CS Prep Guide

This guide aims to help you scale from zero to infinity for a career in domains related to Computer Science in general and Software Development in particular. I’d highly encourage you to read this as well - as an introduction to getting better.

Be curious. Read widely. Try new things. What people call intelligence just boils down to curiosity - Aaron Swartz

Table of Contents

• 1. Computer Science Curriculum
  • Stuff for the curious
• 2. Technical Books to Read
  • The essentials
  • Optional Alternative
• 3. Programming/Interview
• 4. Free Side Project Ideas
  • Open Source Projects
• 5. Building Profile/Knowledge
• Similar Guides
• LICENSE

1. Computer Science Curriculum

Courses below helps you cover the very basics of CS.

• Google’s CS Career and Technical Developement Guide Consists list of MOOC Courses and Resources for a career in CS
• Open University List of free online MOOC courses that you might take up to gain your free education in Computer Science
• TeachYourSelfCS [RECOMMENDED] Best CS curriculum to start ground up.

Stuff for the curious

• Computer Science Field Guide
• CS Handbook
• Computer Science from the Bottom Up
• Open Data Structures
• List of Awesome Courses

2. Technical Books to Read

The essentials

• Fred Brooks’ The Mythical Man-Month
• Donald Knuth’s The Art of Computer Programming
• Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs

Optional Alternative

You can also cover a list as given here. Thanks to Abhay Rana.

• List by CodingHorror
• Find some here as well
• A LONG LIST OF FREE EBOOKS
• blog.dwarak.in - CS Book List
• blog.dwarak.in - Recommended Readings for CS Graduate

3. Programming/Interview

Reference for Interview Prep Guide

4. Read CS Papers

1. The Morning Paper - This is no longer active. But contains a good repo of papers though.
2. Micah Lerner
3. Metadata - Murat Demirbas
4. Arxiv.org

5. Free Side Project Ideas

• From @karan
• My own side project list
• Side project list from HN

Open Source Projects

Some Open Source projects where you can start contributing. How to start? Read this.

• From Github
• A list of organizations from GSOC

6. Building Profile/Knowledge

Here is a list of best engineering blogs that you may want to follow.

Some great engineering channels that you can follow

• Hussein Nasser [Great Podcast About Systems Design & Backend Engineering]
• Asli Engineering by Arpit Bhayani
• The Geek Narrator

Aside from the above,

• Create a Twitter account and follow good lists.
• Create a StackOverFlow account and answer as many questions as possible - explore and learn.
• Listen to podcasts. Some of my personal favourites here.
• You might also want to follow HackerNews, Lobsters for explosure. Or get everything at Coven.
• Talk and present in meetups/conferences. A list of best developer conferences here.
• Stay Humble. Don’t be an ass!

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Similar Guides

Interview by @andreis

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LICENSE

Content licensed under MIT.