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Discussion on: What advice would you give a CS student starting their freshman year?

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Alexander Holman

I can only speak from my experience in the UK, and it's pretty general advice, but we are!

Do your assignments early! You don't need to rush them or anything, no need to hand them in early, but don't leave it all to the last minute if you can help it.

If you have a problem, ask for help again, as early as possible. That's not to say the moment you get stuck, have a look around first, but you'll probably know when you're having on a problem you need a hand with.

Answer the questions! If you think you have an answer spill it! If you're wrong hopefully your lecturer will explain how and it might help your understanding. If you're right; major street cred XD

Don't copy, write your own notes and your own code (assuming you write any on the first day!).

Invest time in learning outside of the lectures. Focus on areas that you might not touch in class, e.g. specific paradigms, languages, tools, etc. Perhaps consider a side project when you have some down time. Its one of those 15 minutes a day things that turns into 100's of hours of practice.

Free for students and other discounts! Stock up on a the freebies from being a student. GitHub has offers, Microsoft in general have offers, Apple does, HP does, AWS does, the list goes on.

Personally I wished I documented the whole process a bit more.

I hope some of that helps :)