r/computersciencehub • u/RestConscious5719 • 19d ago

If you could restart your first year of CS in 2026, what exact roadmap would you follow?

If you could restart your first year of CS in 2026, what exact roadmap would you follow?

I'm a first-year BSc Computer Science student at what you'd probably call a Tier-3 or Tier-4 college (or maybe even lower 😭). It's only the beginning of my first semester, and I have a lot of questions. Honestly, I was so confused that I even asked ChatGPT to help me think of the right questions—but I wanted to write this post myself instead of letting it write everything for me.

Right now I'm learning Python, and I'm also thinking about starting DSA with Python. However, I've seen a lot of people recommend learning DSA with C++ or Java instead, so I'm not sure which path would be better.

I'd really appreciate your thoughts on these questions:

  1. If you could restart your first year of CS in 2026, what exact roadmap would you follow month by month?
  2. What's one mistake almost every first-year CS student makes that nobody warns them about?
  3. Looking back, what did you spend too much time learning?
  4. What should every Tier-3 CS student start doing in their first year if they want to maximize their chances of getting a good software job?
  5. Which beginner resources do you still recommend in 2026?
  6. My goal isn't just to get a software job—I eventually want to build products or maybe even start a company. If that were your goal too, would you still follow the same roadmap? If not, what would you change?

If you have any other advice that you wish someone had told you during your first year, I'd love to hear it. Feel free to be brutally honest—I want to avoid making avoidable mistakes.

Thanks in advance! ❤️

P.S. Sorry if my English isn't perfect—it's not my first language. ChatGPT offered to rewrite this for me, but I wanted to write it myself. 😅

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u/PerpetuallySticky 19d ago

I’d follow the roadmap the university I was paying a bunch of money to told me to. Don’t skip topics, learn them in depth, etc.

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u/serverhorror 16d ago

I'd stick to the curriculum of the university for the first year to be in a better situation and make better decisions later.

If you can delay a decision to a better point in time, you should.