i've only done a few minor projects in python so idk if that will be a good starting point
Start filling job applications with "Currently studying Computer Science in college" under the experience section, and start sending them out the first day of class.
seriously? I didn't think i'd have a chance of getting work experience until my second year at least
Demand is nuts. There are too many jobs, and too fews programmers. Even if you don't get paid a lot, or heck, even an unpaid internship, it is still worth it. If you do fine, you might get an offer good enough in 1-2 years, to drop out of college and actually get started working.
that's good, but should i just read documentation to get started? Or use crash course books? or just use leetcode and research to solve the problems and keep doing that?
2 years ago
Anonymous
I guess it depends where you live
2 years ago
Anonymous
i've said uk i don't live in an economic/technological hub or anything
>Demand is nuts. There are too many jobs, and too fews programmers.
not at entry-level. There are too few jobs and too many "programmers." Internships are basically a bloodbath.
>Computer Science degree starts in 3 months how do i prepare?
0. Realize that your teachers and admin generally want you to succeed, and help you when you are failing.
Use the office hours of your professors to ask questions (and ask early, like 2 hours into a struggle, not weeks into it).
Ask admins in your major on how to structure your schedule (to not take 5 years).
Use the computer labs provided for focused work away from gayming PC and other such distractions - your late nights in the lab with classmates will turn into your classmates referring you to jobs later, and/or being good friends.
1. Learn git (its pretty fricking easy to do a basic workflow like a centralized VCS)
Write your course notes in git - hell, make them public in github if you like and share with classmates to help everyone and learn about PRs.
Save your scrap code shit to a private git repo, may need to search for stuff years later.
>get a leetcode sub and do at least 10 weekly until you graduate
2. Do leetcodes weekly (attempt 1 each day, time box them as up to 45 minutes to solve, if you fail spend last 15 minutes writing notes, if success spend 15 minutes reviewing process.
Put leetcode stuff in your git repo (private at first, maybe make public later)
3. Play in linux land - I like a physical server like a pi4 to start learning with.
4. Set up free tier accounts with cloud providers.
Generally biased towards AWS or GCP as starting point. Move some of your linux play stuff to cloud (maybe host your git here? have some basic CI/CD, or a basic website)
5. Get an internship in at least Junior and Senior years.
Internships matter more 10 years later than grades do (as long as you make it into your major and graduate). [I got an internship in adtech, which I hate, but talk about all the time during interviews]
6. Avoid using any drugs more often than weekly (soft - booze/weed) or every 2 months (hard - MDMA/hallucinogens).
Start filling job applications with "Currently studying Computer Science in college" under the experience section, and start sending them out the first day of class.
dunno, it just sort of start, you just keep going and then it sort of ends
I just pulled an all nighter to finish my Masters, but I don't really remember much about the last two years, they just sort of came and went
Can't speak for UK but what I experienced during the beginning of my BSc in CS in Sweden > Knowing any amount of programming put you ahead of the majority > Being good at math puts you way ahead > Older people who had any work experience breezed through everything, mainly because of much better self discipline
Maybe look up if the first courses use some exotic programming language and play around some.
that's reassuring, i keep hearing stories from the university i'm going to of students who have tens of thousands in crypto and are incredible at coding and it's getting me riled up.
2 years ago
Anonymous
I think the fact that uni is free here (as in paid for by someone else's taxes) caused a lot of people who were not fit for it to give it a try. I think at least a third dropped out during the first year. It was mostly the I-want-to-make-video-games, I-like-to-plat-video-games, and I-want-to-make-lots-of-money crowd. Not sure how it works over there, but I assume people are going to be more invested if they are paying.
Which uni? If you don't want to answer that then answer is it within the top 10, top 10-30 or below top 30
Top 10 have decent courses
Top 10-30 have ok courses
Below 30 are all old courses
University in the UK is barely education, you basically get 3 years of time to study important stuff not on the course while trying to pass some outdated cringe course just to get some paper that gets you a job
I know people who work in unis here as professors, it's just a big money thing where universities will create pointless courses and accept hundreds of students who will never pass just to get the tuition money to spend on either research projects that gets the uni more students, or it goes to the pockets of higher ups and donations to organizations/building contracts of construction companies that are likely closely tied to the upper staff.
A university here would rather see you fail and retake a year than pass, they rather cut out actually important modules in place of generic microsoft word modules just so they can say to the local government they are "teaching cyber fundamentals" and get a tax free grant.
There is no more corrupt business here than education
UK BSc Computer Science (Information Security) here, graduated last year so lemme lay some advice
first year is easy if you have more than 5 braincells, it'll likely be basic SQL + Java + Python, practice those and you'll be golden, especially sorting algorithms and things like recursion, that's basically first year.
Make friends in your course (and outside the course ofc), the classmate friends will be useful in the future when you want to get a student house together or when you need to make trade deals sharing assignments and studying help on subjects you aren't good at.
There'll be societies at your uni since you're in the UK, join the computing society but dont get your hopes up as new committees can taildive the quality real quick.
Go out to clubs/socials with friends/housemates, get it out your system in first year while the course is easy, don't go crazy and develop a coke habit and fail all your exams, but have a bit of fun since first year doesnt go towards the degree and is just there to filter out mega morons who write code in notepad.exe.
Start applying for jobs in 2nd-3rd year, no point worrying now since it's early days, look if there's a year in industry program on your course since that'll act as a guaranteed job (usually) when you graduate, mine got cancelled by covid but I know people who are working for big companies through that.
If you have online covid exams, cheat, some unis have no restrictions and you can laugh all the way to a first honour degree like me.
