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What’s better: a computer science major or a math major?
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Get both. Double major or double degree if your uni offers that.
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This, but if you have to choose do computer science.
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>be CS major
>2807
>still tired from the last millennium and don’t want to code anything for another century
>get hired by corprosmoglarth to do an accounting processor optimogrification
>kinda fun just because it’s easy
>get into it
>accidentally program a simple calculator app by mistake
>spend all night (roughly 3 weeks 4.7 days (since we accidentally the whole sun)) working on more efficient arithmetic
>program full-suite AI to run the calculator
>recreated a mathematician from scratch over the weekend
>move on to next post-singularity project-
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Fuck no, I just discovered a bug in my code that’s too difficult for debugger-AI to process, and it’s going to take me weeks to scan all my logs for when it attained sapience.
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Anon, I’m already well defined beyond your most theoretical limits. You should be worried about your own immortality or means to facilitate it.
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if only we could really automate proof checking without pulling teeth
alas
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>be me
>theoretical physicist turned mathematician when the government became an hero
>learn of elegant topological spaces that prove complexity beyond any physical expression
>can prove that every self-consistent universe is a strict subset of the math I explore
>literal infinite time falls flat before me
>an infinitude expressed in a single moment of omniscient creativity
>pure cognition isn’t enough to sustain your inconceivable awareness postulates
>accidentally formalize the whole history of math and have arguments with Ramanujan that no other consciousness (provable) has had to date
>start getting visions of the computationalists
>what’s that behind them?
>millions of slogging code monkeys destroying their own probability of achieving even base quantum immortality (let alone actual)
>amazed by the trivial complexity of their consciousness
>decide to write two posts from both perspectives to see if there might be some fundamental difference
>conceive of the infinite possibilities beyond their comprehension
>create an entropy pond bias of negative 4867 bit stages
>reformulate an isometric proof that my identity is equivalent despite being the byproduct of a qualitatively inferior intellect
>can’t properly communicate with myself because the digitally emulated mind is coded with last century procedural technology
>look up how to hack myself into a properly functional [retranslate in 470,861 hours] holotrophic perpetual reference
>remerge with infinite timeless self in post-nirvanian hypercalculus
>"so did you calculate the fundamental experiential difference yet?"
>giggle continuously to self for a century as my lower awareness run a computational comparison
>laughing hysterically as the program nears completion
>watch them both gaze in terror as preliminary results begin to aggregate
>be you-
I too have done acid
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woke af
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Working in AI not as interesting as what you could be doing?
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One could say this, certainly. But it is a debate for me what it means to be "doing" at all. The science you allude to has a more vastly difficult version of this question to answer.
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everything above meh tier is debatable
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I barely understood it but it was a fun ride.
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I’d say go for CS as a bachelor’s. If you enjoy the theoretical side of it a LOT consider a master’s in Math (or changing majors, it probably wouldn’t be too hard as a CS student)
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"better" implies a total ordering of … I don’t know what, "things to major in" I don’t know.
You have to define it for yourself, if you want.
For me, I’m working in IT, just like I would have if I had gotten a CS degree instead of math, but the math degree has given me immense joy. I am not some Terrance Tao, nor does that bother me, but I am learning new topics (for me) in math and refreshing old ones constantly, because I have the ability to read math papers and textbooks, and the skills involved in following or doing my own proofs, etc.Honestly, if you like (higher) math, I’d say math major and CS minor, unless you really like compilers or something, then double major, or CS major/math minor.
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Math major easily. I’ve never seen a math prof/instructor, even at mid-tier universities, who didn’t know his/her shit.
If open courseware is any indication, compsci profs/instructors at top-tier universities are embarrassing, demonstrating little real-world experience and misunderstanding basic facts (such as the Stanford dude on YouTube confusing ones’ complement with signed-magnitude and not being able to answer a question about signed integer overflow in C or to distinguish the well-defined behavior of unsigned integer overflow in C). Someone also posted some Harvard-instructor code a while back that contained a totally scrotebrained, does-nothing overflow check.-
>Someone also posted some Harvard-instructor code a while back that contained a totally scrotebrained, does-nothing overflow check.
