what are computer courses could/should I take?

[wviperw]

Well, for next semester (the second half of my junior year in highschool) I will have an opening in my schedule. So I was thinking about duel-enrolling at either another high-school or a college. I am wanting to take some computer classes.

I want to know what are some good ones to take. I know that some of them have some prerequisites. At my school, all they offer is keyboarding but I have learned a lot about computers by myself at home. Currently I am in Pre-Calculus, if that has anything to do with the pre-requisites. I don't exactly know what area of computers I want to go into yet though. I kinda like the hardware side of computers, and have built my own. But I also kinda like the software side of computers like programming and maybe a little graphics.

So can anyone help me out? I don't know exactly what classes the highschools and colleges in this area offer. One class I know that they offer is networking. That class might be fun but it might be a little hard.

 

[beer]

AP Comp Sci is always good. I'm a junior and it's a fairly fast moving class, but not fast enough where I actually have to do much thinking or HW.

 

[Zedfu]

computer science (programming) is an awesome class! take it, and you won't regret it

 

[wviperw]

Computer Science sounds good. Thanks for the help. But do I need to know anything going in to CS, or do they start from scratch? (well, not from scratch, they probably assume that you know how to click a mouse, you know what I mean)

 

[perry]

Since you'll be starting in the middle of the school year, they prolly won't be starting from scratch. They'll be well on their way to taking the AP test, and you'll be thrown into the middle of a fast paced (for high school) programming class. Maybe not the best idea. Better idea would be joint enrollment at a community college, if you can get in this late. Screw the AP test, and go ahead and get a 'real' college credit.

All my friends that AP'd out of their first math class were hurting when they started the second one first quarter freshman year. I think it's better to have taken a class at a college and know what level of work is expected than to just jump into the second level of a class and hope you can keep up.

My $.03 (for inflation).