Go to Columbia. Two degrees in five years is a bargain. You'll only be paying two years of Columbia tuition, while studying there in the later phase of your col

Go to Columbia. Two degrees in five years is a bargain. You'll only be paying two years of Columbia tuition, while studying there in the later phase of your college life, which hopefully means more focus and insight into how to access the resources a college can provide. Start looking into summer internships. Good way to establish contacts, find mentors, and get a guided introduction to the field. Take a look at Hartl's Ruby on Rails tutorial. The book is free, online, and walks you through the stages of building a simple twitter-like client. It's amazing the things you can do with high-level tools these days. There are some good books on Python as well. I recommend O'Reilly's Head First series to my friends who are considering getting into programming. Start small, bang out code, even if it's just following a book. The act of writing code seeps into your muscle memory and it gets easier and easier, until you start expanding your skills and then it gets easier and harder both at the same time. Your first efforts are going to seem amateurish and trivial. Don't let that discourage you. With practice you'll only get better and the feeling of creating something with your own mind and hands is awesome.