Btw, found it. It’s even worse than I remember.-
I don’t know or care about this, but how long has he been an instructor? And how many such examples can you find?
It sounds like some typical 4chinz dogpiling, which I get, I snicker like a zitty sweaty teen at shit like that too, but I’ve had excellent math profs who bonked up in lectures regularly, it’s really not a big deal. Humans are humans, even ones who are really good at their field.-
LULZ used to have field days with prof repos on GitHub. I once saw a few consecutive snprintf()s line that used the length of the source string instead of the size of the destination buffer to constrain the size, which obviously defeats the purpose of snprintf().
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Alright, again I can appreciate that. But I guess it just seems a little silly to me, no one expects profs to be infallible to scrutiny. That’s not the focus. Find such errors in their research, for example. Their goal is to instruct, and that introduces some cognitive overhead that can produce errors on occasion, big whoop.
Did you or LULZ think that literally Euler teaches somewhere, just because it’s "Ivy League"?
Here’s another shocker, after watching some MIT opencourseware, I realized I got the same exact knowledge from my (admittedly good) community college.It just seems boring and obvious is all. Again, find such errors in their papers. Even at the shitty state college I went to (which bizarrely had some really good math profs, admittedly) profs regularly published papers.
Find some errors there and I’ll laugh too. -
I’m grad in cs and I do stuff like that all the time. I mean there’s only so much information you can remember
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>a professor who figured out how to solve a problem in a novel way
>oh no, their code doesn’t have immediate best practice
1) who freaking cares
2) if you read any freaking research code that demonstrates very important progress, it’s really not bad at all. Most of it is either completely proof of concept (and easy to adapt) or is completely maintainable. Two examples.Proof of concept, implemented in full for research but only released the 2D version for immediate use:
https://www.shadertoy.com/view/WtjfzWMaintainable and usable computational physics library from a CS dept:
https://github.com/orionquest/Nova-
>oh no, their code doesn’t have immediate best practice
You are a complete freaking scrotebrain if you think not even knowing how to use snprintf() properly is just a matter of failing best practice. Stop LARPing as knowing anything about programming, you twit. Security researchers would make tens of thousands in bug bounties off your dumb ass. -
>a professor who figured out how to solve a problem in a novel way
introducing a buffer overflow with a complete noob understanding of C… "solve a problem in a novel way"
have a nice day
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>field days
i’ve seen those threads before. They’re not really "field days" as much as it’s this:
>simple code that’s supposed to teach some very simple concept has either a depreciated element or a small error that stops it from being completely correct
usually written and maintained by grad students and published under a prof github. AsProof of concept, implemented in full for research but only released the 2D version for immediate use:
https://www.shadertoy.com/view/WtjfzWMaintainable and usable computational physics library from a CS dept:
https://github.com/orionquest/Novapoints out, there are plenty of libraries to come out of academia that are very well maintained. I mean, freaking Berkeley’s BSD project lined the blueprint out for so many systems level standards.
The problem is that LULZ professionally scrutinizes library errors for a living, and so anything other than the most terse software practice drives them up a wall. CS is not there to teach you how to code. It’s supposed to teach you how to solve hard computational problems, which are usually formulated and solved on a blackboard and implemented in different areas, software being one of the most direct ways to do so. LULZ is acting as though CS is codemonkey training school, and that CS profs are researching efficient codemonkey practice. But CS profs are really studying problems in the same way an engineering professor is studying problems.
All of this being said, I double majored in math and CS and never thought the CS profs couldn’t write code well. All the samples we got from profs were clean. I’m taken back to the code my comp arch prof showed us to manually parse a float for printing.
TL;DR the mistake in these "code reviews" are usually far from fatal and require at most a change of a line. They’re usually, above all else, easily readable to some sophomore and easy to run and test.
