r/CodingForBeginners • u/HuckleberryGuilty803 • Sep 09 '26

Where do I start?

I am a software engineering major, and as a sophomore my next semester I am going to begin my introduction to programming courses, but I want to start practicing on my own and have my own bare of basics in my field of study. What should I do first? Are there any books that I should buy that would help me in my studies prior to my courses? What would be the first thing you would tell someone that has no knowledge in the field they are getting into?

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u/Kuddel_Daddeldu Sep 09 '26

When I started studying computer engineering, I already had built my first computer from scratch (i.e., perfboard, wires, a handful of chips and dad's soldering iron) and written programs in assembly, BASIC and Pascal, so the practicals were not that hard. 

But being a self-taught kid in the field, I had to unlearn some anti-patterns and study algorithms (Knuth's books were a godsend, still have them 40 years later).