How I survived college as a first year student
A first-year student
You got into college. Congratulations! ✨
Computer science is one of the most interesting fields, at least it is for me. My first day at college wasn’t the perfect one. I had no friends from my city. I was alone. So tip #1 is “Make Friends”. If there is one thing that I miss from my daily life at college it is my friends. Choose them carefully. 💕
Now to your first lecture, the one you will remember the most. I was lucky that Dr. Mahmoud ElGayyar was the lecturer back then. You should treat your doctors respectfully. During your first year, you shouldn’t miss your lectures. College is not secondary school . Learning in college is quite different. You might want to learn “how to learn”. You need to take notes during lectures and sections. You should revise regularly. You should practice and apply the new concepts you learn. Learning how to code is not hard, you just need to get your hands dirty early. Coding is not literature, so you better setup an IDE such as Code::Blocks, or CLion (you will need your university email for this one) and solve some problems. And since we mentioned solving problems, you should axiomatically learn problem-solving. Problem-solving will help you be a better programmer. Join your university ICPC training as soon as possible. Introductory courses are very important. Theses courses will teach you the basics. Other courses will build upon your knowledge from previous introductory courses. English shouldn't be a hurdle. If it is, have fun learning with this YouTube channel.
During your journey
Revisit this list every once in a while.
- Learn how to use Git & GitHub.
- Contribute to opensource.
- Join problem-solving competitions (e.g. Facebook Hacker Cup, Code Jam, etc).
- Check out CS50.
- Stuck? try. Stuck? try. Stuck? try. Stuck? try. Stuck? try. Stuck? try. Stuck? try. Stuck? try. Stuck? try. Stuck? try. Stuck? try. Stuck? try. Stuck? try. Stuck? try again. Stuck? ask for help.
- Help your colleagues.
- Try Linux.
- Learn something, apply it, teach it to your friends.
- Build projects.
- Read books 📚 (highly recommended).
- YouTube is your friend. You can learn ANYTHING from YouTube.
- Google is your buddy. Ask Google before asking me.
- Solve your own problems.
- Finally and most importantly, Have fun 🎉.