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>are usually far from fatal and require at most a change of a line.
You’re another idiot who’s completely clueless. Single-line mistakes have led to some of the worst security incidents in history.
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yes, whoever wrote `allocations * sizeof (string) == SIZE_MAX` is a complete moron and shouldn’t be teaching C to anyone
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don’t listen to them anon. majoring in math from some no-name university (especially if you come from a second or third world country) will be THE WORST mistake of your life. Trust me.
If you want a future where you have a decent salary take CS, it’s mostly applied math anyway. And if you really like it, minor in math. You can always do math on the side.
Take Math if and only if you are autistically good at it (as in have-won-a-gold-on-the-IMO type of good) and plan to transition in finance or stay in academia, otherwise you are setting yourself up for an epic fail. Don’t fall for the meme.
From what I’ve seen it’s easier to transition from cs to math than it is from math to cs. And I know far to many math undergrads that are so lost with their degrees right now, that they are literally working as cashiers.
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>easier to transition from cs to math than it is from math to cs.
haha wow no
are you the sort of person who thinks higher math is just adding bigger and bigger numbers?
Higher cs is math.
Yes, you can’t just go "Hey I see you’re hiring, need me to prove something?" But I would absolutely trust a mathematician to be able to tech themselves job-level programming, than I would a programmer to teach themselves how to read papers relevant to advancements in their field. Look at how many mathlet brogrammers have flocked to ML and can only run a black-box script. On the other hand, a mathematician can easily understand new techniques and any teenager can teach themselves enough C++ to implement it.-
Not the other anon, I’m
So my caveat is this: look at your local CS program at the school you’re attending. If it looks good and rigorous, go for it. Nobody is gonna argue with a try hard degree from top schools where there are so many good researchers that you can take differential geometry and graphics processing (aka solving hard boundary value problems and physical modeling), robotics, OS design, fixed parameter complexity, computational medicine, etc etc. and other very interesting classes.
If your program isn’t quite as good but still good, and you’re willing to do the work, a double major or even a major + minor is fine.
Otherwise, a math major is fine. You can make it work as far as employment goes, but heads up that a CS major definitely has better opportunities out of college especially if they did stuff on the engineering side of things. I think I see more CS grads do robotics and compliant motion planning these days than mechE and EE grads, but that could just be my own selection bias.
and did a double major in both.
>are you the sort of person who thinks higher math is just adding bigger and bigger numbers?
No, but in some sense the person you’re replying to is wrong but also right. I’ve seen more than a decent amount of people from CS undergrad do math grad (yes, they did in fact do well on the math GRE) by getting an in via combinatorics or algebra. It’s work to get accepted into math circles if you have nothing but some applied CS background, but if you have any modicum of exposure to theoretical CS, it’s really not a stretch – there are a lot of people who find themselves in that intersection, just like a lot of math and physics people find themselves at the intersection of their fields.
CS touches both the applied and the theoretical. I’ve seen CS profs get EE appointments (the dude who leads Stanford’s Computational Imaging Lab in the EE dept has a CS PhD) and have math professorships (Srivastava at Berkeley is a good example). I’ve seen math professors also decorated but generally less so because math tends to stay in math circles.
>Higher cs is math.
Yes, this sort of weakens your point. While yes, math majors will find themselves at home in CS at the grad level because it "is" math (it’s also a lot of engineering in many subfields), the bridge goes the other way. There are plenty of opportunities for people with a CS background to learn more mathematics and get into pure math. Many CS profs in theory CS already *do* pure math, especially in combinatorics. Hell, many great results recently have come out of CS departments, like sunflower bounds:
https://arxiv.org/abs/1908.08483
https://arxiv.org/abs/1909.04774
(cont) -
Not the other anon, I’m […] and did a double major in both.
>are you the sort of person who thinks higher math is just adding bigger and bigger numbers?
