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Seems like a couple of things going on here: one, how you are feeling, and two, how to make real friends. First, if you are willing to try reading a "self-help" book to feel better then I would recommend the book Feeling Good by David Burns. He basically identifies simple ways to get passed typical thoughts we all have that cause us to feel bad so we can start feeling better. It helped me a lot when I needed it and I've never really gone back to feeling bad the way I used to. I used to talk myself into feeling bad but now that I'm aware of how I was doing that, I know how to avoid it. If you are not into self-help books then just forget it.

Second, making "real" friends is more complicated because there is no checklist to know if someone fits in the real friend category. Each friend is unique and you kinda have to take them as they are. Think about this, everyone in the world is just trying to figure things out like everyone else. No one but God (you said you're religious) really knows what life is all about--even your parents. The saddest and loneliest person, and the person who seems to have it all together, each one is just doing their best to make it in this world. We are all the same in that way. Knowing that everyone struggles helps me realize that everyone needs "real" friends just as bad as I do.

That leads me to some actions that I take that help me make friends (some friends are closer than others). I try to treat people kindly knowing that they are struggling in the world too. Even people who are annoying or I don't really like that much. I know they have troubles too so I try to be nice, smile, hold the door for them, pick up something they dropped, whatever. When you're kind to other people that way, it can actually make you feel better about yourself as a human being--especially if you are NOT expecting to get anything in return. It doesn't mean these people are going to be your friend. But you would be surprised about one thing. Other people will notice that you are a kind person and most people want to be friends with kind people. Don't you? Also, when you are happy with yourself for being kind, it can actually make you feel better about yourself. People will notice that too, that you are happy with the kind person your are. After that, friendship depends on how much time you spend with each other talking, eating meals, playing games, whatever. If you don't spend time doing things together, it is not possible to become real friends. The more time you spend together doing things, the better friends you will be.

I'm glad you wrote this. Obviously you are not suffering alone. We are all just trying to make it in this world. It's nice that we can help each other out a little bit.

I would say that it's difficult for most students. Getting an A is certainly not impossible, but it is going to take a lot of work. I took it with Truman and I sat in on some of Manning's office hours so I can only really speak to those two professors.

If you've never seen proofs before, then I would suggest getting an introductory textbook and working out of it over the summer. A really good one that I recommend is How to Prove It by Daniel Velleman. Since 310 is an introductory course, you don't necessarily need to be familiar with proofs beforehand. But it will definitely make the transition much easier. Even a basic understanding of elementary logic and basic proof strategies will be helpful. The book I recommended goes at a much slower pace than I think is warranted, but it can be very helpful nonetheless.

If you have experience writing proofs, then the transition into the class shouldn't be too bad. But be warned that the class may be more rigorous than you're used to. If you've taken a class like CMSC250, you should keep in mind that my opinion, as well as that of everyone I know who's taken both classes, is that MATH310 requires much more time and patience.

Kate is an awesome professor. She does a good job of conveying the material and she makes expectations very clear. The homeworks are definitely on the long side and I often found myself using other resources, both online and from textbooks, to get an intuition for how to solve problems. With that said, the exams were easier than the homework assignments. That's not to say that the exams were easy, just easier than other assignments.

While I can't speak to how good Dr. Manning is as an educator, I can say that, without a doubt, his exams were much more difficult. I got a glimpse of one of his midterms and I tried to use his finals from the testbank to practice for our own final. It always seemed that his problems were a step up in difficulty from Kate's.

All I know about Dr. Williams and Dr. Halperin is what is readily accessible from the usual sources.

First off, from a fellow transfer student, Welcome to UMD!

You'll be fine with your preparation so far. A lot of people go into 131 with little or no programming experience and do fine, and you'll already have a leg up on them.
I would download eclipse at http://www.eclipse.org and start looking through the textbook from the beginning.
Here is the class web pages list for the CS department: https://www.cs.umd.edu/class/
You can find course webpages for nearly every course offered there. Many have lecture slides and projects that you can look through and work on. Many will possibly be reused for your class. Some (NOT all) are password protected, just skip them.

The best thing about Java (IMHO) is the publicly available documentation. C has next to none, Ruby's is always missing stuff or has incorrect info. The java documentation is really well-done though.
If you haven't used Java before, the javadoc for Java SE 7 can be found here: http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/
Get used to navigating it. The different "packages" are easy to navigate in the top left frame. In my 131 class I think the only ones we used were in java.lang and java.util.

