What is the first computer language that students learn as computer science majors at UT Dallas?
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@damon30 , thank you so much! I would love your advice on this… My high school sophomore son is interested in computer science at UT Dallas. His school is small though and doesn’t offer any computer science or engineering classes. How important is it to have some type of class before college? Should he take an Intro to CS class or C/C++ class at the community college or something before applying to college? I don’t want him to feel behind or overwhelmed if “everyone else” at college has a head start with CS experience.
To the mods - could you edit out the URL from my post to the OP just now, so I don’t have to retype the whole thing.
Does your son’s HS offer AP Computer Science A? (Not AP Computer Science Principles, that class is mostly worthless.) APCSA uses Java, but the programming skills learned are nearly identical to an introduction to programming in C/C++. That should be sufficient preparation for the CS1337 class at UT Dallas. A CC class in C/C++ would also be helpful, but your son would need to make sure he got an A, because CC grades are included in the college GPA. Apart from credit classes, there are always Coursera-type courses to help with preparation, but these wouldn’t help with admissions.
Does your son’s HS offer AP Computer Science A? (Not AP Computer Science Principles, that class is mostly worthless.) APCSA uses Java, but the programming skills learned are nearly identical to an introduction to programming in C/C++. That should be sufficient preparation for the CS1337 class at UT Dallas. A CC class in C/C++ would also be helpful, but your son would need to make sure he got an A, because CC grades are included in the college GPA. Apart from credit classes, there are always Coursera-type courses to help with preparation, but these wouldn’t help with admissions.
@damon30 , that is the problem, his school doesn’t have anything—no dual credit, nothing for computer science or engineering. Do you know anything about the UT Dallas summer camps for kids? I have looked at those but even those look a little intimidating if you’ve never had any exposure at all.
Oh, and what are Coursera-type courses?
No, I don’t know about UT Dallas summer programming, but you can try either Googling for them or browsing the utdallas.edu web site. Coursera[dot]org is a “MOOC” (Massive open online course). Ungraded courses are free, or mostly free. Google
coursera C++
click the first result and sort by English to get the course list from post #3 that the CC URL blocker doesn’t like.
Interesting! Thank you so much! I appreciate it!
There are many free online resources that can get someone started. One early hurdle is having a computer setup to learn on. One quick and easy way to start is using a web browser based tutorial like on http://www.learn-c.org/
@Rivet2000 Thanks! Very cool.