I'll second this. often, this sort of 'practical mechanics' isn't taught in school and yet it's super important. Efficient software engineers are good at these things. None these classes will tell you anything about how to program or even about logically how to solve the problem - but they will teach you about the systems in which you do such programming and on which your programs run. This is sort-of like wordprocessing class for authors. It won't write your book, but if you're constantly fighting the writing tool you won't be a very efficient author, either. FWIW, this probably WILL improve your success as a Freshman engineering major. IMO, more than a Python class would.

this. the number of physics PhDs appears to exceed the number of physics research jobs. I've worked with several people with Physics PhDs, all of whom found their eventual careers writing fairly mathy software (numerical minimization, physical simulations, and similar). Honestly, they were really great at it. But they weren't doing physics. re: oversupply of PhDs in every field...about 20% of the engineers I work with have CS PhDs and we heavily recruit from all the major universities in the US. PhD in CompSci is very marketable. Most don't end up doing research, but rather the more advanced/difficult portions of commercial software engineering. You can usually get into those roles w/o a PhD, but it sometimes takes longer.

music theatre here. we were mostly un-prepared for the insanity that is auditions. He ended up in a BA program, which was not what he wanted. He 100% loves it, though. He joined the top-lvl choir (got in as a freshman! woot!) and loves his voice coach. They're recording videos of their performances (can't watch live) and it's amusing. 40 kids in a gym-sized room, each at last 8' from anyone else, all wearing 'singing masks' (they stickout from your face and make you look like a duck). OTOH, there isn't any music theater going on pretty much anywhere in the world right now and no idea when that will return. His plan includes a MS in music pedagogy (teaching) if the world is still without performances 18 months from now. or maybe even if it is. we'll have to see.

replies to various of the above.... - Waterloo - totally great place for a CS degree. Especially good for design automation. great choice. - it MOSTLY won't matter what language you learn right now. you're going to have used 3-6 before you graduate and another 2-5 in your first 5 years on the job. the first one is the hardest, mostly because you're learning how to program (think). syntax is the easy part. that said... - don't pick Javascript. It's a horrid language and as the name implies it's more a scripting language than a 'real' language. I'd pick Python. Secondly Java. If you're feeling adventurous then something like GO. +1 for the Michigan coursera class. but again, the class is more important than the specific language. - bias heavily towards something with an actual human who provides feedback. writing code that successfully implements the program (what's checked in automatic classes) is not the same as writing a program that anyone else can read, that's debuggable, than can be easily extended or adapted (even by you). For that, you need a human who gives you feedback. - don't expect that this gives you that much of a leg up once you get to university, or that it's required to get in and succeed. First programming language is usually just a 1 semester class freshman year. Again, syntax is the easy part. Understanding what to program is 99% of a CS degree.

me too. I entered the PhD program (CompSci) and bailed out mid-way. I didn't intend to ever teach, and the job opportunity came along that was the PhD was supposed to enable, so that's what I did. No regrets. At least a the time, my advisor was very hesitant to take on PhD students who already had a MS. He had MS students, but they were handled differently. 100% of his PhD students had paid research assistant positions (grant funded). He didn't want new PhD students who already had a MS because you didn't expect them to be there long enough to make it worth it. If you got someone in w/ just a BS you could expect they'd be around for 5-6 years - long enough to take that paid RA position and do some really significant, long-term, research projects. From a hiring prospective, now that I'm on the corporate side of things, I can't imagine an MS in the same field as a PhD making any difference. If you had an MS in some other field I suppose it might. I do run across engineering PhDs who also have an MBA occasionally, and that's useful. But good lord that's a lot of schooling. I'm certain I wouldn't want to go down that road.

nm.

yeah...BC is usually described as 2nd half of freshman year calc...but in practice, there just isn't that much in there. It's mostly series (taylor and otherwise), some more convergence patterns, and parametric equations. To me, it just sort of feels like little bits thrown on top and every so slightly 'more' of the other topics. To be clear - NOTHING BAD will happen if you take AB one year and BC the next. But I also don't think a full year is required. If this DC is headed to be an engineer then yes - there is more calculus (and other mathy-things) in the future. As general guidance, if your calc came from AP classes then I suggest re-taking the freshman calc courses @ the 4-year college, regardless of how you do on the AP exams. Actual college math classes, IME, are different. Less 'here is a theorem and how you apply it' and more 'you have just watched me derive a theorem or technique. Now that you fully understand it (because you watched me derive it, therefore all aspects of it are self-evident), all application of this are exercises left up to the reader, and some such applications will appear for the first time on some future exam'. I found having my first real college math class be in a topic I thought I already understood was pretty helpful. lin-alg pre-req's are generally fairly light, but do check. +1 on AoPS classes. Also - and this is not easy to find unless you have access to a university, but I found discrete math and graph theory to be super fun and the pre-req's are light. I cannot fully justify that opinion - you just never know what will float your boat.

also - I should have asked along w/ the above....you said 'after college'. What was the degree, and are you sure that's not sufficient for the target job?

