Will my college choice limit me?

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<p>@rilobarnett I agree it is what you do at college - and you will have to work hard. I would advise you to concentrate in the CS major - you will have a sequence of math and perhaps fairly easily complete a math minor. Have you also explored to make sure you are interested in CS and perhaps not Electrical and Computing Engineering - if you have the right drive and abilities. </p>

<p>At a larger school, you will need to pay attention to course sequencing, getting into the classes to ‘finish in four’. </p>

<p>Do you have any opportunities to get some dual enrollment hours in, or community college classes summer before you start? Look at Purdue’s course requirements. You want to balance your semesters so that you can spend the right amount of study time on the courses that require more effort on your part.</p>

<p>You will want to get a good start. Find out what courses are particularly difficult (for example if you have to take intro chemistry - that is something you may want to take at community college before). </p>

<p>Once at college, be sure to look at resources available (like tutoring). Do not get behind (so you read the chapter and study the material before the lecture - so you have an opportunity to ask questions after the lecture). If you are first hearing the material during the lecture, you are behind.</p>

<p>You can not be ‘lazy’ in what you want to study and where you want to go with your UG. Having a strong GPA at the start of college will help. You learned an important lesson in HS - really hard to move a GPA after a few terms of lower grades.</p>

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<p>@SOSConcern‌ thank you so much, that’s awesome advice. I am quite sure that I am interested in CS, both the software development side and the academic side, more than engineering. I know a lot of engineers in a broad variety of disciplines, and I think the work I can find developing software (or, at the higher level, doing data analysis/data science) will be much more interesting to me.</p>

<p>As far as credits go, I should have 4 decent AP test scores entering Purdue, and they take anything above a 3 as credit in most courses. So I should be able to get 2 english credits (a 5 last year, most likely a 4-5 this year in AP Lit) a math credit (AP Stats this year, if I do well on the exam) and a sciences credit (passed AP bio exam). As I understand, Purdue will already give me 2 English classes with the 5 on my AP language class, so hopefully I’ll have extra wiggle room in the schedule for electives, a second minor/major, or even just completing CS on time. </p>

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<p>That sounds great @RiloBarnett‌. Make sure you get a solid first semester at college - be prepared to study and work hard. Then you will be ‘in the swing’ of it. It is a great help in having those AP courses (My eng dau didn’t have to take any history or english in college, which helps on her ‘finish in four’ at a big university). Some of your junior and senior electives and courses will be even more difficult - I hear this from students and parents who are in STEM majors, specifically engineering. The better you are prepared on your foundation courses - that will help with your later classes.</p>