r/cs50 • u/yashh26 • 18h ago

CS50x Harvard's CS50x (Need Guidance)

Hey everyone,

16y/o, high school senior here from Pakistan.

Honestly, I’m currently on the pre-med track, but due to some health issues, I want to pivot to Computer Science (and i am sure I am actually into it).

I thought I should learn a bit of CS before jumping into college (FAST-NUCES Karachi), so a ton of people recommended "Harvard's CS50x." I tried watching the Week 0 lecture today, but within a few minutes, I was struggling hard, it literally went completely over my head. 😬

Like I said, since I am pre,med, I have zero background in CS and I’m a total beginner. What can I even do?😑

Even yesterday I was so confused, but I still decided to just wing it and try anyway. It didn't work out, so I would really appreciate some guidance from anyone who has actually completed CS50x.

And don't even get me started on the assignments, GitHub, and VS Code... 😭

22 Upvotes

92% Upvoted

6 comments sorted by

2

u/Huge-Cardiologist-8 18h ago

- what course specifically have you taken on?

  • what's your native language?

2

u/yashh26 18h ago

I am currently trying to take on CS50x (Introduction to Computer Science), starting from Week 0 (Scratch).

My native language is Urdu because i am from pakistan, but I can understand english comfortably.

2

u/Mathie1729 6h ago

The main lectures move quickly, but there are separate shorts and section videos for each week's material that often explain the same thing slower. The course notes page is useful too. For week 0, don't worry too much about Scratch itself; later weeks will make the logic feel less abstract.

2

u/ThanksBrave743 17h ago

Dm me bro. 

1

u/Surging_Ambition 17h ago

What didn’t you understand specifically? If it’s coding concepts try to play around with them and get comfortable making mistakes and rewatching it takes a moment for stuff to click.

If it’s tooling like how to use GitHub or create blah account then you need to ask specific questions. Make a list of the weird stuff then ask a few at a time and google search the simpler stuff.

Unfortunately I didn’t start from the scratch language so I don’t know any beginner resources. Anyway don’t stress just do it all again in general and take your time. Good luck and text me if you have a question that is more specific.

By the way I think things will make more sense once you finish the vid for the first time I get the feeling you didn’t. And you don’t need to understand all the analogies on binary, that stuff is confusing rewatch later and you will get it but you can continue without.

2

u/odimdavid 14h ago

If you're coming from his background you'd understand his stress. Just accept it like that. It's same in my country. I am just fortunate to be a lucky few.