"her goal is an engineering degree." what kind of engineering degree? Anything except CompSci will require chem and it's helpful to have seen it before your freshman college chem class. Even with a CompSci degree, if you end up at a place that is more 'computer engineering' or decide to look at computer architecture then you'll take basic EE classes....and you're back to needing chem. I suggest the chem <shrug>. If it helps, I highly recommend https://clovervalleychemistry.com/ Also - why 2 years for physics? Engineering physics will require calculus, and I'm unconvinced you win that much by going through no-calc physics one year and then doing it again with calculus the next.

there is a massive range in what you might mean by an IT certification. The job prospects enabled by this will, likewise, vary quite a lot. 1/ understand, going in, that this is more a 'trade school' approach than, say, a compSci degree. It's not a back-door or alternative path to sw engineering jobs. 2/ this is a super (and I mean SUPER) fast moving thing. It's not like, say, going to welding school where the skills you learn will be valid for years or plausibly your career. Knowing what was current a year or two ago gives you a huge leg up on learning what's being used now, but the information turnover rate is fast. That's totally fine - it just means you need to plan to make this an ongoing and forever thing. Honestly, that's true in many careers. 3/ I think this is a place to work backwards from the goal. Find some jobs - specific jobs at specific companies - that are interesting and understand what's required. There are some really great careers down this path. picking up on what JanetC mentioned, I've seen people get AWS certs and then get jobs w/ companies that help other companies migrate to the web. That can be pretty interesting and pay quite well. But, find jobs that would be great to land and then understand exactly what they require.

(AP) CalcBC after CalcAB seems like not that much. They are just not THAT different. If DC understood and did well in AB then it seems like a month of 'here's the stuff that's in BC but not AB' and you'd be good and ready to move on. So, then, what's next? IMO, this is an opportunity to be interest driven. Stats (not nesc AP) is super useful for understanding data and the world around you and is directly applicable to anything in the biological or social sciences as well as compSci and other topics that someone taking calculus as a sophomore might find interesting. linear algebra is also a reasonable next step and super useful - definitely in the physical sciences, but also machine learning. If you have the math (basic lin alg will do), ML is actually pretty approachable. It's crazy how simplistic most of it actually is compared to what people are doing with it. and if nothing else, there's always MORE calculus (diffeq? multi-variat?). (wheee. :/)

is there evidence of freshmen dropping? Anyone else seen evidence of that?

sounds like we should expect last-minute decisions. DS's college has a 'january-term'...usually 4wks long, students take 1 class. That seems likely to cancelled or moved to the end of the year. Many students do travel-abroad classes for that term and those have all been cancelled or moved to June. So J-term won't be a thing. But it's unclear if the regular spring term will wait till early Feb to start, or they're going to pull that in. Sounds likely spring break will be cancelled....but no official word yet. Classes will remain hydrid? we think? We usually plan things like travel and classes and events SO far ahead. oh well.

I wonder how much it matters, practically speaking. A new laptop with the same specs of one you got 4 years ago is going to be pretty inexpensive. If you're presented with a 'pay for the original cost to keep it' offer, you should definitely decline.

It can be. Amazon self-selects for people willing to self-regulate. No one is going to say to you 'it's Friday at 8:45 - go home'. Your boss is likely to ask for things that are unreasonable on unrealistic timelines. It's a very transparent and customer-connected company, so you'll be aware of the impact of not delivering on customers. It's not that your boss is un-caring, but rather the expectation is that you're an adult and can make your own decisions and will just say 'I can't do that by Wednesday' if, in fact, you reasonably can't. And that'll be OK. The team will adapt and just do something else. But the request will come and it's on you to say no. People who are uncomfortable with that tend to burn out fairly quickly.

thanks for the ping - I probably wouldn't have seen this otherwise. Yes, as Arcadia mentioned, I work for Amazon. I'm in the cloud computing (AWS) portion of the company, but my background includes a number of topics relevant to ops research (the modeling / optimization problems that are used in planning logistics), so I've done some work with with the retail logistics teams as well. OP (or anyone else), please feel free to DM me w/ questions. re: the original post... "DH graduated from school long ago, but last year finished a Masters in Logistics. He's worked for the same aerospace company since before DS was born (and he's 21.) Last night, he noticed Amazon is hiring management." A thing to keep in mind in looking at AMZN jobs : Amazon has a very well-established 'two track' career progression and emphasizes the notion that all senior (and most mid-level) people are 'leaders'. I find this often doesn't match expectations for people, especially those coming in from more old-school tech industries. First-line managers look heavily for skills in 1/ hiring and developing people 2/ project management with enough of a technical nose to point the team in the right direction. Same-level individual contributors are usually expected to be the source of project roadmap (in combination with PMs, not generally management), tech leadership, and mentoring of more junior engineers, and similar. For example, it's very rare for someone without direct people management experience to be hired into any people management role. It makes sense - you can't really answer any of the interview questions you'll get because you haven't done that job. Instead, first-time managers (at least in my portion of the company) are lateral moves from solid-performing, mid-level (generally 'senior' not 'principle') engineers or product managers (a biz-dev role). More senior management roles start looking more and more like running the business side of a business. Such people generally have very senior ICs (engineers and PMs) reporting to them that actually define what should be built or offered. One can absolutely have a rewarding, well-paying, high-influence career without actually having anyone report to them. Comp is effectively the same for same-lvl IC and management roles. Unlike many other companies / industries, having the organization report to you isn't the same as determining what it does. So - the first thing for DH to consider is if he wants a management role, under Amazon's definition of management, or if he wants a senior IC role. I can say with confidence that both are available. Amazon is hiring in a large number of locations for pretty-much every role.