No, but in some sense the person you’re replying to is wrong but also right. I’ve seen more than a decent amount of people from CS undergrad do math grad (yes, they did in fact do well on the math GRE) by getting an in via combinatorics or algebra. It’s work to get accepted into math circles if you have nothing but some applied CS background, but if you have any modicum of exposure to theoretical CS, it’s really not a stretch – there are a lot of people who find themselves in that intersection, just like a lot of math and physics people find themselves at the intersection of their fields.
CS touches both the applied and the theoretical. I’ve seen CS profs get EE appointments (the dude who leads Stanford’s Computational Imaging Lab in the EE dept has a CS PhD) and have math professorships (Srivastava at Berkeley is a good example). I’ve seen math professors also decorated but generally less so because math tends to stay in math circles.
>Higher cs is math.
Yes, this sort of weakens your point. While yes, math majors will find themselves at home in CS at the grad level because it "is" math (it’s also a lot of engineering in many subfields), the bridge goes the other way. There are plenty of opportunities for people with a CS background to learn more mathematics and get into pure math. Many CS profs in theory CS already *do* pure math, especially in combinatorics. Hell, many great results recently have come out of CS departments, like sunflower bounds:
https://arxiv.org/abs/1908.08483
https://arxiv.org/abs/1909.04774
(cont)(cont)
>But I would absolutely trust a mathematician to be able to tech themselves job-level programming
But that’s the thing – ANYBODY can teach themselves programming. The issue is not academic background as it is vocational decoration and experience. A few things
1) A BSc holder in math is not a "mathematician."
2) If you’re seriously talking about a PhD in math, then we have to compare them to a PhD in CS. At this point, there is little actual grounding to compare. Neither of these people are going for entry level programming. They’re doing full engineering projects or research efforts.
>than I would a programmer to teach themselves how to read papers relevant to advancements in their field.
Before we even argue this, how is this even relevant? Are you even aware of what "papers in their field" are, or if it’s how advancements are largely communicated? You speak as someone who very CLEARLY has *only* a math background because math culture is 1000% predicated on speading arxiv links and discussing theorems in circles. Software engineering practice is predicated by designs that spread from expertise to expertise, showing up in standard texts when they become powerful enough. Papers circulate internally because they’re made to convince organizers to talk to engineers in person about the material.
>mathlet brogrammers have flocked to ML and can only run a black-box script.
Sure, and those people don’t get interesting or good jobs. The process filters them out. So what? They exist across all majors because ML attracts shitters – many of which are from EE undergrad lmao.
(cont)-
>>On the other hand, a mathematician can easily understand new techniques and any teenager can teach themselves enough C++ to implement it.
The software engineering jobs people go for infamously do not vet for basic code competency after the first round. Literally everyone can write code. This is not the crux of the job, it barely has anything to do with CS, and it’s only one notch you need. The interviews infamously vet for the ability to solve hard computational problems under pressure, where the solution isn’t hard to describe but require some burst of intuition. I’m sorry chief, but math is not the only field that studies how to solve hard problems, especially of the computational nature. Math majors can absolutely do well here, but to suggest they have an inherent advantage, especially looking at the people who are hired to do the hard software engineering jobs, it’s easy to call bullshit. There’s no reason for a top company to hire a CS major over a math major if math gives them what they need with more confidence…and yet they regularly do this. Most people who work at google or some other scroteMAN have a CS background. But why are they if math majors whip them so hard?
>mathematician
again, you’re seriously trying to compare a PhD in math to some CS undergrad, or you’re being enough of a clown to call a math undergrad a "mathematician" despite on average hardstopping after 2 analysis classes and learning how to write down a character table in algebra.
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>are you the sort of person who thinks higher math is just adding bigger and bigger numbers?
Definitely not. I’m talking as someone that used to solve Olympiad level problems and competitive math.I agree with what
Not the other anon, I’m […] and did a double major in both.
>are you the sort of person who thinks higher math is just adding bigger and bigger numbers?
