What should a person learn, next to programming, before going to college and getting a Computer Science degree?
author of "SQL Antipatterns: Avoiding the Pitfalls of Database Programming"4y
Calculus is required for most CS degrees. I admit I didn’t actually need to use Calculus much after passing it, but it’s required for other classes. Take Calculus before you get into your CS program if you can, or at least take pre-Calculus so you’re ready.
Discrete Mathematics is much more practical. I’ve used the concepts I learned in Discrete Math every day during my college education and subsequent professional career. This alone makes it worth passing Calculus, as a prerequisite for Discrete Math. See Bill Karwin's answer to Is it necessary to learn discrete mathematics and its applications for beginning Python programming?
Basic Computer Architecture. Understand the difference between RAM, storage, CPU, network. How fast is each of these? See Latency Numbers Every Programmer Should Know
A coding environment. It doesn’t matter which one, but make sure you are productive with your favorite programming tools, like editors, debuggers, testing tools. Get a book with good ratings about your IDE and try all the exercises in it. A book might be $50 and a few hours of your time, and this practice will save you thousands of hours of frustration. There’s free IDE software like Eclipse or NetBeans, some people like Visual Studio, I like Jetbrains products and of course good old vim.
Source control, mostly git. See my old blog: Do I really need version control?
Breadth requirement classes. You can usually take your required classes in humanities, social science, and natural science at a cheaper community college, and transfer the credits to your CS college. It’s a good idea to get these taken care of so you can focus on your CS studies.
Good study habits. Going to school is expensive, so make sure you get the most out of it you can. Do all the reading you can. Do the homework early. If you get stuck, go to the office hours of the instructor or the teaching assistant every week to get them to clarify anything you don’t understand. I wish I had made better use of my time.
Learn to concentrate deeply. Develop a habit of shutting off your social media, your phone, your TV, video games, all other sorts of distractions. Computer Science requires concentration. Don’t get involved in all-night multi-player games or partying until you’ve completed your homework.
https://csweb.rice.edu/academics/graduate-programs/online-mcs/blog/programming-vs-computer-science