What to do this Summer - Part 1

As-Salam Alaikom,

This is Amr Samir, student in FCI Cairo University.
Welcome to my blog. Hope you enjoy it.

(Warning: Some of the links I place in my blog may contain some bad pictures. I'm not responsible for these ads. I suggest using Mozilla Firefox + Adblock plus so you remove all the ads in the websites.)


How many understood the title of the blog? Its taken from "the 7 habits of highly effective people". The author of the book, Steven R. Covey said (as far as I remember):

"Its important to do things right, but whats more important is to do the right things"

So my blog is about doing right things/stuff in life.

So I was thinking, what should the first topic be?
Well, summer vacation has started for some and about to for others, and summer vacation is the perfect opportunity to waste 2 or 3 months of your life :|

Should I plan for my Summer?

Yes, you should. Planning can never hurt. Just make your plan flexible and don't forget to add rest and fun to your plan.

So, what do I do in Summer?

There are millions of things you can do. If anyone is feeling they don't need to do anything, just read this blog and think again.
I know some people have stuff that they are forced to do (such as summer course, family visits etc. ). You should still do something in your summer. There is always time for another thing.

All the things I mention are just examples to get you started. If people have any suggestion please tell me.

Ok lets start:

Knowledge

1. Soft skills:
What:
a. team work
b. time management
c. communication skills
d. presentation skills
e. Interview skills

How:
a. Read "The 7 habits of highly effective people"
b. Watch videos of Dr. Ibrahim el-Feky, Dr. Tareq Al-Suwaidan etc.
c. Watch "The Last Lecture" and "Time Management Lecture" by Randy Pausch
d. Watch videos from day 0 and day 1 here
e. Join a community and make presentations and communicate with companies

2. Language skills:
What:
a. Reading: this is the most critical English skill you need. If you have trouble reading textbooks or reading this blog, then you need it.
b. Writing: You will have to write in your job, in your projects and in your graduation project.
c. Listening: There are many lectures on Computer Science online, and there are no subtitles (targama).

How:
a. Excellent book + course teaching English pronunciation
b. Take an English course at a respectable place (Birlitz, British Council, AUC, AmidEast)
c. See online English courses, the internet can teach you anything.

3. Computer Science Topics:
What:
There are too many things to learn to fit in this page :)

How:
a. ACM/TopCoder:
This is one of the best ways to learn programming and problem solving skills.
ACM also teaches you a lot of soft skills such as team work and strategies.
You can either join the summer training, or work alone, which is harder but still possible.
If you want to get started, make an account on SPOJ and start solving problems.

b. Online courses
Many universities across the world are putting their lectures on the internet for free. You can find almost all courses, starting from introduction to computers, to advanced stuff, explained really well online.
Where can I find them?
i. MIT OCW : 1900 course with videos, exams, assignments etc.
ii. Youtube : you wont believe number of lectures on youtube
iii. Google : just search for the topic + " course" and you will be amazed by the results
iv. Wikibooks : a large library of computer science books

c. Doing projects
You can plan to do software projects with your friends or alone. Try to learn as much as you can while making this project. Make sure you don't use pre-made code and libraries, learn doing things from scratch. Some examples of projects I thought of:
i. Doing the Database final project with mySQL and Java instead of C#
ii. Making a web site or web application that allows people working on a project to communicate together.
iii. Making a game using XNA game studio
Also, while working on a project, learn to use some of the Project management techniques used in software companies such as Agile software development (see first video from day 3 here)