Here is a list of tips I have learned over the past few years. I think that anyone interested in pursuing a major in computer science should know these things.

Resources that are mentioned in the video:

List of resources: noexcuselist.com

Quizlet: quizlet.com

Anki: apps.ankiweb.net

Learning How To Learn Course: coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn

Github: Github.com

1. Create Your Own Practice P rojects

You will learn some useful information in the classes you take but most of it you will forget over time. I have found that the most information I learn is from projects I decided to work on just to gain skills.

Most of the projects I decided to start myself never even got finished but they still helped me learn much more than I could in any class. So try to pick something you would like to create and get started.

2. Know What Resources You have Available To You.

There are many great resources that are available for you to learn almost anything for free. Here is a very useful list of free learning resources online. http://www.noexcuselist.com

I haven’t used all of these resources yet but I probably will at some point. CodeAcademy, Coursera and Udacity are very good for programming.

3. Learn How To Study Properly

Studying for Computer Science is usually much different than most other classes. You will need to combine many different studying techniques if you want to do it in the most efficient manner. So you can learn what you need quickly and still have time to do whatever you want.

I wrote a post on how to study efficiently, If you are interested you can read that here.

I also highly recommend everyone take the free course Learning How To Learn by Barbara Oakley on Coursera. This is a very great course that will teach you useful learning skills that you will use for the rest of your life.

4. Go Beyond What You Learn In Class

If you really want to do well in your classes you should try to learn a little bit more than what was asked of you. Doing this will help you understand the information you needed to know.

This is where those resources from tip 2 come in handy. I’d recommend you choose one of the courses on any of those sites and try to dedicate some time to learning it every week.

5. Don’t Cram

I have crammed for many tests throughout my high school and college years. Many of those times I did well on the test the next day. But every time I’ve crammed I forget almost all of the information within a few weeks.

While this may be alright for one-off classes like history, and science because you probably won’t encounter the information again unless you specialize in it. However, it is a recipe for disaster if you do this in classes that keep adding new information to things you have previously learned like math and computer science.

All of your classes will be connected in some way and your teachers will expect you to know the information from your previous classes. If you start to fall behind it will have a snowball effect that will be really hard to get back from. So please do yourself a favor and try to actually learn the content in your classes because it isn’t going to go away.

If you want to learn better ways to study you can read my previous post: How To Study Efficiently

6. Make A Plan Before You Start Coding.

I know its tempting to just start coding as soon as you get an assignment or a good idea you want to make. This has happened to me many times. Eventually, you will complete the code but it will take you much longer than it would have if you create a flowchart of all the features you need and how they will interact with each other.

When you are coding you should really try to only focus on coding. The features and how to implement them should be planned out beforehand. Even just writing some Pseudo-code can save you a lot of time.

7. Don’t Procrastinate

Computer science is one of the few majors where guessing how long something will take is very hard. I’ve had times where one line of code would take 3+ hours to fix. If you wait until the last minute to do your assignments and run into a problem like that then it is very likely you won’t complete it in time.

When you don’t procrastinate you also have more time to ask your professor questions about the assignments. Most of the time they will be happy to help. This will help you get better grades and give you a better understanding of the concepts.

8. Use Github

Github is a website that you can use to store programs you created in repositories. You should start using this as soon as possible because it is something that can be very useful for job interviews.

Make your own repository and put any programs you create on it. I would suggest you put all of your programming assignments on it as you go. While this may seem like overkill and you don’t think some of these programs are important, it will show people how much experience you have.

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