Any book suggestions for starting IT and Computing OU degree

icklejulez

As the title says I am starting an OU degree in September with my boyfriend and whilst Ive done first year of a computing degree 8 years ago think i need to freshen up on a bit of reading before the start. My boyfriend is also doing the same course and hasnt done anything since his IT gcse 8 years ago.

Anyone any suggestions on books we could look into getting before hand? Anyone done the first year of the course and bought any usefull books??? etc etc

Thanks

europa16

Hi icklejulez,

I started my Open degree, specializing in IT and computing back in 2005, with T175 and M150. For those, I didn't need to spend extra cash on other books, as the course text gave us everything we needed to know. Anything that I needed to brush up on I could find on the internet. I went into it with very little knowledge in computing, and passed the courses, no probs. I'm now doing my Level 3 courses, which of course are harder!

Make use of the First Class software you will receive - it will enable you to chat to others on your course, and they're always helpful if you get stuck

Good luck to you and your boyfriend with your degrees, I'm sure you'll have no problems.

jmarko

i'm tempted to do m150 - is it any good? i'm interested in getting into the programming side but i can't really do the java courses before i've done m150... cos i'm a coward!

djhworld

"Computer Science: an overview" by J.G. Brookshear.

Excellent book if you're just starting a computer science/computing degree.

colin79666

If you are doing any network I'd recommend "Computer Networking Illuminated" - http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=esU1E1jXBvwC&dq=Computer+Networking+Illuminated&pg=PP1&ots=jKtHXruopS&sig=cEQjBoD9G8qwm2MawV032DWpr68&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result

icklejulez

Thanks for everyones advice ill definatly look into getting one of those books as we've got a month to look through them... Thanks for the advice everyone.