The series is worth your time . You don ' t even really have to play HL 1 , just jump into HL 2 . If you ' re into fps that is . <| sep |> Not convinced this is a good idea . CompSci is a Marmite subject you ' re either wired for it or you aren ' t . If you ' re not , it would be a slog at best and a disastrous waste of time at worst . Friends who started Trinity ' s CompSci BA in the early 90 s told me of a 70 % firstexam failure rate in first year . The points were relatively low to get in at the time CompSci was deeply unsexy and it was way down many people ' s CAO list , so a lot of that 70 % had it as their 9 th or 10 th choice and just wanted to go to college full stop . That was , academically , a total waste of time for that 70 % of people . Then again , you can ' t put a price on a year of arsing about drinking champagne cider and cheap pints . I ' d suggest a better idea would be a two week Python course during transition year , say those who would have an aptitude for it would stand out immediately , and those who would hate it would know equally fast .