Hey, what's up?
John Sonmez here from simpleprogrammer.com.
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I got a question from a highschooler.
I love these questions.
Some of you—I just—my hat is off to you.
You're so young, yet you're doing the smart thing.
You're doing the wise thing, which is to get advice, to apply yourself now, to work hard
to have the kind of—the fortitude and grit and develop that most people don't ever develop
in their whole life, and you're so young and you're doing it.
That's awesome.
I got this question about "How does a high school kid prepare himself for computer science
in college?"
This is from Anonymous and he says, "Hey, John.
Hope you're well.
I'm a 17-year-old kid who just discovered an absolute passion for Computer Science and
programming just two months ago after starting and thereafter finishing the Harvard intro
to Computer Science CS50 Course.
I want to know what I should and can do as a high school kid to get a step ahead.
I sit in a school bus for an hour and a half everyday so I'm willing to watch videos or
even listen to podcasts during then.
Thanks in advance for any help."
Honestly, the best thing to do if you're in high school and you want to prepare for college
is to actually start doing the college work ahead of time.
I think that's probably the best thing that you could possibly do.
The wonderful thing about the Internet and about today is that there are tons of college
courses online for free right now.
I did a video on the top, I think, certification programs, online certification programs.
In that, I mentioned online certifications and some online colleges.
There's definitely a lot of programs out there.
Places like Udacity.
Udemy offer courses.
What I would be doing is I would be focusing on—well, first of all, have an objective.
Just because you're going to go to college and learn something doesn’t mean that you
can't have a higher level objective.
Because why are you going to college?
Okay?
You got to ask yourself this question.
Is it to get a piece of paper?
Some people, that could be valid.
Is it to actually—do you feel like you're going to learn something in college?
If so, what is your objective?
Do you want to become a software developer?
What kind of software development do you want to do?
Start asking yourself and thinking about these bigger questions because it's one thing to
get in a boat and start paddling.
If you don't know where you're going, all that effort can be wasted.
Maybe you get some strong arm from paddling so much and maybe you can paddle fast, but
you want to be paddling in a definite direction.
What is your definite direction?
Where are you going in life?
Where would you want to go?
I know some big questions to ask someone in high school, but you could change directions,
but at least be going to some direction.
You see what I'm saying?
Pick something that you're going to specialize in the computer science field.
Pick something that you're going to try and learn and know why you're going to college.
Know what is the purpose there.
With that said, like I said, you can go and you can go online and you can find courses.
How you would spend that time?
If you want to spend that time on the bus, focus on learning, on actually like being—having
the capability to build applications.
Start building your own applications.
One of the best things when I finished up my degree is I was already programming in
the field.
I was already creating applications and creating my own applications.
I started taking some night classes, some college night classes like correspondents'
school.
You know what?
It was like I didn’t even read the textbook.
I just did all the assignments.
You know why?
Because I already knew how to do all this.
I was already writing applications.
I already knew C++ better than the professor at the time.
Not to brag but it was true and I could write all the applications because I was already
doing the work.
What can you do that is going to be equivalent to already doing the work.
If you build a couple applications on the side, if you throw some apps in the App Store
that you've build and you've learned this stuff, then college is going to be a breeze.
It's going to be simple for you.
You know that computer science degree is going to have algorithms and data structures.
Learn all that stuff.
Get all that stuff ahead of time and then you'll be able to focus more during your classes
and during college experience on getting a deeper knowledge, and spending time with the
professor, going to deeper subjects.
You'll be able to get a ton more out of college.
If I were doing college today and I were in your shoes, what I would be doing is I would
be trying to basically learn everything that I'm going to learn in college while I'm still
in high school, which you could totally do.
You've got the time to do that.
I'd be learning how to program.
I'd be creating my own applications, doing all that.
Then when I got to college, I would be tapping into the resources there.
I would be like—I wouldn't have to spend as much time studying and learning the stuff
because I'd already have that base level knowledge, but I'd be able to spend the time with the
professors.
I mean if you're going to pay that kind of money like the real value there is not the
stuff that you can learn out of the book.
You can learn all that online.
You can get—knowledge is free.
What would be the real value to me if I were in your shoes would be to get the time, the
one-on-one time with the professor to ask the deeper questions to go deeper into the
subject, to really explore my curiosity to use it as an opportunity.
That's what I would suggest.
Just think about and, in fact, what you can do is you can look at, if you have a college
in mind that you plan on going to, look at what their curriculum is and look at the syllabuses
for the courses, and actually start studying that stuff.
See if some of those courses are online even if you're not going to get credit for it.
By the time you get there, it will be so much easier for you to do.
It's just a better way to approach things rather than—the other thing I would say
also is that by learning this discipline of studying on your own, it's going to prepare
you better.
In high school, you've got to show up.
You take the bus.
You go there for a certain amount of time.
You got a certain amount of homework.
College is a little bit more free.
It's a little bit more kind of up to you, so you could goof off all day.
You don't have to go to class.
No one is going to sit there and babysit you.
If you can develop that self-discipline, which you probably already have a ton of it if you're
emailing me if you're watching these videos.
If you can develop that self-discipline to be able to self-teach yourself, that's going
to be highly valuable.
For those of you also that are interested in learning, I definitely have a course out
there that can help you.
It's called 10 Steps To Learn Anything Quickly.
I'd highly recommend getting that course.
Let me know if you are a high school student and you'd like a discount on that.
I can't extend the discount to everyone, but I can definitely do something for you.
Just send me an email, john@simpleprogrammer.com and I'll see what I can do to make that a
little bit cheaper for you.
All right.
If you like this video, if you haven't subscribed already, click that Subscribe button below
and I'll talk to you next time.
Take care.