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I'm going to be an advisor for new students in our company (we pay for their degree and provide on-the-job training during their semester breaks) and want to put together a little "welcome packet" to start them off on the right track. Most of them come straight from high school and have never done any CS or programming beyond school classes, so I thought it would be nice to include a book to introduce them to some basic principles and prime them for what they're going to be learning and working with in the following years.

Back when I started studying CS, I read "Code" by Charles Petzold which I really enjoyed and would be perfect for this purpose thematically, but I feel that at ~400 pages it might be just a little too lengthy. What are some reads you would recommend to beginners?

Besides obvious reasons like "my new job requires it", what drives you to learn a new programming language instead of just using the ones you already know?

I'm currently on my 3rd attempt at college, 10th semester overall. (I studied Computer Science and Teaching in university, dropped out of both after six and two semesters respectively, and am now doing Applied Computer Science at a technical college.) You'd think by now I'd know how to deal with difficult classes, but I'm absolutely stumped. Previously I was able to just drop out of classes and try again the next year, but at my current college there's a strict schedule and you have to pass all your classes the same year.

I failed three final exams and have to repeat them at the end of next month. The drive and motivation is there, I have no problem sitting down and putting in the work. But it feels like (especially with maths) I'm just treading water. I'll sit down, try to do a problem, but not even know how to approach it. So I'll look up the sample solution just so I know where to start - and sometimes that still doesn't help, I might understand how those steps get you to the correct result, but I have no idea how you're supposed to think them up if you don't even know the solution already. It's so frustrating trying over and over again and still not getting the material. And even more so when I see all my classmates pass with ease and I'm still stuck on classes that I'm already taking for the 2nd or 3rd time.

It's giving me massive anxiety, even though I know I still have enough time to study, but whenever I try, it just feels hopeless. But I know there has to be a way since I already got so far and everyone else seems to be able to do it, too. So how did you get through difficult classes?