Journey into New Pathways: Textbook prep for college: Countdown to College

My first term in college consists of two textbooks and three classes. Classes are Network Essentials, Introduction to Computer Science, and Introduction to Operating Systems: Windows. Network Essentials had an optional textbook called CCENT/CCNA ICND1 100-105 by Wendell Odom that I got anyhow since I wanted to learn before class started and I saw the textbook said it was good for prepping for certification exams called CCNA and ICND1/2. My other classes that involved a textbook was Introduction to Computer Science and this textbook is called Computer Science Illuminate by Nell Dale & John Lewis. The books themselves comes with resources such as one book includes an access code and the other one comes with a CD (though unfortunately I wish my device had a CD rom area).

When I got my textbooks I did debate a day or two of how I would learn my material and get through the information. I finally settled upon the approach of reading the textbooks like I do any other book so then I can read the entire book and get a sense of where everything was located. When I got the CCENT book, I knew I did not have the same amount of days as number of chapters in the book so then I said to myself what is the most important section to focus upon. The book is divided into different sections and one of their sections (the first one) was the "fundamental" section of five chapters so I just focused on that plus read the introduction section which talked about different ways to study the material including reminding you that the book has an auditory/visual resource as well. What I found interesting in the introduction section was it talked about a technique to study called 'mind maps' which to me reminds me of the idea of finding the broad concepts and then finding the smaller concepts that lie into the broad concept and connecting the two. The final picture can look like a tree with many branches and then some of those branches have even smaller branches attached to them.

As I read the textbooks, I could tell the information that did not really jump out of me in understanding was some of the basics such as binary, history of programming, and Boolean Algebra so information that was put together as the information layer, hardware layer, and programming layer inside of the Computer Science Illuminate. Once I got to the operating systems layer, things started to come together probably based upon my prior knowledge and experience of using Windows OS, Android OS, and Chrome OS and using both Google and Microsoft applications (such as Word Document, Excel, Google Docs, Google Sheets.. As I go along, I do feel like things are slowly coming together about the basics even though I don't feel like I am quite there in understanding since my ultimate goal with college is to do well and get great grades and expand my worlds.

After I finished the textbooks (the information/parts I wanted to read including rereading the summary sections for the Computer Science Illuminate), I started going over to an online resource called Khan Academy since I noticed they had a program/course called "AP Computer Science Principals" and since I knew I was still before college and had no formal training decided to go for the AP course first of all rather than the regular "Computer Science" course they also have (which I do plan to try to go through some of that at a later date). Khan Academy is a resource that can use both articles and videos plus practice questions to enhance learning.

I will note if you do go through Khan Academy to do any of their courses, there are some features I am not entirely too fond of such as when I am scrolling, a blue banner likes to appear saying something like the next mastery topic is up here or down here and then the website does seem geared towards people who love to see virtual rewards and points, which at times I wish there was a way to turn off those things so you don't need to see the top of your screen trying to say how many points you have and how many till the next level and it's like can't you just let a person go through the program without this 'level' concept and the such like.

What the dashboard looks when you log into Khan Academy

Some other resources I do plan to take a look at which I have not is the Google Tech Dev Guide located at https://techdevguide.withgoogle.com/. I was looking through the student career page for Google (https://careers.google.com/students/) just to see what they all had there and just started clicking around on the options there and the 'prepare for technical roles at Google with our comprehensive guide" lead to here. The Students page in the Google Careers website is also a good place to look at scholarships and internships at Google and does include several continents such as Asia, India, and North America.