

As a comp engg freshman, what should I be aware of before I become a sophomore? - new-user

I come across many junior, senior, and sophomore students who regret some decisions ( or no decisions) they took in  freshman year. Some of them seem to be very common ( know your programming languages, be efficient in programming, signal systems course is going to be tough etc ). I just don&#x27;t want to build up on existing mistakes :P
Thank You
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aaronbrethorst
Understanding grammar and spelling (more generally: communication) is one of
some of the most important skills you can possibly learn. Go take an English
Comp class, or something similar. It'll pay huge dividends for the next 40
years of your life, far more so than knowing one more programming language
possibly could.

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spiffyman
This is critical. IME, you're probably not going to get _very_ good at
programming while in school. That only comes with doing it several hours a day
for a long time. So, certainly work on being efficient so that you can finish
up the degree, but don't think about it much beyond that. You'll get there,
and realistic people don't expect brilliant programmers right out of
undergrad.

On the other hand, I haven't yet had a job where written communication wasn't
important from virtually day one. You may start out thinking, "Oh, I'm just
going to code," but in reality you have to talk to clients (even if they're
your coworkers), your bosses, prospective hires, etc., and this often takes
the form of written communication. If you write unintelligibly to a customer
or your CEO about why a feature is taking a while to implement, you're going
to have a bad time. If you issue a poorly-worded question to a prospective
hire, you'll muddy the waters in an already difficult decision. And there's no
substitute for dodging the heat with a well-worded CYA email.

Learn to write precisely and concisely. Rhetoric classes, if your uni offers
them, are a great investment.

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nikdaheratik
The biggest mistake I made in college was _not_ listening to my advisor and
thinking that "recommended" courses means I could get by with taking something
out of order. For example, taking Circuits I without taking Electromagnetics
(and likely Diff Eq) first is a bad idea even if it's technically allowed.
Another mistake is to not understand that some of the harder classes need to
be spaced out or you get burned out. There seems to be a big ramp up from
first year to second year coursework.

75% or more of what you learn is going to be obsolete or not needed in your
career. The problem is you don't ever know which is the 25% you'll use. That
may even change over time. And those English/Comms classes are helpful while
still being less of a PITA than your other coursework so they prevent some
burnout. The most fun classes I had were a Foreign language which was taught
by an actual native speaker, and a Comms class which just had a nice mix of
students.

~~~
smeyer
>taking something out of order

I'd say the important thing to do is to really see what is and isn't
necessary. At my college, it was very common to skip prerequisites and so on.
My favorite class as a sophomore was a graduate applied mathematics class
where I skipped both prerequisite undergraduate classes. At first I'd assumed
from the course catalog that it wouldn't have been feasible and didn't even
bring it up with my advisor, but then a couple of friends pointed me to it.

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onedev
Communication skills are as important to Engineering within World-Class
Engineering teams as your actual technical skill is.

