3rd Avenue, Building C: Fill & Download for Free

I assume you have luggage and thus walking or Citibike is not an option.If you take the 42nd Street S Shuttle subway you are a boob. Because the train is so short. It doesn't get you far enough.I opt for the 7 train. The 7 train reports accurate arrival times. If you are near the Eighth Avenue end of Penn Station from NJ Transit or Amtrak, take the A, C, or E train at 34th Street one stop to 42nd Street, you will walk a long pedestrian tunnel going east but it is downhill to the 7 train. Keep walking to the elevator in the middle of the platform if you need it.If you are near the 7th Avenue end you will take the 1, 2, or 3 train uptown one station. (The LIRR may let you out at either end depending on where you were seated riding.) I prefer the 1, 2, and 3, because they show accurate train arrival timings.Then take the elevator or escalator down to the 7 train.Walk to the very front of the 7 train platform heading East.Take the first car of the 7 train two stations to 42nd Street Grand Central. Exit at the 3rd Avenue end where you can use the long escalator after a short flight of stairs. It saves you navigating a lot of pedestrian traffic, street crossings and spares you from the elements. (The Elevator is mid platform but involves several elevators to get to the street level.)From 42nd and Third Avenue you can walk, or hop on the crosstown M42 bus for the remaining long two blocks. The bus drops you in front of the United Nations. It is a free transfer with a MetroCard.By contrast, the shuttle lets you out near Park Avenue, which adds two long blocks to walk through a crush of people, or slow crawling of the bus.Taxis don't save you much time going crosstown because the lights are timed for uptown and downtown traffic. And this is the densest most congested traffic area in Manhattan. You will pull your hair out and need Valium to survive the ride.

Go to the historic downtown. Stand in the main plaza (Zócalo). Walk from there to the Castle of Chapultepec, through Madero-Juárez-Paseo de la Reforma (there's also a bike-sharing system). Enter the National Museum of Anthropology. Eat, all the way, stopping in every place you can (we have great food). There's a great restaurant (or two) overlooking the lake of Chapultepec OR you could eat in Polanco or La Condesa-Roma neighborhoods, for a more contemporary/hip/urban setting.This way you will have:a)walked in a chronological order according to the foundation and growth of Mexico City,b)stood in the 3rd largest open plaza in the world,c)known the most emblematic avenue in MXC,d)walked Madero, one of the busiest pedestrian streets (in Mexico? In Latin America? I don't know),e)seen the Palace of Bellas Artes,f)witnessed the City's tallest buildings and skyscrapers in almost any era until present day,g)visited one of the most important and most awe-inspiring museums worldwide,h)seen the first great park of the City (Alameda),i)there's an observation deck in the 52nd floor of the Torre Latino. If you're lucky, you'll get to see all of the city from there,j)walked a part of the Chapultepec forest, from where an aqueduct used to feed the old city,h)you won't see any Mexicans wearing sombreros and sleeping siesta while resting on a cactus,i) you may or may not use the "Turibús", which is a hop-on hop-off tour of Mexico City in that same route.Not bad, eh? Simple and meaningful. If you're observant you will see many more things about our beautiful, 700 year-old city.

It is never too late to start.I assume you do not know even C, so I will advise you based on that assumption.Go for the BasicsThe very first thing to do is to know what algorithms and flowcharts are. This may seem theoretical but it will help you in later stages of programming. Also, read up on the basic structure of a computer and its components, like primary memory, secondary memory, processing unit, etcetera.You should be able to do this in one day. So, don't think that you will waste time on this. And trust me, this will come in use.Learn CNext, grab Let Us C by Yashwant Kanetkar. It is the best place for a beginner to learn C. Go through all the chapters thoroughly, except for the last four (Linux and Windows programming and socket programming). These last will burden you unnecessarily.Solve all the exercises given at the end of each chapter. They will help in developing a programming logic. If you don't get the answer, don't worry, ask your friends or google it. This book does not have hard problems.Learn Standard CAlthough Kanetkar's book is the best way to learn C for a beginner, sadly, it is not perfect. To really develop a respectable competitiveness in C, you need to get your feet wet with GCC which is available on Linux platforms. That is real C. So after you are done with the basics of C, spend some time tinkering with the language. Read The C Programming Language by Ritchie.Also, refer to Kanetkar's book, Test your C skills. It comprises an eclectic mixture of fragments of C code and you have to predict the output. Not only will this help you in mastering C, some of the misconceptions you may have picked up while learning C will be cleared.Learn other languagesWith C out of the way, it is time to learn other languages. You should have spent at least a month honing you C skills. I would recommend learning the following three languages: Python, Java and C++. Once you have mastered the basics of programming, learning these languages will hardly take a week or so. You will learn about various types of programming paradigms, especially object-oriented. In addition, you can learn any other language you want, but I strongly suggest having mediocre competency in these languages.Learn Data StructuresThis is very very very important. Data structures are a must have for any serious programmer. Not only will it help in solving programming problems on online judge sites, it will be helpful if you ever plan on making your solutions time and memory efficient. I would suggest the following book for a beginner.This book will teach you thoroughly. Go through all the examples and before looking at the solution to code for a, say, Binary Tree, try to code it on your own. Once you are done with this one, go for this:It will build a theoretical base with Data Structures and acquaint you with algorithms too.Now, its time to get in the real worldNow, you know 4 programming languages (hopefully). So, try solving problems on online judge sites like http://codechef.com, Sphere Online Judge (SPOJ) and Project Euler.Start with the easy ones and don't be discouraged if you aren't able to solve many of them. Bit by bit, your logic will develop.Learn algorithmsAs you may have discovered on sites like codechef and SPOJ, simple logic is not useful. You need powerful tools to crack programming problems and these tools are called algorithms. Now that you are in Third Year, you will be learning about algorithms like Dynamic Programming, Greedy Algorithm, Divide and Conquer and such. Pay attention. I can't emphasize this enough. They are very powerful. I would suggest you refer the book Introduction to Algorithms. It is THE Bible for algorithms.Open SourceLearn to use open source software. More specifically, learn how to use Linux platforms like Ubuntu. Get familiar with the Linux Command Line. Try and contribute to Open Source.All the above steps should have built your foundation for entry in the real word of Computer Science.Now, you should decide which field in Computers you are interested in. For example, you may be interested in either Operating Systems, in which case you might want to google building an OS from the ground up, or you may be interested in Web Development. There are various avenues and choose as per your inclination.Some more pointers:There are several fields in Computer Science. If you don't know which is best suited to you, then try your hand in all. Since you are in T.E, you don't have much to lose. You can dabble in Web Development or Open Source or Operating Systems. This will increase you knowledge base.Try to build applications. For example, try building graphical applications using Visual Studio (VB.NET) or games using XNA (C#.NET platform). If you don't know how to do it, then search for tutorials on google. This will lead you to find more interesting things, and one thing will lead to another and you will be surprised at how much you build up your knowledge by such things.If you like developing websites, try Django. It is a web framework developed in Python. Look up the documentation and you will learn.Contribute to open source. Not only will this help you in becoming a better programmer, it will also help you during placements.Other than that, it is up to you. Computers is a vast field. Choose wisely and excel.Hope I helped.