This advice will help you regardless of the programming language you want to program in. When I took my first computer science course I could not grasp the big picture. Nobody gave me an overarching idea of what coding is or how to properly think about writing a program. That is what I intend to give you with this short guide. I am a college junior year electrical engineering student for those who are wondering. I discuss the 4 concepts I feel are the most fundamental to your understanding of programming. I want you to see the big picture in the simplest way possible.