For any math reqs you still need, I'd advise learning all the material beforehand, the math dept. is notorious for having some TAs that are cruel graders.

A note on books...I've taken 131/132/216/250/330/351, and not once has the "required" book actually been needed in the class. The 132 book I used http://www.amazon.com/Data-Structures-Abstraction-Design-Using/dp/0470128704/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1374108009&sr=1-4&keywords=data+structures was a useful reference to have for Java, but It mostly covers data structures which aren't used as much in 131. 216's Pointers on C was fairly useful as well.
The Association for Women in Computing group on campus does book sales, w/ textbooks for $5-$10 each. Never anything assigned for a class, but it's a good place to get a cheap book for a language/topic you're interested in or as a supplement.

If you're interested in Artificial Intelligence and have room on your schedule, I highly recommend taking CMSC289I w/ Dr. Reggia. There's no programming experience required and it's an excellent overview of AI concepts.

Well, that's all I've got.

1. I typically spend about $200/mo. on groceries, almost all at Costco, but I eat a lot, so YMMV. To be on the safe side, put down $250/mo. for groceries when you're doing your budget.
   
   
2. When I was sharing groceries and cooking duties with roommates, we'd cook dinner and eat leftovers at lunch. I usually grabbed lunch from Stamp on the days I had class, and one of my roommates would pack some leftovers to reheat.
   
   
3. Costco is the shit for groceries, everything's pretty high-quality and fresh, and cheap as hell. I don't know what I'd do without their freezer-ready packs of chicken and ground beef/turkey. Also, they sell 1lb resealable bags of precooked bacon... mmm, bacon....
   
   
4. If you've never really cooked before, buy How to Cook Everything. It's a really great book, complete with all kinds of recipes, and there are sections in the beginning that you can learn a lot from - knife skills, differences between cuts of meat, tips for grocery shopping, the tools and spices you should stock your kitchen with, etc... It's a really invaluable book IMO. Find some recipes you like and rotate between them.
   
   
5. The biggest tip for grocery shopping is to know what you're going to cook for the week beforehand, so you know what to get and how much. This will cut down on waste and save you money.
   
   Here's a really easy recipe that I've been making this semester with ingredients you can get all at Costco that's pretty versatile. I call it "clusterfuck rice":
   
   Ingredients
   
   

• .5lb pre-cooked bacon, chopped
  
• 1 pack ground turkey (~1.7lb, 80/20 lean)
  
• 1 pack chicken breast (~1.3lb), cubed
  
• 3 cups rice dry
  
• Your choice of produce (try any combination of onions, bell peppers, mushrooms, green beans, broccoli, carrots, snap peas, asparagus)
  
• Seasoning (curry powder-pepper-salt, paprika-garlic powder-cayenne-salt, cumin-paprika-garlic powder-cayenne-salt are ones I like)
  
  
  Directions
  
  

1. Slice and dice produce, sautee in a large pot
   
2. Start boiling 3.5-4 cups of water (adjust for amount and type of rice as needed)
   
3. Lightly brown chicken in another pan (don't cook all the way through), add to pot and stir
   
4. Lightly brown turkey and toss in bacon towards the end, add to pot and stir
   
5. Add dry rice to pot and stir thoroughly
   
6. When water boils, add seasonings to pot, and slowly add all the water
   
7. Turn heat back up to medium-high, stir consistently, waiting until water comes to a boil again
   
8. Once water boils, turn heat down to medium-low, cover pot, stir every 5-10 minutes for 30-60 minutes.
   
   
   Macros:
   
   

• ~5000 kcal
  
• ~150g fat
  
• ~500g carb
  
• ~400g protein
  
  This lasts me about 4 meals usually, but I'm a weightlifter and eat a ton, so if you're splitting food with roommates, this should feed the whole apartment for dinner and whoever wants to take leftovers for lunch.
  

Since you're starting a Java programming course in two weeks, I'd recommend this one.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0071809252/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

It's one of the books I own. Admittedly this is not the book I would normally give to a complete novice in programming, but I think it's the best for the situation. It's a pretty fat book and full of knowledge, but it assumes the reader has some sort of technical background. It doesn't do much to help you visualize it in other ways. However it gets straight to the point, is fairly clear, and is ordered well. If you can understand the material in the first 3 chapters before the start of your class I think you will be very well off.

I have had many high end sets of headphones, but my current favorite right now would have to be my Bose in ears. (I bought them for 75 I think.)