Otherwise yeah, just read some basic books on coding, find what you're really interested in (e.g. security, AI, etc) and get interested since in it
lemme know if you have any more questions as I'm probably the only one here who knows what uk unis in 2022 are like, oh and for god's sake don't get political on campus
This
I graduated in the last few years from a top UK uni, it's easier than you think to do better than most of your course since most CS students make exactly the same mistakes. Dumping advice.
In terms of the course, an insane amount will have 0 programming experience before they start, don't be one of them even if you just learn some Python.
A lot of people I knew left all their coursework to the last minute. Make time to actually do your work and speak to lecturers if you get stuck, you'll instantly get higher grades.
Make friends with older years through societies etc and you'll have contacts for course advice and job references in the future.
For career make a github profile, linkedin and CV right now and ask people for feedback when you can. I've interviewed a lot of grads and interns, about 1/10 have a good CV.
Leetcode is used as a filter in a lot of jobs, start practicing early.
The absolute best thing you can do for your job prospects is a proper internship, most are in second year summer or years in industry but it's worth applying in first year to get interview experience at least.
Finally and most importantly please develop some actual social skills and hygiene because all of the above will be useless if you can't interact with people. Attend Freshers events, join random societies when you start. Uni sports clubs are 100x more fun than anything you might have done as a kid, pick one that looks interesting and join straight away even if you're fat and have never played a sport.
Your advice only works for top unis
I've attended uni events within top 30 unis and they were useless and only graduate schemes
The only uni events that were great were from unis within top 10 cs ranking
I'm guy with the anime pics (the two middle posts you @'d)
I don't care about dox so I'll say I graduated from Royal Holloway University of London
It's worth noting it's rank #32 overall as per https://www.thecompleteuniversityguide.co.uk/league-tables/rankings
but are not #39 in CS as per https://www.thecompleteuniversityguide.co.uk/league-tables/rankings/computer-science
(IT WENT DOWN 11 PLACES HAHAHHAHA)
So yeah I had a middling experience, but ranking doesn't mean everything unless you are at Cambridge/Oxford type places, like DMU has a good infosec culture and a lot of people in the industry usually come from there (rank #59 in CS #101 overall)
Practice mindfulness and meditation
Not even joking, work on being truly aware of your self and environment in a structured manner. Step back and work on your breathing as you clear mind.
There really are some amazing metal and physical benefits from just 5 minutes here and their daily. Your never know it by all the homosexual shit a search pulls up on the subject but I highly recommend these two practices, though mindfulness moreso than meditation.
based
2 years ago
Anonymous
did being in London benifit you?
2 years ago
Anonymous
My uni is located in Egham, it's in Surrey right next to Ascot and Staines
My uni has the London subtitle just because it's close enough and probably did something shady to get in the club.
Being near London was useful to see my friend there every so often, but ultimately I barely went there, it's great for work since for job interviews it was an hour or two train to get there.
But everyone stayed on campus to get wasted at the pitiful student union, with some venturing to Windsor and Staines at times for a night out.
2 years ago
Anonymous
Lol anon you couldn't even pick worse uni lmao
I was going to join that uni with my other friend but noped out after checking their uni modules compared to mine
I attended few ranks above yours and difference was very comparable that's why I believe attending unis below top 30 is waste of time and resources
I didn't enjoy that cursed painting and atmosphere of that uni
I got associate degree from my poor and bad uni experience (bad useless and unhelpful teachers) ranked 25-30 then redid a level then attended higher top 10-20 ranked cs uni for better uni and learning experience
The difference between top 1-10 and top 10-20 IMO is 25-50%(almost half) top 10-20 and top20-30 is 50-100%(half to double) in terms of learning pace, experience, opportunities, events etc and help I got from my teachers
I don't get DMU courses its so bad
I know some students from DMU, top 10 and my current top10-20 and there are very stark difference in things we know vs that uni
DMU courses are poor value and good infosec culture means nothing to me if its only exclusive for top gays within a ok-shit tier uni and poor uni modules check that uni year3 module to top20-30 or top10-20 year3 modules
It's top ten in UK for cs and in general,
You're in good hands just follow anons advices and you will be well off but competition from other students will be strict and competitive
2 years ago
Anonymous
hey man 18 year old me was a fricking moron, but I'm still happy I went there
the uni itself is fricking awful, the hyper feminist shit has only gotten worse along with the general degeneracy
the courses were mostly awful and professors were annoying as frick
but I knew I wanted to do infosec, I heard it was good for infosec (it's not unless you're at PHD level)
the most important shit I learned was on my own time and that's the only reason I'm working as a pentester doing what I enjoy
I went in knowing this with zero respect for the education system and came out completely vindicated
it honestly doesn't matter though since the degree opens the door to interviews and jobs where real experience is built, and now I have a pentest job at a decent company, I don't have to think about that homosexual place ever again beside the few cool friends I made and funny moments and stuff that made me who I am today
I told the dean "see ya later stinky" when I graduated 🙂
DMU is a shit uni itself, but if you want to be in infosec and have drive/aren't moronic you can definitely find good value in the society shit, otherwise yeah it's another low rank CS degree
2 years ago
Anonymous
to summarize this a bit better, university is a meme, do the degree but don't rely on it and unless you're at some no name shit hole, you'll get a job no problem
Change to an agricultural degree and prioritize getting a huge slot of government subsidized land before it's too late. Live on your farm, communicate only with frogs on the internet and ducks in real life.
Don't make the same mistake I did.
UK BSc Computer Science (Information Security) here, graduated last year so lemme lay some advice
first year is easy if you have more than 5 braincells, it'll likely be basic SQL + Java + Python, practice those and you'll be golden, especially sorting algorithms and things like recursion, that's basically first year.
