Top products from r/gatech

So, when I was younger, I did attend one computer science related camp,

https://www.idtech.com

They have a location at Emory (which I believe I did one year) that was ok (not nearly as "nerdy"), and one at Boston which I really enjoyed (perhaps because I had to sleep on site). That being said, the stuff I learned there was more in the areas of graphic design and/or system administration, and not computer science. They are also quite expensive for only 1-2 weeks of exposure.

I felt it was a good opportunity to meet some very smart kids though, and it definitely lead me to push myself. Knowing and talking to people that are purely interested in CS, and are your age, is quite rare in high school. I think that kind of perspective can make your interests and hobbies seem more normal and set a much higher bar for what you expect for yourself.

On the other side of things, I believe that one of the biggest skills in any college program is an openness to just figure something out yourself if it interests you, without someone sitting there with you. This can be very helpful in life in general, and I think was one of the biggest skills I was missing in high school. I remember tackling some tricky stuff when I was younger, but I definitely passed over stuff I was interested in just because I figured "thats for someone with a college degree". The fact is that experience will make certain tasks easier but you CAN learn anything you want. You just may have to learn more of the fundamentals behind it than someone with more experience.

With that in mind, I would personally suggest a couple of things which I think would be really useful to someone his age, give him a massive leg up over the average freshman when he does get to college, and be a lot more productive than a summer camp.

One would be to pick a code-golf site (I like http://www.codewars.com) and simply try to work through the challenges. Another, much more math heavy, option is https://projecteuler.net. This, IMO is one of the best ways to learn a language, and I will often go there to get familiar with the syntax of a new language. I think he should pick Python and Clojure (or Haskell) and do challenges in both. Python is Object Oriented, whilst Clojure (or Haskell) is Functional. These are two very fundamental and interesting "schools of thought" and if he can wrap his head around both at this age, that would be very valuable.

A second option, and how I really got into programming, is to do some sort of web application development. This is pretty light on the CS side of things, but it allows you to be creative and manage more complex projects. He could pick a web framework in Python (flask), Ruby (rails), or NodeJS. There are numerous tutorials on getting started with this stuff. For Flask: http://blog.miguelgrinberg.com/post/the-flask-mega-tutorial-part-i-hello-world. For Rails: https://www.railstutorial.org. This type of project could take a while, there are a lot of technologies which interact to make a web application, but the ability to be creative when designing the web pages can be a lot of fun.

A third, more systems level, option (which is probably a bit more opinionated on my part) is that he learn to use Linux. I would suggest that he install VirtualBox on his computer, https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads. He can then install Linux in a virtual machine without messing up the existing OS (also works with Mac). He COULD install Ubuntu, but this is extremely easy and doesn't really teach much about the inner workings. I think he could install Arch. https://wiki.archlinux.org. This is a much more involved distribution to install, but their documentation is notoriously good, and it exposes you to a lot of command line (Ubuntu attempts to be almost exclusively graphical). From here, he should just try to use it as much as possible for his daily computing. He can learn general system management and Bash scripting. There should be tutorials for how to do just about anything he may want. Some more advanced stuff would be to configure a desktop environment, he could install Gnome by default, it is pretty easy, but a lot of people really get into this with more configurable ones ( https://www.reddit.com/r/unixporn ). He could also learn to code and compile in C.

Fourth, if he likes C, he may like seeing some of the ways in which programs which are poorly written can be broken. A really fun "game" is https://io.smashthestack.org. He can log into a server and basically "hack" his way to different levels. This can also really expose you to how Linux maintains security (user permissions, etc. ). I think this would be much more involved approach, but if he is really curious about this stuff, I think this could be the way to go. In this similar vein, he could watch talks from Defcon and Chaos Computer Club. They both have a lot of interesting stuff on youtube (it can get a little racy though).

Finally, there are textbooks. These can be really long, and kinda boring. But I think they are much more approachable than one might think. These will expose you much more to the "Science" part of computer science. A large portions of the classes he will take in college look into this sort of stuff. Additionally, if he covers some of this stuff, he could look into messing around with AI (Neural Networks, etc.) and Machine Learning (I would check out Scikit-learn for Python). Here I will list different broad topics, and some of the really good books in each. (Almost all can be found for free.......)

General CS:
Algorithms and Data Structures: https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/introduction-algorithms
Theory of Computation: http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Theory-Computation-Michael-Sipser/dp/113318779X
Operating Systems: http://www.amazon.com/Operating-System-Concepts-Abraham-Silberschatz/dp/0470128720

Some Math:
Linear Algebra: http://math.mit.edu/~gs/linearalgebra/
Probability and Stats: http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/mathematics/18-05-introduction-to-probability-and-statistics-spring-2014/readings/

I hope that stuff helps, I know you were asking about camps, and I think the one I suggested would be good, but this is stuff that he can do year round. Also, he should keep his GPA up and destroy the ACT.