To be honest the sound quality isn't fantastic, but the rubber molds that go in your ears are FANTASTIC. I couldn't care less if these were Bose headphones, but someone had a good idea and brought it to fruition. =)

I think that Bose headphones tend to be pretty solid, its their stereo speakers that really get to me. They just sound so small and lack depth of sound. Bose headphones are understandable. Bose speakers...eh.

Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (CPR) gets taught very rarely in this department. The department recognizes the need to have a course on Kant's CPR (or, alternatively, on Kant's shorter version of the CPR, his "Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics"), but the Maryland philosophy department (a) doesn't have many faculty who work on the history of philosophy, and (b) those faculty who do work in the history of philosophy either do work on ancient philosophy (Rachel Singpurwalla, Quinn Harr, Kelsey Gipe) or on Spinoza and other historical Jewish philosophers (Charles Manekin).

Sam Kerstein of course does work on historical Kant, but Sam's focus and interests in Kant is fairly exclusively directed towards Kant's moral philosophy. This is why Sam teaches a 400-level class on Kant's Groundwork every other year or so.

The upshot is that I am the first person to teach a course on Kant's CPR at this department in many years (6+). I'll probably teach the course again either next school year or, if not next year, then the following year. Unfortunately, that sounds like it might be too late for you (from what you've said, it sounds like you graduate this year).

Fortunately, I would argue that it is better for you to have taken a class on Kant's Groundwork before you graduate than Kant's CPR. Kant's ethics is more important to contemporary philosophy than his epistemology and metaphysics. That being said, I do hope you decide to give the CPR a read on your own time someday or at least read a secondary source on Kant that covers the important content from the CPR in detail.

If you decide to read Kant's CPR on your own, let me recommend some resources. First, I'd suggest you watch the following two videos about Hume and the following three videos on Kant as background (although, unfortunately there isn't a video connecting Kant to Hume through how Kant's CPR is in large part a response to Hume's skepticism):

• Hume's Skepticism 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QpUrSn3cWU
  
• Hume's Skepticism 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPlNsyXl-0c
  
• Kant's CPR 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZtQXteAE-w
  
• Kant's CPR 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQnG0fyEr_w
  
• Kant's CPR 3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQnG0fyEr_w
  
  You might want to also read one general secondary source on Kant's whole philosophical system before the CPR. Here are a few suggestions to pick one from - all accessible to a upper-level undergraduate student or graduate student. I am not sure which one would be best to recommend:
  
  
• Paul Guyer's Kant https://www.amazon.com/Kant-Routledge-Philosophers-Paul-Guyer/dp/0415843456/ref=sr_1_22?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1504276067&sr=1-22&keywords=kant
  
• Roger Scruton's Kant: A Very Short Introduction https://www.amazon.com/Kant-Short-Introduction-Roger-Scruton/dp/0192801996/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1504276050&sr=1-4&keywords=kant
  
• Allen Wood's Kant https://www.amazon.com/Kant-Allen-W-Wood/dp/0631232826/ref=sr_1_27?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1504276277&sr=1-27&keywords=kant
  
  There are also several specific secondary sources aimed at upper-level undergraduates and graduate students that specifically cover Kant's CPR. One of these might be useful to have besides you as you read the CPR for those times you get lost:
  
  
• https://www.amazon.com/Routledge-Philosophy-GuideBook-Critique-GuideBooks/dp/041511909X/ref=sr_1_12?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1504276632&sr=1-12&keywords=kant+critique+of+pure+reason
  
• https://www.amazon.com/Kants-Critique-Pure-Reason-Introductions/dp/0521618258/ref=pd_sim_14_34?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=DTHDDSHZVAW06VE9RC48
  
• https://www.amazon.com/Accessing-Kant-Relaxed-Introduction-Critique/dp/0199275823/ref=pd_sim_14_11?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=AZ7XQ4TK2FHQPD91321D

If you're serious about going into computer science, I would strongly recommend taking a mathematics course, just to get you thinking logically. (You're going to end up taking 250, but still, it's incredibly helpful)

I'm not going to mention the coursework partly because /u/lordlicorice does a good job already and partly because I'm also a freshman like you, and I can't really advise anything from experience. I'd just suggest reading Introduction to Algorithms, which is a pretty well-known book to get started. I've also picked up Cracking the Coding Interview, just to help with some tech internships I want to get into. (My professor implied sometime back that you should have at least 330 before considering internships, but some of my friends have done some even before 216)

I was on Ellicott floor 7. The heat was sweltering some days. Here are some solutions I used:

• Find a friend in La Plata
  
• Spend a lot of time in the ERC/Diner/Outside
  
• The mini portable fans don't really work. Use one anyway for mental comfort.
  
