Conceptually, pointers are more challenging than other C++ features. Additionally, they involve a bewildering number of new operators. But, they also give the language much of its expressive and problem-solving power. Pointers appear and reappear throughout the text and into CS 2420. So, the time and effort you put toward understanding pointers, the related concepts, and the rather challenging syntax will pay huge dividends later.
Know
The difference between a pointer and an address
What it means to allocate and deallocate memory
The difference between automatic and dynamic variables/memory
How to define a pointer variable
The pointer operators
Address of
Dereference
Arrow
Dot
Understand the dereference operation
The difference between the stack and the heap
The new, delete, and delete[] operators
nullptr and the older variations it replaces: NULL and 0