How well did you guys know how to code in highschool before you got into Computer Science/Software Engineering?

[GoldenHippo]

Hey CompSci community!

I'm currently a highschool student. I did the CCC Junior this year and will be taking 11AP & 12AP compsci in the following years.
I just wanted to know how much experience you guys & gals had when applying for Waterloo & UFT compsci.

Thanks in advance!

GH

[Tony]

CS isn't actually a required course to get into CS/SE programs. At least in my UWaterloo experience, they assume that you haven't taken any CS and start everyone off from a level field. You are expected to pick up on the content fast though.

[Clayton]

I'll second Tony's remark. Many first year courses will start you off with a couple of weeks of refreshing what you covered in your last year of high school. Most first year CS courses take that a step further and just assume you have zero prior knowledge at all.

Keep in mind, that even if you take high school CS courses and do some outside learning on your own, that you're still not going to skate through these courses either. I witnessed many of my classmates assume that because they knew all of the basics in the first few weeks of the relevant CS courses they could simply skate by, but ended up barely scraping by or failing outright.

[wtd]

At all levels, assume you know nothing.

Strive to correct that.

[Raknarg]

Gonna throw in that they can't actually make it a prerequisite as not every school can offer comp sci, unlike math or science courses