Make friends in your course (and outside the course ofc), the classmate friends will be useful in the future when you want to get a student house together or when you need to make trade deals sharing assignments and studying help on subjects you aren't good at.
There'll be societies at your uni since you're in the UK, join the computing society but dont get your hopes up as new committees can taildive the quality real quick.
Go out to clubs/socials with friends/housemates, get it out your system in first year while the course is easy, don't go crazy and develop a coke habit and fail all your exams, but have a bit of fun since first year doesnt go towards the degree and is just there to filter out mega morons who write code in notepad.exe.
Start applying for jobs in 2nd-3rd year, no point worrying now since it's early days, look if there's a year in industry program on your course since that'll act as a guaranteed job (usually) when you graduate, mine got cancelled by covid but I know people who are working for big companies through that.
If you have online covid exams, cheat, some unis have no restrictions and you can laugh all the way to a first honour degree like me.
Otherwise yeah, just read some basic books on coding, find what you're really interested in (e.g. security, AI, etc) and get interested since in it
lemme know if you have any more questions as I'm probably the only one here who knows what uk unis in 2022 are like, oh and for god's sake don't get political on campus
Can't speak for UK but what I experienced during the beginning of my BSc in CS in Sweden > Knowing any amount of programming put you ahead of the majority > Being good at math puts you way ahead > Older people who had any work experience breezed through everything, mainly because of much better self discipline
Maybe look up if the first courses use some exotic programming language and play around some.
most people are gonna be stupid as hell since universities accept anyone in these courses to get as much government funded finance money as they can, you probably got a message on UCAS saying to "firm our university to get a secure place and a free handjob", it's because it all helps them out financially
universities don't really care about the education aspect, so don't rely on the classes to teach you shit you'll need for whatever job you want
but yeah if you get programming, if you did A-level maths you'll be all good on that front, some people will be savants at coding, don't feel intimidated, they're definitely the exception and are likely people who never switch off and live to code
>classmate friends will be useful in the future when you want to get a student house together
very nervous about this anon as i'm a social moron and not the good kind, i don't even fit in with the geeks/nerds...
i'm relying upon my living situation to provide housemates for next year as it's like a boarding school situation in the first year.
>lemme know if you have any more questions
i guess i'm nervous about what it's gonna be like in the first lab classes, like if we get asked to run something or do something simple within the OS but idk how to do it because i've confined myself to leetcode and programming exercises.
>very nervous about this anon as i'm a social moron and not the good kind, i don't even fit in with the geeks/nerds...
honestly just chill out a bit and you'll be fine, like as long as you don't stare at reddit on your phone all day and try and talk to people a bit you'll be ok
I mostly made friends in my tutorial group and through mutuals, and I'm a nutjob, university is basically a summer camp for 3 years so it's a great time to build up confidence and social skills, just don't be weird and bring up porn and shit I guess.
>i'm relying upon my living situation to provide housemates for next year as it's like a boarding school situation in the first year.
I did this as well, I was friendly enough and still talk to my first year housemates (they're all fricking insane in an unhealthy way though), but don't rely on them for housing, my ones went behind my back and signed a lease without me before I knew anything about it and I had to panic find a house with the tutorial people.
Things are gonna go in ways you don't expect or want, but that's just life and it does sometimes work out for the best and/or humbles you in some ways idk.
>i guess i'm nervous about what it's gonna be like in the first lab classes, like if we get asked to run something or do something simple within the OS but idk how to do it because i've confined myself to leetcode and programming exercises.
the course is gonna be taught from level 0, tutorial baby mode, the course itself will not require any CS experience, so it'll be printing hello world and using "cd" and "ls" in the terminal for the first month or so
>classmate friends will be useful in the future when you want to get a student house together
very nervous about this anon as i'm a social moron and not the good kind, i don't even fit in with the geeks/nerds...
i'm relying upon my living situation to provide housemates for next year as it's like a boarding school situation in the first year.
>lemme know if you have any more questions
i guess i'm nervous about what it's gonna be like in the first lab classes, like if we get asked to run something or do something simple within the OS but idk how to do it because i've confined myself to leetcode and programming exercises.
>I mostly made friends in my tutorial group and through mutuals, and I'm a nutjob
Pretty much the same here. Plus started going to some board game nights. >i'm relying upon my living situation to provide housemates for next year as it's like a boarding school situation in the first year.
You are a step ahead, at that point I lived with my parents
2 years ago
Anonymous
>classmate friends will be useful in the future when you want to get a student house together
very nervous about this anon as i'm a social moron and not the good kind, i don't even fit in with the geeks/nerds...
i'm relying upon my living situation to provide housemates for next year as it's like a boarding school situation in the first year.
>lemme know if you have any more questions
i guess i'm nervous about what it's gonna be like in the first lab classes, like if we get asked to run something or do something simple within the OS but idk how to do it because i've confined myself to leetcode and programming exercises.
yeah in the uk because the fat finance loans you should just get a place with some friends
in my experience people who lived at home and commuted in missed out a lot socially
also don't rush into getting a place and don't get one with a gf until third year/graduating
>Plus started going to some board game nights.
this is good as well, we had shit like anime society and gaming society, I wish I got back into warhammer and went gaming society and made more friends
Make contact with people who will be 1 year above you. They know exactly what questions the exams will be like.
Then get past exam papers. Make sure you know these in and out.
That's all I got. The moment I started doing this i went from 60-70% in my country to 95-100%.
This is the most important advice you will ever get anon. Contact and befriend people from the year above yours (different ones).
>Make contact with people who will be 1 year above you.