No, but in some sense the person you’re replying to is wrong but also right. I’ve seen more than a decent amount of people from CS undergrad do math grad (yes, they did in fact do well on the math GRE) by getting an in via combinatorics or algebra. It’s work to get accepted into math circles if you have nothing but some applied CS background, but if you have any modicum of exposure to theoretical CS, it’s really not a stretch – there are a lot of people who find themselves in that intersection, just like a lot of math and physics people find themselves at the intersection of their fields.
CS touches both the applied and the theoretical. I’ve seen CS profs get EE appointments (the dude who leads Stanford’s Computational Imaging Lab in the EE dept has a CS PhD) and have math professorships (Srivastava at Berkeley is a good example). I’ve seen math professors also decorated but generally less so because math tends to stay in math circles.
>Higher cs is math.
Yes, this sort of weakens your point. While yes, math majors will find themselves at home in CS at the grad level because it "is" math (it’s also a lot of engineering in many subfields), the bridge goes the other way. There are plenty of opportunities for people with a CS background to learn more mathematics and get into pure math. Many CS profs in theory CS already *do* pure math, especially in combinatorics. Hell, many great results recently have come out of CS departments, like sunflower bounds:
https://arxiv.org/abs/1908.08483
https://arxiv.org/abs/1909.04774
(cont)said. But my point comes from a pragmatic view. We all know that CS is a big meme right now as everybody is selling out but the opportunities are incomparable to those with a math degree. That’s bc like the other anon said math majors tend to stay in math. CS is more flexible. Let’s say (and this is most likely to happen) OP goes in the industry looking for a job with bachelors in math. Most employers for the software dev jobs will want to see an EE or CS deg and experience, internships, projects etc. Let’s say said employers don’t give a fuck about what degree OP has, they are still gonna want to see some work. So now OP has to do all this self teaching on the side, which mind you, is not as effortless as it may seem.
Alternatively if OP goes for CS he will have exposure to math AND skillset that will be of use later. It’s entirely on him whether he wants to be a brainlet code monke or actually put in the work and learn math.
>many mathlet brogrammers have flocked to ML and can only run a black-box script
Yes, unfortunately that’s the reputation that CS holds for now, but just because someone goes for CS it doesn’t automatically make them a mathlet>I would absolutely trust a mathematician to be able to tech themselves job-level programming
I would as well, the thing is it’s impractical assuming OP goes looking for CS jobs with a math degreeUnless OP has a clear vision where he stays in academia, or is into finance/business/data science I honestly don’t see the reason for getting a math degree, other than the "prestige" (if you could even call it that) that comes whit it.
Godseed OP. Choose well. Set you priorities straight and make sure you really want to do the thing you want to do.
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>majoring in math from some no-name university
Nobody said to do this, scrotebrain.
Mid-tier universities were pointed out merely to highlight the difference between math and compsci instruction, not to encourage someone to go do math at a mid-tier university.-
i don’t remember OP mentioning that he was going to Princeton or Harvard so its safe to assume he is likely taking about mid/low tier uni.
yeah stfu.
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Bump
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Math is the better major in my opinion. The more applied a subject is, the more busywork tends to get included in the syllabus. Math courses tend to place more emphasis on thinking and communicating (presenting your work clearly) than CS and other applied fields, where having the stamina to endlessly grind problem sets is more heavily emphasized.
Don’t worry about missing out on programming if you choose math. You can and will learn a lot of CS as part of a math degree. My wife got a degree in math and ended up working as a software developer for a few years despite having few courses in CS. She’s since moved on to finance, go figure.
An advantage of math is that your classmates are less likely to be money-motivated psychopaths attracted to CS by the promise of a fat paycheque, and more likely to be intellectuals. I’m sure you’ll be happier to be surrounded by people who share a genuine interest with you rather than people who see you as a competitor.-
being a software developer barely stresses anything in CS. That is, most anyone in STEM can find some software related job.
You study CS if you want to solve hard CS problems. These problems are studied in math, science, and engineering.
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I’m not the most experienced guy but here’s my two cents.
Math and CS programs are equally good at the top universities and you couldn’t go wrong with either choice.
