I’ve reviewed Lectures 1 and 2 of the Intro to Computer Science MIT OCW (Open Course Ware) course, and that went well.  It especially made more sense after doing the readings, and helped to enforce the information.  I would highly suggest it.  

I would also highly suggest to NOT do the readings before watching the lectures they are about.  I tried to get through a bunch of the readings, to make sure I was caught up, and then read a bit ahead so I had more of an idea of what I was going into during Lecture 3..  Which, it feels like Lectures 1-3 readings are not organized correctly considering what he’s talking about in the lectures.  This could also be attributed to my lack of understanding in the materials, as this is my first time through a programming language.

Anyways, this compounded the issue, as I was trying to do the readings along with the lectures, and then a bit extra.  Since they seemed to be disorganized I ended up reading more ahead than I had wished for, and then getting even more confused when I tried to do one of the suggested exercises in the readings and just sat there with my head in my hands totally confused.  Finally I decided that I would go back and just try watching lecture 3 leisurely so that I could just try to get a sense as to what he was talking about.  Hoping that the lecture would stave off my confusion.  It has helped.  However as I need to learn this information and be able to implement and use it, I get the feeling that I will be reviewing some of these lectures, and re-reading the assigned texts until my eyes start to crust over.  

I know that this lecture series is 24 episodes long (a semester), and I know that it will be a bit before I can feel a bit more confident about taking random stabs at creating some code.  At this point all I can do is feel like I’m scratching at the bit (ah my ridiculous mixed metaphors), but know that I really don’t have enough footing to even take off.  

Well, back to more lecture review.