You might find Seitzman's lecture notes to be helpful.

http://seitzman.gatech.edu/classes/ae3450/

http://seitzman.gatech.edu/classes/ae3450/outline.html

When I took 3450, we used the blue and orange book (probably the one Jagoda is pulling questions from). It's actually selected sections from two separate books compiled specifically for that course. I thought the second half about gas dynamics was pretty good, so you might want to look for that as well.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0131206680

If it's any consolation, the gas dynamics portion of the class isn't hard so much as incredibly tedious. Just a couple monster equations and the rest is just ratios. Figure out which ratios you need and how to manipulate them and you'll be good to go.

Aside from that, study and pray to the curve. Good luck!

Sorry that other people are being harsh critics, but yeah man. Respectfully, a couple of these are pretty overpriced.

Thing is, most people would rather buy a new book from the store than buy a used book for barely less than retail. I suggest you lower the prices, especially keeping this in mind:

Astrodynamics sells new for $17: https://www.amazon.com/Fundamentals-Astrodynamics-Dover-Aeronautical-Engineering/dp/0486600610

Propulsion sells new for $25: https://www.amazon.com/Mechanics-Thermodynamics-Propulsion-Philip-Peterson/dp/8131729516/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1526807320&sr=1-2&keywords=mechanics+and+thermodynamics+of+propulsion+2nd+edition

Your edition of COE 3001 sells new for $113: https://www.amazon.com/Mechanics-Materials-James-M-Gere/dp/1111577730/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1526807508&sr=1-2&keywords=mechanics+of+materials+goodno and it's also not the current edition

Best of luck. And if you find someone looking specifically for the current edition of the Mechanics of Materials book, please send them my way!

Read anything by Ferrol Sams.

The Cormoran Strike series (by Robert Galbraith aka JK Rowling) is phenomenal.

Beneath a Scarlet Sky is very good, and the Monuments Men and Saving Italy are really good, too. All three are based on the true stories of people during WWII (and Monuments Men is far, FAR better than the movie).

If you like historical fiction, you can't do better than James Michener (my favorites are The Source, Texas, and Caribbean), Leon Uris (read The Trinity series... slog to get started, but worth it), and Edward Rutherford (just read them all).

If you can already program, the most important thing is to get a good handle on modern C++. I can't think of a good class at GT that emphasizes things like smart pointers, multi-threading, or the modern standard lib. I learned from A Tour of C++:

https://www.amazon.com/Tour-C-Depth/dp/0321958314

If you want a better book for Calc 2, try this one:

http://www.amazon.com/Linear-Algebra-Introduction-Dennis-Schneider/dp/0024069108/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1303943455&sr=8-1

It was recommended to me when I took Calc 2, and it is the sole reason I got an A in the class. Also, it's like $2.00 so that's nice too.

Hi! Thank you so much for doing this. I was hoping you could help with finding some of my business class books?

For Econ 2106-Microeconomics.

For MGT 2106-Legal Aspects of Business.

For MGT 2200- IT Management.

For MGT 2250-Management Statistics.

Edit: Found the book for IT Management. You can download it from this website, here.

The perceptual psychology class required us to get the 8th edition of this book. The cheapest I could find it, after some internet sleuthing, was $70 or so for a used copy... but as you can see it costs $160 new.

Instead, I got the 7th edition used for $8

The semester is over now and I made it through just fine with the older book.

And that is how college textbooks work :)

Ah, this is great! Thank you :)

I didn't manage to find the book I need for MATH 3215 though. Is there any way you could get Probability and Statistical Inference, Ninth Edition by Hogg, Tanis and Zimmerman?

Not necessarily what you asked for but have you considered software defined radios?

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00C37AZXK/ref=redir_mdp_mobile/183-4484228-1642715

http://gnuradio.org/redmine/projects/gnuradio/wiki

Building a AM/FM radio is the Hello World equivalent so it'll get you straight there.

This book sort of similar:

http://www.amazon.com/Physics-Poets-Robert-March/dp/0072472170

Caveat Emptor:
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2006/04/13/morley

Here is the desktop version of your link

Is this the right book? http://www.amazon.com/Calculus-Variables-Saturnino-L-Salas/dp/0471698040/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1343176919&sr=8-1&keywords=calculus+one+and+several+variables

Relevant

http://www.amazon.com/Science-Design-Engineering-Materials-Edition/dp/0256247668

Accelerated C++

There ya go. Now you don't have to take an entire class to learn C++.

get yourself a copy of this, and read it cover to cover. This is the C bible as far as you're concerned.

So a replacement display costs $28.79 (or just check the link). If you order the display and pay me $10 I’ll do it.


https://www.amazon.com/iPhone-Plus-Screen-Replacement-Black/dp/B07SH7HKSP/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1572316150&refinements=p_n_feature_nine_browse-bin%3A17290045011&s=wireless&sr=1-1

If you’re down, we can meet in the CULC to do it whenever you get the part.