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Ask HN: What should I learn to become a computer scientist?

11 points by frodwith ↗ HN
My 14-year-old cousin came over to my place, woke me up, and asked me (a career software developer) "What should I learn now to become a computer scientist?" I didn't have a really good answer for him. I told him to pay attention to algebra, take a class in symbolic logic if he could find one, and take any programming classes he could find. I started learning to program in college (not counting little games in BASIC and hello-world level stuff in C growing up). I'm sure there's plenty of good teach-yourself-to-program books aimed at people his age, but I don't know what they are.

TL;DR: What does HN recommend as a course of study for an aspiring young pre-CS student?

16 comments

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pook
MIT's OpenCourseWare is an excellent way for him to study CS on his own while in high school.

I would recommend, at 14, getting him utterly hooked on the mindset of CS and related subjects. Godel, Escher, Bach, etc. If you can get him fascinated with the field, he'll find all the information he needs on his own better than any list of required reading you'll get.

http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/home/home/index.htm

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0465026567

bmalicoat
Get a TI calculator and try making some simple games for it in TI Basic. The calculator is nice because you can program in your not-so-great history classes or whatever.

Also start messing around with Python, there is no overhead and you can get started quickly.

Paying attention to math is important, but more important is honing your problem solving skills.

(Addressed everything to the OPs cousin for readability)

rick_2047
I would not recommend doing it in the history classes though. In my school we had a great history class throughout high school. It taught me analytical thinking and processing of events to come up with a strategy. Studying history is as important as studying math or physics. The latter two are basic sciences, but the former expands your mind.

If you find the history class boring, try doing this. Instead of reading up all about and even in history in your textbook try to read one half (or a quarter if you feel overly adventurous) and then try to reason out what would you have done and why. Then read the other part and match your thinking with what actually happened. My history teacher used to do this type of exercises with us on a regular basis. This improved our critical thinking and ability to decide on strategies to tackle events in life.

elcron
This is basically what I did in 8th grade, then in 9th grade I joined the FIRST robotics team in our high school, which I would strongly recommend if there is one available.
amock
Does he want to study computer science or software engineering? If he wants to study computer science he should take lots of math, particularly courses that involve proofs. I recommend algebra, graph theory, and combinatorics in particular. I'd recommend Haskell or SML as programming languages since they have so much theory behind them. Haskell has a great community and is really nice to use, but SML is simpler to start with and has a concise definition.
j_baker
Erm.... this is all well and good, but is this really something you'd want to start a 14 year old out with?
mquander
How is 14 early to take courses on graph theory or combinatorics, or learn SML? He sounds like a bright kid, or else he wouldn't be asking his cousin how to study computer science. He might or might not actually be interested in these things, but if he's interested in them, then he should learn them.
Amanjeev
I think if a kid wants to learn something is asking about it, then there should be a way. I think instead of starting straight with high school Math, he/she can be started with some basic stuff of upcoming classes.
amock
This is what I would have liked when I was 14. I was more interested in the theory but most introductory material was just about writing software.
s2r2
http://homepages.cwi.nl/~jve/HR/

Jan van Eijck's »The Haskell Road to Logic, Maths and Programming« does exactly that: it introduces you to mathematical proofs, basic logic issues (including relations) and programming using Haskell. I'd wholeheartedly recommend it to someone who's not yet had much contact to maths.

10ren
For a computer scientist (as opposed to developer), study maths.
CyberFonic
Well maybe he doesn't understand the differences between: computer scientist

computer programmer

software engineer

You might think they are the same thing but they're not. A computer scientist would end up in academia doing research. A computer programmer writing programs and a software engineer design then building systems.

Learning to program for a budding computer scientist is the worst possible thing to do. It contaminates the mind with what ever preconceptions the chosen language may provide. Ok, maybe Lisp and Scheme not so much - but still ...