Ask HN: I'm an incoming freshman to college for a CS major, what should I know?

Most people already covered that it won't be easy and you should take a minor/second major in a non-related field.

But I'll add one more. Try to take a class from a famous professor outside CS. Usually they will teach a class that meets a gen Ed requirement.

I took a Poly Sci course from a famous professor at Berkeley, and it was great! It was like going to see a show twice a week. And some of the stuff he taught still sticks with me today. He predicted exactly what would happen in Iraq when Saddam was removed from power, six years before it happened.

My wife got to take Astronomy from a famous professor, and she really enjoyed that class too and learned a lot.

Get enough sleep.

Apply for internships!

Consider doing Google Summer of Code next year, or similar. Later go for onsite internships.

Put something on your GitHub account, maybe contribute to some big name open source projects. LibreOffice and Mozilla are very contributor friendly.

In school consider taking hard theoretical CS classes. You'll rarely need the theory, but learning it on your own is near impossible. Improving your coding skills is easily done through practice, practice, practice.

Have fun :)

I majored in math with a minor in CS, now working as a software engineer. My favorite courses in university were a "World Regions" geography class (the professor was amazing and famous at the university) and "Morality & Justice" in the philosophy department, both non-CS non-math elective courses I only took to fulfill requirements. Maybe not the most practical advice, but don't be afraid to branch out of the CS bubble as you'll likely end up as a software engineer regardless, but university is a once in a lifetime thing (sure you can go back, but you probably won't want to once you're making money).

Also university is by far the easiest place to make friends (future connections) and date. Once you graduate, it gets way harder to meet people, and if you work in software engineering you're surrounded by men all day, so if you're a heterosexual single man it becomes significantly more difficult to find a potential partner. Take advantage of this by being proactive, outgoing, and joining clubs / pursuing activities.

In terms of getting a job, the best thing you can do is to get internships. Getting internships is basically just about having a high enough GPA to pass the resume screen, ideally having some side projects or some kind of experience (nobody's going to expect much from an undergrad), and passing the interview.

Good luck, and have fun!