This is good as well, they'll also give good advice on what courses to pick (e.g. I was told to never take the compilers course because it's a scam and is impossible to pass)
I hope I/we haven't made it all seem scary, as long as you keep it chill you'll be all good
2 years ago
Anonymous
it's scary, but only because i have no friends rn when i had gf and everything a year ago.
i was mario kart champion 6 years running at school so i'll prolly join the gaming society even though i only play ds rn. I'm autistically into movies so some moronic filmsoc might not totally suck.
2 years ago
Anonymous
>when i had gf
you'll be fine then
>so some moronic filmsoc might not totally suck
they'll probably be a bit snobby and left wing, but definitely some fun to be had
I wish I joined GameSoc for the tabletop stuff and DebateSoc because they asked me to come when I explained something political to one of their members at a party
with politics I would say it's a bit risky to be openly xyz on campus especially nowadays, but I suspect you're not a massive political moron like me
2 years ago
Anonymous
i've read the work of all the entry-level political philosophers so i could probably function in some debate society. Politically i've always been non-partisan, but the only time i was on campus my sides were hurting when i tried to speak to some leftist girls about why they're all carrying "end animal testing" tote bags, so i might go for the entertainment.
2 years ago
Anonymous
yeah just be careful ofc, I'm a more liberty oriented person who's pro-gun and free speech and had the Mises Society beg for me to join when they found out I was a bit ancap and didn't smell when they came up to me in their suits with a gadsen flag saying "we have women members as well", I declined of course.
My debate soc seemed pretty based though since they were trying to debate controversial guests until the union stepped in and made a rigged vote that added a rule banning "offensive speakers".
2 years ago
Anonymous
>in my experience people who lived at home and commuted in missed out a lot socially
You are not wrong
>make trade deals sharing assignments and studying help on subjects you aren't good at. >There'll be societies at your uni >Go out to clubs/socials with friends/housemates
is it really like this in britain? Here university and higher education is diehard, ravenous lot that will kill you if that meant passing a class
no fun allowed, no clubs, no one wants to be your friend since they see you as a competitor on a job market
University in the UK is barely education, you basically get 3 years of time to study important stuff not on the course while trying to pass some outdated cringe course just to get some paper that gets you a job
I know people who work in unis here as professors, it's just a big money thing where universities will create pointless courses and accept hundreds of students who will never pass just to get the tuition money to spend on either research projects that gets the uni more students, or it goes to the pockets of higher ups and donations to organizations/building contracts of construction companies that are likely closely tied to the upper staff.
A university here would rather see you fail and retake a year than pass, they rather cut out actually important modules in place of generic microsoft word modules just so they can say to the local government they are "teaching cyber fundamentals" and get a tax free grant.
There is no more corrupt business here than education
>read some basic books on coding
Not him but may I also ask, Im currently reading SICP, just finished the first chapter (all exercises, everything done properly) and I dont think I'll finish it on time unless I study 8hrs a day. Should I rush it, drop it and read smth else or chill?
not who you're asking but imo keep going if you think you're learning. I took a module that had sicp as one of the textbooks (didnt read it all myself) and it was a whole term of work
I'm the guy you're asking
Haven't read that book, probably would help if you really wanna go for the big brain stuff in coding, but when I say basic books I mean more like "Automate the boring stuff with python" the type of books that have 20 chapters and teach you the real basics of modern programming for university
SICP will help later on, but tbh if it doesn't have a cartoon on the front, the book is probably gonna be too dry for my ADHD moron brain
Good advice for the most part. >the classmate friends will be useful in the future when you want to get a student house together
Huh, I don't relate to this at all. All the people I know got student houses with other people they knew from elsewhere, nobody who was on the same course got a house together. >There'll be societies at your uni since you're in the UK, join the computing society but dont get your hopes up as new committees can taildive the quality real quick.
This tbh but also join a society other than computing. There will be a LOT of autistic/sensitive homosexuals but you'll eventually find some decent lads. I found the society that sounded the most autistic, went to one of their events and met my current girlfriend and a couple decent friends. One of them was even a 4chins user too, goes on IQfy afaik. >get it out your system in first year while the course is easy
Second year is pretty nice too. The only one where you'll shit your pants is final, and even then if you can manage a workload you can still be off your head every weekend.
>Then get past exam papers. Make sure you know these in and out. >That's all I got. The moment I started doing this i went from 60-70% in my country to 95-100%.
Here in Sweden the university almost always provided you with the last few years of exams to use as study material. Then the actual exams were maybe 80% similar to those, but with numbers changed. Always more than enough similarity to pass. >This is the most important advice you will ever get anon.
It probably is.
finished mine not too long ago, was semi worried at times. Dropout rate was huge.
Most important tip is to train and use visual systematic thought instead of lingual (for me at least), and when I was taking very hard courses I talked to the TA's a lot.
Also try to find friends who won't dropout. Like 70% of the friends I initially made dropped out lol...
well I don't know, for some it's the default. But my default was lingual thinking as in thinking in mostly just words and if I thought in images it was just cringey fantasy day dreaming kinda stuff.
Then I saw a pattern with smart people, magnus carlsen for example when asked about how he's so good at chess explained that he visualises the entire chess board and where every piece is and goes.
I can't even do that.
Richard Feynman when asked about his skills talked about how he had always visualised numbers and stuff like that.
So I started trying to visualise, especially systems. Thinking about programs like factories and legos (in a way). Training it just by visualising more and more. I'd go into a building and instead of just using words I'd think about the building as a system, it had a toilet system, electricity system, the corridors were there as part of a network for people to move through and blablabla, I always feel a bit silly when I talk about it but you get the point.
