[Graxun]

Hello all, I am in 10th grade in a High School in Florida. I want to do something with computers when I get out of school. I am not sure what I should major in when I go to college, I was thinking Computer Science. Also I don't really know what college I would want to go to that has a good program for computers. My dream colleges are Stanford and MIT. I slacked off my freshman year, but over the summer I took a strong u-turn and started to go in the right direction as the new school year rolled up. My grades now are A's/B's with 1 C *usually in Algebra 2*. The main reason isn't because I don't understand it, it's because i'm lazy. Anyways it would be a great help if you could guide me in the right direction.

Thank you.

[AthenaDX]

Not to be a downer but, MIT and Stanford's will most likely stay a dream unless you can get up to 4.0 and/or have some projects in a portfolio for them to gander at.

Anyways, you won't learn too much /in/ college but the basics, the main thing you got to know is you *have* to do some work outside class to actually grasp it. The college you go to won't have too much of an effect on your future.

Download Python, VS, Eclipse or even Gedit(notepad++ depending) and get to programming. Even a simple Hello World can make you feel accomplished. Or, code a few sample pages via Notepad(or Gedit), and check them out. You can always hop on Codeacademy and do some beginner things they have there, or check out some videos on KhanAcademy or Coursera.

There's alot of resourses out there to help you get started on your own. That'll help you decide what it is that calls to you before you reach college, and give you some experience before you dive in. You'll get annoyed in your first courses cause you'll know what they're telling you already but that's good. Don't worry about that.

Let me know if you have anymore questions.

[Graxun]

AthenaDX, on 08 November 2012 - 04:07 PM, said:

Not to be a downer but, MIT and Stanford's will most likely stay a dream unless you can get up to 4.0 and/or have some projects in a portfolio for them to gander at.

Anyways, you won't learn too much /in/ college but the basics, the main thing you got to know is you *have* to do some work outside class to actually grasp it. The college you go to won't have too much of an effect on your future.

Download Python, VS, Eclipse or even Gedit(notepad++ depending) and get to programming. Even a simple Hello World can make you feel accomplished. Or, code a few sample pages via Notepad(or Gedit), and check them out. You can always hop on Codeacademy and do some beginner things they have there, or check out some videos on KhanAcademy or Coursera.

There's alot of resourses out there to help you get started on your own. That'll help you decide what it is that calls to you before you reach college, and give you some experience before you dive in. You'll get annoyed in your first courses cause you'll know what they're telling you already but that's good. Don't worry about that.

Let me know if you have anymore questions.

Well i'm not a complete noob lol, I understand the Java language to a extent. I have Python, Eclipse, and Notepad++ downloaded. Thank you I didn't know about Codeacademy and I will check that out.

[AthenaDX]

Sorry, didn't want it to come across as condescending or anything. Wasn't sure what you knew.

[Graxun]

AthenaDX, on 08 November 2012 - 04:14 PM, said:

Sorry, didn't want it to come across as condescending or anything. Wasn't sure what you knew.

No worries, I should of explained better.

[BetaWar]

As for which school you should go to, well that really depends on what you are wanting to do with your life, and that is a much harder question to know at your age (even after you get into college it can be hard to answer).

I, for instance, started out knowing that I wanted to program. So I went to a school with a fairly good programming department in state (CU). Now, as a senior, I realize that I really enjoy more of the lower level stuff (such as operating systems, embedded systems, and using C/C++ for a living). The problem is that Computer Science doesn't offer much of that while ECE (Electrical and Computer Engineering) focuses mainly on that area - one of their upper division classes is to make a computer from scratch and have it do something you deem useful. That sounds absolutely amazing to me, but I don't have the prereqs, can't get them done in time, and am graduating myself next semester.

Now, enough about my personal story. If you are wanting to go into desktop application or mobile application development, computer science is likely the way to go. If you want to go into web development, then there is a major at my university called Technology, Arts, and Media which focuses on web design (not so much on the development side). If you want to go into embedded/ operating systems, then ECE is the way to go. If you want to go into game development then you will want to find a school with a program for it (mine doesn't have one).

At this point I would strongly suggest simply working through your classes and getting good grades to ensure you can get into the best university possible. Along the way learn various programming languages and find out what you like to do as best you can (I started in web development and am now an embedded systems engineer... well a software engineer working on embedded systems...). Things will likely change over time, but that's okay. The industry is all about moving forward.

Hope that helps.

[Graxun]

BetaWar, on 08 November 2012 - 04:28 PM, said:

As for which school you should go to, well that really depends on what you are wanting to do with your life, and that is a much harder question to know at your age (even after you get into college it can be hard to answer).

I, for instance, started out knowing that I wanted to program. So I went to a school with a fairly good programming department in state (CU). Now, as a senior, I realize that I really enjoy more of the lower level stuff (such as operating systems, embedded systems, and using C/C++ for a living). The problem is that Computer Science doesn't offer much of that while ECE (Electrical and Computer Engineering) focuses mainly on that area - one of their upper division classes is to make a computer from scratch and have it do something you deem useful. That sounds absolutely amazing to me, but I don't have the prereqs, can't get them done in time, and am graduating myself next semester.

Now, enough about my personal story. If you are wanting to go into desktop application or mobile application development, computer science is likely the way to go. If you want to go into web development, then there is a major at my university called Technology, Arts, and Media which focuses on web design (not so much on the development side). If you want to go into embedded/ operating systems, then ECE is the way to go. If you want to go into game development then you will want to find a school with a program for it (mine doesn't have one).

At this point I would strongly suggest simply working through your classes and getting good grades to ensure you can get into the best university possible. Along the way learn various programming languages and find out what you like to do as best you can (I started in web development and am now an embedded systems engineer... well a software engineer working on embedded systems...). Things will likely change over time, but that's okay. The industry is all about moving forward.

Hope that helps.

Very useful information, thank you for your reply. I would probably want to stay in state unless I receive a scholarship.

[Graxun]

Bump

[modi123_1]

What was the bump for? Was there a question not answered, or some implied more information you desire?

[Graxun]

modi123_1, on 11 November 2012 - 10:27 PM, said:

What was the bump for? Was there a question not answered, or some implied more information you desire?

Sorry I didn't intend to bump this thread, could you possibly close this? Thank you.

[macosxnerd101]

Quote

Bump

Quote

Sorry I didn't intend to bump this thread

Something doesn't follow here.

Regardless, we only close threads that violate the rules.

[no2pencil]

I can't think of how many times that I've accidentally clicked on the quick reply box while reading my own topic, cat comes along & bam, steps all over the keyboard hitting just the right characters 'b' 'u' 'm' 'p'.

Oh wait, I can. zero.

[AnalyticLunatic]

Graxun, on 11 November 2012 - 09:28 PM, said:

Bump

This isn't 4chan. That is quite unnecessary

[AthenaDX]

We are needlessly bumping this thread.

Oh wait...