• Big cups of ice from The Diner
  
• Cool down cold-packs in your floor's fridge
  
• Big, big box fan. We had one that looked like this https://www.amazon.com/Holmes-HBF2010A-WM-Metal-20-Inch-White/dp/B0037W4YD2
  
• Remember that people before you went through this and it sucked, but they survived. I very clearly remember how bad the first few weeks were.
  
  Some people get fancy and hook up water buckets in front of their fans and other things. I don't remember any of that made a difference, apart from having a really high volume fan. You know, one that sounds like a plane taking off at all times.

I would grab the 410 textbook and start reading chapter 1 (first 2 sections) and chapter 2 (first 4 sections). Chapter 2, especially section 2.1, should be a pretty good indicator of your ability to succeed in 410. If you can follow the proofs and reproduce them on your own, you'll probably be fine without 310.

Read this before you buy anything! I had Mazzullo last semester for STAT400. We did not need a WebAssign code, and it was honestly never mentioned in class, so I have no idea what it's even good for if you have her. This is listed as recommended, not required, for all sections, so you most likely don't need it. Only buy WebAssign if your professor is grading homework for credit through it!

The textbook (listed as required for all sections) is a custom version that just has the first half of the book (which is all that's used in STAT400). One of the later classes requires the whole book. This is the full book, and you can either rent it on Amazon ($30 right now) or "borrow" a digital copy from LibGen depending on your preferences.

Let me know if you have any other questions about the class.

I don't know why you're getting downvoted.

Unless you want to learn programming and what it entails (algorithms and data structures), this is fine. A course, in all honesty, would be too slow. The majority of the material in the codeacademy course, it appears, is covered in the official Python tutorial, which goes even further in depth. Here's to save you googling:

• The Official guide for Python 2
  
• The Standard Style Conventions
  
• Before anything, INSTALL conda, pip is waaaay too much of a hassle
  
  Now, if you want to learn programming at an intern's level for example, Goodrich's book is a good start.

I had a free one I picked up at Maryland Day last year, but it ripped within a week or two. I bought a pack on Amazon that is way sturdier.

If you buy one instead of using a free campus one, I strongly suggest getting on with 3M adhesive on the back.

https://www.reddit.com/r/UMD/comments/5jl020/how_to_prepare_for_cmsc330_and_cmsc351/

---

Key thing to understanding OCaml and functional programming is Lambda Calculus, which I'm pretty sure you will cover in 330.

As for 351, it's really hard to say what to do to prepare as it's less concrete, as what helped me the most was discussing the concepts and going over the homework with my tutor (so find a study group if you can). All I can do is give you some playlists. Also I used "Intoduction to Algorithms - A Creative Approach, by Udi Manber" when I took 351. I mean, I think CLRS is a great book, but I think it's a bit overkill for 351. I mainly used it in 451. I mean, stuff like maximum bipartite matching and maximum cut is in there, but you won't encounter those in 351, only in 451.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEbnTDJUr_IeHYw_sfBOJ6gk5pie0yP-0
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUX6FBiUa2g4YWs6HkkCpXL6ru02i7y3Q
https://www.youtube.com/user/Coderisland/videos
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTZbNwgO5eboxncIsmq95u_4nCtyziLKX
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHZifpgyH_4

If you want to make a videogame, you could use what you know from Java and make a game with libGDX, or join the Game Developers Club and work on a team to make a game. Games are good projects to show to possible employers.

A lot of internships at small local companies wont have super crazy tech interviews, but I would suggest getting Cracking the Coding Interview if you want to see some example questions to prepare.

Also, I have never put my GPA on my resume, and I have done pretty well for myself. If your GPA drops under 3, just drop it from your resume and only give it if a possible employer asks.

Why are you worried about not being able to handle your classes? It sounds like based on how you did first semester and the fact that you got into the school, you're capable of doing well in those classes.

A lot of anxiety comes from negative self-talk and letting your fears spiral out of control. If you're constantly telling yourself that you can't do it, you'll start believing yourself. If you let a small fear("my classes next semester are challenging") keep growing("my classes next semester are really hard") into something that's a real problem("I won't be able to handle my classes next semester").

This book is a good resource for understanding anxiety and how to change your mental habits to be healthier
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0380810336?ref_=cm_lmf_tit_18

Feel free to PM if you have questions or need to talk

https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Algorithms-3rd-MIT-Press/dp/0262033844/

This is 351's bible.

For 330, just read last semester's slides.