It changed the way I thought so much and got me through my degree.
Also helped my mental health actually, I wasn't just stuck inside my head all day and felt more connected with my surroundings.
I graduated in the last few years from a top UK uni, it's easier than you think to do better than most of your course since most CS students make exactly the same mistakes. Dumping advice.
In terms of the course, an insane amount will have 0 programming experience before they start, don't be one of them even if you just learn some Python.
A lot of people I knew left all their coursework to the last minute. Make time to actually do your work and speak to lecturers if you get stuck, you'll instantly get higher grades.
Make friends with older years through societies etc and you'll have contacts for course advice and job references in the future.
For career make a github profile, linkedin and CV right now and ask people for feedback when you can. I've interviewed a lot of grads and interns, about 1/10 have a good CV.
Leetcode is used as a filter in a lot of jobs, start practicing early.
The absolute best thing you can do for your job prospects is a proper internship, most are in second year summer or years in industry but it's worth applying in first year to get interview experience at least.
Finally and most importantly please develop some actual social skills and hygiene because all of the above will be useless if you can't interact with people. Attend Freshers events, join random societies when you start. Uni sports clubs are 100x more fun than anything you might have done as a kid, pick one that looks interesting and join straight away even if you're fat and have never played a sport.
Also want to add, learn some LaTeX and use it for your essays. I didn't start using it until after my undergrad and it makes formatting and referencing much easier.
I'll come back to this thread if you have any questions, but don't worry anon. I was extremely socially awkward before uni and hated going to social events by myself, it's the best chance in your life to build some confidence because everyone is in a similar situation and most won't judge you at all.
Practice mindfulness and meditation
Not even joking, work on being truly aware of your self and environment in a structured manner. Step back and work on your breathing as you clear mind.
There really are some amazing metal and physical benefits from just 5 minutes here and their daily. Your never know it by all the homosexual shit a search pulls up on the subject but I highly recommend these two practices, though mindfulness moreso than meditation.
get a leetcode sub and do at least 10 weekly until you graduate
this is unironic advice, do it
i've only done a few minor projects in python so idk if that will be a good starting point
seriously? I didn't think i'd have a chance of getting work experience until my second year at least
Demand is nuts. There are too many jobs, and too fews programmers. Even if you don't get paid a lot, or heck, even an unpaid internship, it is still worth it. If you do fine, you might get an offer good enough in 1-2 years, to drop out of college and actually get started working.
that's good, but should i just read documentation to get started? Or use crash course books? or just use leetcode and research to solve the problems and keep doing that?
I guess it depends where you live
i've said uk i don't live in an economic/technological hub or anything
>Demand is nuts. There are too many jobs, and too fews programmers.
not at entry-level. There are too few jobs and too many "programmers." Internships are basically a bloodbath.
>Computer Science degree starts in 3 months how do i prepare?
0. Realize that your teachers and admin generally want you to succeed, and help you when you are failing.
Use the office hours of your professors to ask questions (and ask early, like 2 hours into a struggle, not weeks into it).
Ask admins in your major on how to structure your schedule (to not take 5 years).
Use the computer labs provided for focused work away from gayming PC and other such distractions - your late nights in the lab with classmates will turn into your classmates referring you to jobs later, and/or being good friends.
1. Learn git (its pretty fricking easy to do a basic workflow like a centralized VCS)
Write your course notes in git - hell, make them public in github if you like and share with classmates to help everyone and learn about PRs.
Save your scrap code shit to a private git repo, may need to search for stuff years later.
>get a leetcode sub and do at least 10 weekly until you graduate
2. Do leetcodes weekly (attempt 1 each day, time box them as up to 45 minutes to solve, if you fail spend last 15 minutes writing notes, if success spend 15 minutes reviewing process.
Put leetcode stuff in your git repo (private at first, maybe make public later)
3. Play in linux land - I like a physical server like a pi4 to start learning with.
4. Set up free tier accounts with cloud providers.
Generally biased towards AWS or GCP as starting point. Move some of your linux play stuff to cloud (maybe host your git here? have some basic CI/CD, or a basic website)
5. Get an internship in at least Junior and Senior years.
Internships matter more 10 years later than grades do (as long as you make it into your major and graduate). [I got an internship in adtech, which I hate, but talk about all the time during interviews]
6. Avoid using any drugs more often than weekly (soft - booze/weed) or every 2 months (hard - MDMA/hallucinogens).
Start filling job applications with "Currently studying Computer Science in college" under the experience section, and start sending them out the first day of class.
install gentoo (on a vm, dude)
>inb4 IQfy meme
The handbook teaches you the basics of an OS with the help of portage
dunno, it just sort of start, you just keep going and then it sort of ends
I just pulled an all nighter to finish my Masters, but I don't really remember much about the last two years, they just sort of came and went
What country and how old are you?
i'm 18 in the uk, very good grades and uni and all that, just v little experience.
Start training your ability to recover from over consumption of alcohol
Can't speak for UK but what I experienced during the beginning of my BSc in CS in Sweden
> Knowing any amount of programming put you ahead of the majority
> Being good at math puts you way ahead
> Older people who had any work experience breezed through everything, mainly because of much better self discipline
Maybe look up if the first courses use some exotic programming language and play around some.
that's reassuring, i keep hearing stories from the university i'm going to of students who have tens of thousands in crypto and are incredible at coding and it's getting me riled up.
I think the fact that uni is free here (as in paid for by someone else's taxes) caused a lot of people who were not fit for it to give it a try. I think at least a third dropped out during the first year. It was mostly the I-want-to-make-video-games, I-like-to-plat-video-games, and I-want-to-make-lots-of-money crowd. Not sure how it works over there, but I assume people are going to be more invested if they are paying.