well...the end of week-2 on campus. So far, so good. Infection rates are reported to be low (though, the state's are rising rapidly, so I don't imagine that'll last). Masks are mandatory everywhere and DS reports essentially 100% compliance. He's making fewer friends, and it's harder to spend time with them, because the usual start-of-year/new-freshman activities were all cancelled. But he does seem to have found some peeps, and honestly DS isn't super people/friend focused. Half of his classes are fully online, the rest are hybrid with the exception of a dance class. Voice lessons are being done remotely - he's in a practice room by himself w/ a laptop and a mic the school requested he get and the teacher is in some other room. He LOVES his voice teacher, so that seems to be working. The students are doing a lot of janitorial services. 🙂 wiping down desks, the floor in the dance hall, etc. He seems happy to be on campus. We're headed to visit one day this weekend and won't be able to eat with him in the cafeteria or enter his dorm. We'll just picnic on the lawn someplace. At least it's still warmish. The local big state school has just cancelled spring break - they'll go straight from one term to the next. I kinda expect we'll see more of that.

PAH's AP PhysicsC offering has changed a bit. There are 2 teachers. Jeff Lanctot uses Physics for Scientists and Engineers (Vol 1), 4th edition by Giancoli and offers both a year-long mechanics and a combo for mech + E&M. Dr. Jack Kernion also teaches both the year-long Mechanics and a combo class. He uses University Physics Volume 1, OpenStax Collection, Rice University. This is essentially the same class he offers directly through physics-prep, but with some additional live classes, class chat sessions and similar.

We live not too far from Kenosha, and DW went to college there. Recent protests seem to be mostly peaceful, though it sounds like there are federal agents (DHS) coming in, so there's fear of the same kind of unmarked-car/un-ID'd-officer abductions that happened in Portland. It's unclear exactly what we're going to do, TBH. DS is strongly sympathetic with the BLM protests, but is also planning on taking 19 hours this term so honestly - he won't have much time anyway.

Move-in day was supposed to be Sunday. The college just pushed it back a week (classes were to be all online the first week anyway, so no class schedule change, just move-in day). DS is headed to college in Kenosha, WI. This past week there have been protests and riots and out of state, right-wing nut-jobs with long guns shooting people out of some declared sense of vigilante justice. Pushing back move-in date was the right call here. Kenosha is not a big place and this is scary. The campus is pretty self-contained, but it's also only 3 miles from where the 17-yo kid shot 3 people. <sigh> anxiety is high here.

DS's college suggested 30, which he's taking. DD16 did her EagleScout project coordinating the construction and distribution of reusable/washable cloth masks to various community groups (churches, daycares, a women's shelter, and the general public). All told, she + team made and distributed ~1600 cloth masks. https://eagleabby.wixsite.com/abby has links to the patterns used + detailed instructions and how-to videos. (https://4fbf9280-895f-4488-9f71-538553b85597.filesusr.com/ugd/5c88d0_442bda68539e410c918541adcd4ba03e.pdf is the best fittest mask instruction, imo). They're pretty easy to sew if you have a machine. a yard of fabric will get you 10 of the fitted ones, in whatever fun print you like. It's easy enough that a half-dozen scouts, including some boys, who have never sewn were able to make 100s.

masks are required everywhere, and you change the frequently. the school suggested you bring 30 reusable/washable masks. cause apparently no one does laundry. <shrug> You're supposed to wear them all the time when not in your room (I'm totally fine with that policy, fwiw). just today, 100% shuffle of class times and days. no change to onsite vs not, but all at totally new times. who knows. it will definitely be interesting.

yeah - that would be easy. Some practical application of ML on public datasets, for example. (train a predictor for local county covid infection rates would be easy to setup and relevant)

I've never seen it described that way, but...sure. There's only a few extra units in a BC vs an AB class, and they aren't _all_ at the tail end, so I doubt they're really splitting it that way. year-long AP Calc BC is what you want, so you're good there. interesting. I didn't realize PAH offered a full-year micro. I've more commonly seen people take the macro as a full year, but there's no reason you cant do micro first. That will likely not be a ton of work. Which might be good. re: USH. many states and high schools have a year of USHistory or USH/Gov as a graduation requirement, and it's commonly taken Jr year. Especially if you're considering going back next year, I'd look into that requirement. The APUSH course will, IME, be quite a bit more work than a year long micro-Econ course. I don't know if you can still get in or not, but Susan Richman's APUSH class @ PAH is fabulous if you decide to go that way. It's starting nowish.