u/InveitableCactus

Title. Incoming freshman at Harvard/MIT/Stanford. No olympiad background or tech internship experience. Taken decently advanced math classes (through Lin Alg) through local community college.

I'm very interested in pursuing a career in quant but I'm super lost. Where do I even start to prepare for quant/ swe/ tech roles more generally?

Are there specific online courses/ videos I should watch? Books to read? Should I do leetcode? What projects should I build? How do I best take advantage of this upcoming summer before college so I can hold my own, and what can I do to maximize the opportunities I get in college?

Not sure if these are even the right questions to ask - basically where do I get started?

Title. Incoming freshman at Stanford/ Harvard/ MIT. No olympiad experience or tech-related internships, have built a few small vibe-coded projects. I'm interested in entrepreneurship or pursuing CS at a high level, but I don't have the slightest clue where to start.

I understand the fundamentals of Python from high school classes, but what should I study/ watch/ build in the summer leading up to college and during college? Should I grind leetcode? Are there specific online lecture series that I should watch? What projects should I build? Should I focus on learning DevOps/ System Design (I barely understand what either term means so pardon me if they're misplaced)? Should I focus on learning AI and how to build models - should I read books about Deep Learning?

I'm extremely lost, and before anyone says "You should enjoy your last summer before college" - I am and I will, I just want to be able to catch up/ understand what to do once I get there, and not have to rely on Claude to write every line of code I ship.

Any advice appreciated.