Which uni? If you don't want to answer that then answer is it within the top 10, top 10-30 or below top 30
Top 10 have decent courses
Top 10-30 have ok courses
Below 30 are all old courses
This
Your advice only works for top unis
I've attended uni events within top 30 unis and they were useless and only graduate schemes
The only uni events that were great were from unis within top 10 cs ranking
I'm guy with the anime pics (the two middle posts you @'d)
I don't care about dox so I'll say I graduated from Royal Holloway University of London
It's worth noting it's rank #32 overall as per https://www.thecompleteuniversityguide.co.uk/league-tables/rankings
but are not #39 in CS as per https://www.thecompleteuniversityguide.co.uk/league-tables/rankings/computer-science
(IT WENT DOWN 11 PLACES HAHAHHAHA)
So yeah I had a middling experience, but ranking doesn't mean everything unless you are at Cambridge/Oxford type places, like DMU has a good infosec culture and a lot of people in the industry usually come from there (rank #59 in CS #101 overall)
based
did being in London benifit you?
My uni is located in Egham, it's in Surrey right next to Ascot and Staines
My uni has the London subtitle just because it's close enough and probably did something shady to get in the club.
Being near London was useful to see my friend there every so often, but ultimately I barely went there, it's great for work since for job interviews it was an hour or two train to get there.
But everyone stayed on campus to get wasted at the pitiful student union, with some venturing to Windsor and Staines at times for a night out.
Lol anon you couldn't even pick worse uni lmao
I was going to join that uni with my other friend but noped out after checking their uni modules compared to mine
I attended few ranks above yours and difference was very comparable that's why I believe attending unis below top 30 is waste of time and resources
I didn't enjoy that cursed painting and atmosphere of that uni
I got associate degree from my poor and bad uni experience (bad useless and unhelpful teachers) ranked 25-30 then redid a level then attended higher top 10-20 ranked cs uni for better uni and learning experience
The difference between top 1-10 and top 10-20 IMO is 25-50%(almost half) top 10-20 and top20-30 is 50-100%(half to double) in terms of learning pace, experience, opportunities, events etc and help I got from my teachers
I don't get DMU courses its so bad
I know some students from DMU, top 10 and my current top10-20 and there are very stark difference in things we know vs that uni
DMU courses are poor value and good infosec culture means nothing to me if its only exclusive for top gays within a ok-shit tier uni and poor uni modules check that uni year3 module to top20-30 or top10-20 year3 modules
You're in good hands just follow anons advices and you will be well off but competition from other students will be strict and competitive
hey man 18 year old me was a fricking moron, but I'm still happy I went there
the uni itself is fricking awful, the hyper feminist shit has only gotten worse along with the general degeneracy
the courses were mostly awful and professors were annoying as frick
but I knew I wanted to do infosec, I heard it was good for infosec (it's not unless you're at PHD level)
the most important shit I learned was on my own time and that's the only reason I'm working as a pentester doing what I enjoy
I went in knowing this with zero respect for the education system and came out completely vindicated
it honestly doesn't matter though since the degree opens the door to interviews and jobs where real experience is built, and now I have a pentest job at a decent company, I don't have to think about that homosexual place ever again beside the few cool friends I made and funny moments and stuff that made me who I am today
I told the dean "see ya later stinky" when I graduated 🙂
DMU is a shit uni itself, but if you want to be in infosec and have drive/aren't moronic you can definitely find good value in the society shit, otherwise yeah it's another low rank CS degree
to summarize this a bit better, university is a meme, do the degree but don't rely on it and unless you're at some no name shit hole, you'll get a job no problem
ya
do harvard cs50x and read freecodecamp
It's top ten in UK for cs and in general,
Buy programming socks and a buttplug
this unironically
buy programming socks
Change to an agricultural degree and prioritize getting a huge slot of government subsidized land before it's too late. Live on your farm, communicate only with frogs on the internet and ducks in real life.
Don't make the same mistake I did.
UK BSc Computer Science (Information Security) here, graduated last year so lemme lay some advice
first year is easy if you have more than 5 braincells, it'll likely be basic SQL + Java + Python, practice those and you'll be golden, especially sorting algorithms and things like recursion, that's basically first year.
Make friends in your course (and outside the course ofc), the classmate friends will be useful in the future when you want to get a student house together or when you need to make trade deals sharing assignments and studying help on subjects you aren't good at.
There'll be societies at your uni since you're in the UK, join the computing society but dont get your hopes up as new committees can taildive the quality real quick.
Go out to clubs/socials with friends/housemates, get it out your system in first year while the course is easy, don't go crazy and develop a coke habit and fail all your exams, but have a bit of fun since first year doesnt go towards the degree and is just there to filter out mega morons who write code in notepad.exe.
Start applying for jobs in 2nd-3rd year, no point worrying now since it's early days, look if there's a year in industry program on your course since that'll act as a guaranteed job (usually) when you graduate, mine got cancelled by covid but I know people who are working for big companies through that.
If you have online covid exams, cheat, some unis have no restrictions and you can laugh all the way to a first honour degree like me.
