I'm a cheap fuck, and unless I want to monetize something, I'll take free.

So far, I haven't hit a limit with Gitlab, and it allows free access to make CI runners on its servers.

Doesn't github lack free private repos? I guess in this case it doesn't matter though.

Why are people still using github? Gitlab is less expensive, and has way cooler features.

Why do software managers keep coming up with all these retarded gimmicks? Is it to try for the thousandth time to appeal to "underrepresented" programmers? I can imagine few trade-like industries doing this kind of shit.

I've never met a programmer that retarded. Sorry OP.

Declarative code, maybe.

Math will help you a lot, both in making your algorithms and complexity courses more natural to you, and helping you to look at problems more formally. You could brush up on Calc, algebra (linear and general), and looking at "real analysis" will help you assimilate (that is, learn such that they come naturally) proof techniques (with a bonus of making you good at formal logic).

If you include a diligent look at the above in your prep, you'll be lightyears ahead of many of your classmates, and you'll enjoy your classes a lot more.

I should add too: for your database courses, working on your own small projects in something like mysql will go a long way. Mysql is open source and you can get a version of it for about any OS. There's a good (and not too thick) O'Reilly book that does a fine job of an intro to using Mysql.

You're on very good ground to do excellent work in programming.

You're not punting your comprehensives questions to Voat, are you? ;)