The bottom line is that you need to work on projects you care about. You need some motivation for what you are doing. Wanting to learn to program is not enough. For example, I have wanted to learn Haskell for a few months. Being a busy college student however means that it's difficult to find time for such an abstract goal. Tangable, realistic projects are the best route to go. I never fully learned or understood C until I was hacking around Linux in my operating systems class last semester. Pick a small project that you want to accomplish, ask for advice about which language would be best, and then have at it.
Seconding this. I was going to post that link if someone hadn't already.
You can make 8 months of dedicated learning and practice count for a heck of a lot if you're persistent and tenacious, especially early on. But if you get to college, find that you can already do everything they're teaching at the intro level (possible, depending on you), and get bored, it could impact your studies negatively in several ways.
Go for consistent growth and find things to work on that will hold your interest for long stretches of tme.
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While your 8 month time frame is a little longer than most, the honest answer is that you don't.
Essential reading: http://norvig.com/21-days.html
The bottom line is that you need to work on projects you care about. You need some motivation for what you are doing. Wanting to learn to program is not enough. For example, I have wanted to learn Haskell for a few months. Being a busy college student however means that it's difficult to find time for such an abstract goal. Tangable, realistic projects are the best route to go. I never fully learned or understood C until I was hacking around Linux in my operating systems class last semester. Pick a small project that you want to accomplish, ask for advice about which language would be best, and then have at it.
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html#basic_skills
Another classic.
That's the section on programming. But read the whole thing. The most important part is understanding the philosophy.
Seconding this. I was going to post that link if someone hadn't already.
You can make 8 months of dedicated learning and practice count for a heck of a lot if you're persistent and tenacious, especially early on. But if you get to college, find that you can already do everything they're teaching at the intro level (possible, depending on you), and get bored, it could impact your studies negatively in several ways.
Go for consistent growth and find things to work on that will hold your interest for long stretches of tme.