Otherwise yeah, just read some basic books on coding, find what you're really interested in (e.g. security, AI, etc) and get interested since in it
lemme know if you have any more questions as I'm probably the only one here who knows what uk unis in 2022 are like, oh and for god's sake don't get political on campus
adding to my post...
also yeah I agree with
most people are gonna be stupid as hell since universities accept anyone in these courses to get as much government funded finance money as they can, you probably got a message on UCAS saying to "firm our university to get a secure place and a free handjob", it's because it all helps them out financially
universities don't really care about the education aspect, so don't rely on the classes to teach you shit you'll need for whatever job you want
but yeah if you get programming, if you did A-level maths you'll be all good on that front, some people will be savants at coding, don't feel intimidated, they're definitely the exception and are likely people who never switch off and live to code
>classmate friends will be useful in the future when you want to get a student house together
very nervous about this anon as i'm a social moron and not the good kind, i don't even fit in with the geeks/nerds...
i'm relying upon my living situation to provide housemates for next year as it's like a boarding school situation in the first year.
>lemme know if you have any more questions
i guess i'm nervous about what it's gonna be like in the first lab classes, like if we get asked to run something or do something simple within the OS but idk how to do it because i've confined myself to leetcode and programming exercises.
>very nervous about this anon as i'm a social moron and not the good kind, i don't even fit in with the geeks/nerds...
honestly just chill out a bit and you'll be fine, like as long as you don't stare at reddit on your phone all day and try and talk to people a bit you'll be ok
I mostly made friends in my tutorial group and through mutuals, and I'm a nutjob, university is basically a summer camp for 3 years so it's a great time to build up confidence and social skills, just don't be weird and bring up porn and shit I guess.
>i'm relying upon my living situation to provide housemates for next year as it's like a boarding school situation in the first year.
I did this as well, I was friendly enough and still talk to my first year housemates (they're all fricking insane in an unhealthy way though), but don't rely on them for housing, my ones went behind my back and signed a lease without me before I knew anything about it and I had to panic find a house with the tutorial people.
Things are gonna go in ways you don't expect or want, but that's just life and it does sometimes work out for the best and/or humbles you in some ways idk.
>i guess i'm nervous about what it's gonna be like in the first lab classes, like if we get asked to run something or do something simple within the OS but idk how to do it because i've confined myself to leetcode and programming exercises.
the course is gonna be taught from level 0, tutorial baby mode, the course itself will not require any CS experience, so it'll be printing hello world and using "cd" and "ls" in the terminal for the first month or so
>I mostly made friends in my tutorial group and through mutuals, and I'm a nutjob
Pretty much the same here. Plus started going to some board game nights.
>i'm relying upon my living situation to provide housemates for next year as it's like a boarding school situation in the first year.
You are a step ahead, at that point I lived with my parents
yeah in the uk because the fat finance loans you should just get a place with some friends
in my experience people who lived at home and commuted in missed out a lot socially
also don't rush into getting a place and don't get one with a gf until third year/graduating
>Plus started going to some board game nights.
this is good as well, we had shit like anime society and gaming society, I wish I got back into warhammer and went gaming society and made more friends
>Make contact with people who will be 1 year above you.
This is good as well, they'll also give good advice on what courses to pick (e.g. I was told to never take the compilers course because it's a scam and is impossible to pass)
I hope I/we haven't made it all seem scary, as long as you keep it chill you'll be all good
it's scary, but only because i have no friends rn when i had gf and everything a year ago.
i was mario kart champion 6 years running at school so i'll prolly join the gaming society even though i only play ds rn. I'm autistically into movies so some moronic filmsoc might not totally suck.
>when i had gf
you'll be fine then
>so some moronic filmsoc might not totally suck
they'll probably be a bit snobby and left wing, but definitely some fun to be had
I wish I joined GameSoc for the tabletop stuff and DebateSoc because they asked me to come when I explained something political to one of their members at a party
with politics I would say it's a bit risky to be openly xyz on campus especially nowadays, but I suspect you're not a massive political moron like me
i've read the work of all the entry-level political philosophers so i could probably function in some debate society. Politically i've always been non-partisan, but the only time i was on campus my sides were hurting when i tried to speak to some leftist girls about why they're all carrying "end animal testing" tote bags, so i might go for the entertainment.
yeah just be careful ofc, I'm a more liberty oriented person who's pro-gun and free speech and had the Mises Society beg for me to join when they found out I was a bit ancap and didn't smell when they came up to me in their suits with a gadsen flag saying "we have women members as well", I declined of course.
My debate soc seemed pretty based though since they were trying to debate controversial guests until the union stepped in and made a rigged vote that added a rule banning "offensive speakers".
>in my experience people who lived at home and commuted in missed out a lot socially
You are not wrong
thanks
i took a gap year so they will be my age which may make things easier
>make trade deals sharing assignments and studying help on subjects you aren't good at.
>There'll be societies at your uni
>Go out to clubs/socials with friends/housemates
is it really like this in britain? Here university and higher education is diehard, ravenous lot that will kill you if that meant passing a class
no fun allowed, no clubs, no one wants to be your friend since they see you as a competitor on a job market
this is life in Britain for all social classes:
University in the UK is barely education, you basically get 3 years of time to study important stuff not on the course while trying to pass some outdated cringe course just to get some paper that gets you a job
I know people who work in unis here as professors, it's just a big money thing where universities will create pointless courses and accept hundreds of students who will never pass just to get the tuition money to spend on either research projects that gets the uni more students, or it goes to the pockets of higher ups and donations to organizations/building contracts of construction companies that are likely closely tied to the upper staff.
A university here would rather see you fail and retake a year than pass, they rather cut out actually important modules in place of generic microsoft word modules just so they can say to the local government they are "teaching cyber fundamentals" and get a tax free grant.
