen to dislike that.

Research well what kind of stuff you are getting into. It is one of the most underestimated college choices. This is not to say that it cannot be fun or that succeeding some courses will be NP-hard. Just do some background check .

 

[Jackeh]

Yeah, I knew about it not all being programming, that's why I came on looking for some non-programming resources for it.

This was one of the courses I was looking at, near the bottom it shows the course content:

http://www.qub.ac.uk/home/StudyatQueens/CourseFinder/UCF2013-14/ComputerScience/G405/

EDIT: Problem solving skills shouldn't be a problem (no pun intended), I was hoping for a bit of that involved and the mathematics side I won't mind either since I'm doing A Level maths and I did Additional Maths at GCSE too, and so far I seem to be doing well in them (involves pure, mechanics, and statistics).

 

[dagnine]

Programming is the easy part, it's all the math and science classes that I struggle with the most. I'm taking more science classes than programming classes at the moment. But it sounds like you're strong in science anyways

 

[tocooperate]

keep in mind also that while there is currently high demand for programmers and engineers, the market has become highly saturated with start-ups aiming to get lucky and carve out some untapped market. thing is- these firms are looking for *miracle workers*, programmers with tremendous technical proficiency but also creativity and vision. that's not to say that anyone has the potential to be these things after learning the fundamentals but i believe the fundamentals simply don't prepare you for the expectations of these types of employers.

if you have the opportunity, i would suggest spending a sufficient amount of time in concentrations such as Networking and Security to ensure that you have stable career options if the development market slows down

 

[Blissful26]

I'm currently thinking about my university choices. Initially I wanted to do pharmacology (had to leave it out because I needed biology for most courses) and organic chemistry. I couldn't choose between the 3 but I'm leaving out the chemistry now just as a hobby, so I'm wanting to do computer science.

I've learned a few web languages and I'm in the progress of learning a few programming and scripting languages too. Apart from programming books, I was wondering if there were any books or resources people would recommend specifically to prepare for a computer science course?

Thanks in advance.

Hey Jackeh,

One of my friends was doing CS and the most useful thing to her were the lecture slides and the easy tutorials available on W3Schools. Have you already had a look at those?