Eric
How do I get a headstart in my field of study without having too many skills in that area?
I am entering my second year of college and am planning on majoring in computer science. I have only taken one programming class so far. How do I get more experience or an internship in the field of study in computer science, so that I may increase my chances of getting into the major at my school? #college #computer-science #computer-software #internships #experience #personal-development
2 answers
Ollie Jones
Ollie’s Answer
It's the old cliche that a shoe factory turned into marketing slogan. "Just do it."
If you want to learn to play saxophone, you have to play saxophone. The same is true of programming. Others answering your question have offered good suggestions about how to get started. Get a laptop. Download some free-to-use programming tools. Look at some websites like Codecademy or Project Euler to get an idea for a programming project. Program it. Then do that again.
Daniel Moy
Daniel’s Answer
Fortunately for cs, there's a lot of free resources out there for learning. If you've only taken one programming class and just want to practice rote programming, you can start with resources like this for on your own (the free html version, not the paid versions). Or, for example, you could just straight up take the MIT intro programming course, which is also free. Lot of other intro programming resources out there. Main thing is to just practice writing a lot of code, so you get more comfortable solving problems with programming.
For an internship, shotgun approach and apply to many places. For example here at Google there's an EP internship program aimed at people who are newer to programming (though you'd need some programming ability, the bar is still lower). Depending on where you are physically located (looks like Seattle area?), there could be a LOT of local places (including, incidentally, Google as well). Apply to many places this coming fall for summer 2017.