There is no more corrupt business here than education
>read some basic books on coding
Not him but may I also ask, Im currently reading SICP, just finished the first chapter (all exercises, everything done properly) and I dont think I'll finish it on time unless I study 8hrs a day. Should I rush it, drop it and read smth else or chill?
not who you're asking but imo keep going if you think you're learning. I took a module that had sicp as one of the textbooks (didnt read it all myself) and it was a whole term of work
I'm the guy you're asking
Haven't read that book, probably would help if you really wanna go for the big brain stuff in coding, but when I say basic books I mean more like "Automate the boring stuff with python" the type of books that have 20 chapters and teach you the real basics of modern programming for university
SICP will help later on, but tbh if it doesn't have a cartoon on the front, the book is probably gonna be too dry for my ADHD moron brain
Good advice for the most part.
>the classmate friends will be useful in the future when you want to get a student house together
Huh, I don't relate to this at all. All the people I know got student houses with other people they knew from elsewhere, nobody who was on the same course got a house together.
>There'll be societies at your uni since you're in the UK, join the computing society but dont get your hopes up as new committees can taildive the quality real quick.
This tbh but also join a society other than computing. There will be a LOT of autistic/sensitive homosexuals but you'll eventually find some decent lads. I found the society that sounded the most autistic, went to one of their events and met my current girlfriend and a couple decent friends. One of them was even a 4chins user too, goes on IQfy afaik.
>get it out your system in first year while the course is easy
Second year is pretty nice too. The only one where you'll shit your pants is final, and even then if you can manage a workload you can still be off your head every weekend.
> This tbh but also join a society other than computing.
reiterating this, do not limit yourself to CS social circles
Drop out and do 3 month bootcamp
Have job before cs degree even starts
Make contact with people who will be 1 year above you. They know exactly what questions the exams will be like.
Then get past exam papers. Make sure you know these in and out.
That's all I got. The moment I started doing this i went from 60-70% in my country to 95-100%.
This is the most important advice you will ever get anon. Contact and befriend people from the year above yours (different ones).
>Then get past exam papers. Make sure you know these in and out.
>That's all I got. The moment I started doing this i went from 60-70% in my country to 95-100%.
Here in Sweden the university almost always provided you with the last few years of exams to use as study material. Then the actual exams were maybe 80% similar to those, but with numbers changed. Always more than enough similarity to pass.
>This is the most important advice you will ever get anon.
It probably is.
finished mine not too long ago, was semi worried at times. Dropout rate was huge.
Most important tip is to train and use visual systematic thought instead of lingual (for me at least), and when I was taking very hard courses I talked to the TA's a lot.
Also try to find friends who won't dropout. Like 70% of the friends I initially made dropped out lol...
>train and use visual systematic thought
pls elaborate
well I don't know, for some it's the default. But my default was lingual thinking as in thinking in mostly just words and if I thought in images it was just cringey fantasy day dreaming kinda stuff.
Then I saw a pattern with smart people, magnus carlsen for example when asked about how he's so good at chess explained that he visualises the entire chess board and where every piece is and goes.
I can't even do that.
Richard Feynman when asked about his skills talked about how he had always visualised numbers and stuff like that.
So I started trying to visualise, especially systems. Thinking about programs like factories and legos (in a way). Training it just by visualising more and more. I'd go into a building and instead of just using words I'd think about the building as a system, it had a toilet system, electricity system, the corridors were there as part of a network for people to move through and blablabla, I always feel a bit silly when I talk about it but you get the point.
It changed the way I thought so much and got me through my degree.
Also helped my mental health actually, I wasn't just stuck inside my head all day and felt more connected with my surroundings.
Program Tetris and Pacman and Snake
See if you can find textbooks here https://libgen.is/
Try studying the material for a class before it even starts if you're feeling motivated.
I graduated in the last few years from a top UK uni, it's easier than you think to do better than most of your course since most CS students make exactly the same mistakes. Dumping advice.
In terms of the course, an insane amount will have 0 programming experience before they start, don't be one of them even if you just learn some Python.
A lot of people I knew left all their coursework to the last minute. Make time to actually do your work and speak to lecturers if you get stuck, you'll instantly get higher grades.
Make friends with older years through societies etc and you'll have contacts for course advice and job references in the future.
For career make a github profile, linkedin and CV right now and ask people for feedback when you can. I've interviewed a lot of grads and interns, about 1/10 have a good CV.
Leetcode is used as a filter in a lot of jobs, start practicing early.
The absolute best thing you can do for your job prospects is a proper internship, most are in second year summer or years in industry but it's worth applying in first year to get interview experience at least.
Finally and most importantly please develop some actual social skills and hygiene because all of the above will be useless if you can't interact with people. Attend Freshers events, join random societies when you start. Uni sports clubs are 100x more fun than anything you might have done as a kid, pick one that looks interesting and join straight away even if you're fat and have never played a sport.
Also want to add, learn some LaTeX and use it for your essays. I didn't start using it until after my undergrad and it makes formatting and referencing much easier.
I'll come back to this thread if you have any questions, but don't worry anon. I was extremely socially awkward before uni and hated going to social events by myself, it's the best chance in your life to build some confidence because everyone is in a similar situation and most won't judge you at all.
Use gitea, frick LinkedIn
Frick internship in first year if its too much trouble but it's good
Listen now, ahem.
Frick fresher's events, frick sports clubs.
Find out who the rich kids are and figure out a way to endear yourself to them and get them to respect you. This is the true sage advice.
t. Works for my friend's dad's firm
>comp Sci
>not comp eng
Practice mindfulness and meditation
Not even joking, work on being truly aware of your self and environment in a structured manner. Step back and work on your breathing as you clear mind.
There really are some amazing metal and physical benefits from just 5 minutes here and their daily. Your never know it by all the homosexual shit a search pulls up on the subject but I highly recommend these two practices, though mindfulness moreso than meditation.
Read sicp