However, it is best to study CS if you’re at a shit university. -
to add to these points, going full math feels freaking GOOD in that "I’m majoring in feelings" way. Like philosophy but somehow respected. You’re huffing your own and others’ delicious toots, and it’s wonderful.
You are learning THE MOTHERfreaking LANGUAGE OF PATTERNS and sometimes it’s coincidentally vital to civilization, but mostly it’s delicious toots.
I’m trying to think, there’s a fancy word. Dilettante? Something along those lines, there’s a good word escaping me. Beautifully useless, existing for its own purposes, simply because it’s true, simply because the universe works this way inside certain formal boundaries, which you can also explore.
And then the real magic golden apple, is getting PAID to explore these things, and/or teaching them to others. It’s just glitter confetti everywhere, if you are of a certain type.
More likely, you’ll cash out earlier, with a solid math background and easily pick up some programming whatever, and the stupid HR will say "Wow MATH" and hire you immediately, because their typical nose-picking scrotebrain mannequin applicants are left clueless with anything that’s not holding their hand through the black boxes. -
Op here. What about a major in math and PhD in physics?
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Math major can be trained to do computer science. CS major CAN’T be trained to do mathematics. Simple as that.
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to add to this, I’d be surprised if institutions are teaching much relevant to an actual job you’d have as a coder. Things might have changed, but likely you’ll have to pick up git, debugging beyond print statements, any language besides java or C++ most likely.
CS major if you think you like getting into compilers and research and the theoretical side. And, at that point, you’re probably better off starting with a math degree and doing CS grad program anyways, since it eventually is just math.
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Copied from another thread:
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Nobody "studies programming." Programming is something you do, but it’s not really to be studied in depth because that’s like studying CAD software. You study problems that can be solved by computation, and programming is what you know to help implement that intuition and knowledge.
This is why there’s a huge divide between CS majors at good schools and CS majors at bad or even average schools. I know CS majors from MIT (yes, while they’re EECS, their resume and work all veer towards pure CS) who work MechE aligned jobs in robotics. I know CS majors who work in physical design for designing circuit layouts (lots of rich algorithmic work there). But these people are fewer than the rest who just want a job working at some basic bitch firm writing business logic.If you major in math, learn CS (not progamming, but actual CS). If you major in CS, learn math. Both should learn programming. If you’re doing your work as you should, by the time you hit grad school, if you’re interested in the same field, you will know the same things. Read any large theory book in a field of applied or pure math written by a CS prof and ask yourself the question, "Is it really true that CS researchers are any worse off than math researchers?"
>but no such books exist
https://cs.uwaterloo.ca/~watrous/TQI/TQI.pdf
http://algo.inria.fr/flajolet/Publications/book.pdf
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2105.10386.pdf
https://cseweb.ucsd.edu/~alchern/teaching/DDG.pdf
and many moreTL;DR study what you want and supplement with whatever you aren’t studying now. Don’t underestimate CS – there are a ton of problems in the field and many more that touch problems in every field of math, science, and engineering
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I would personally add to this that it really doesn’t matter much what your major is as much as it matters to try and figure out what career path you want and then adjust accordingly. I did a double major in math and CS for a school highly ranked in both and got a lot out of both because the math and CS programs are sisters here (the profs even do research in the same building / many projects have cross collabs including with some engineering dept people) and both programs had classes better taught by the other side.
So my caveat is this: look at your local CS program at the school you’re attending. If it looks good and rigorous, go for it. Nobody is gonna argue with a try hard degree from top schools where there are so many good researchers that you can take differential geometry and graphics processing (aka solving hard boundary value problems and physical modeling), robotics, OS design, fixed parameter complexity, computational medicine, etc etc. and other very interesting classes.
If your program isn’t quite as good but still good, and you’re willing to do the work, a double major or even a major + minor is fine.
Otherwise, a math major is fine. You can make it work as far as employment goes, but heads up that a CS major definitely has better opportunities out of college especially if they did stuff on the engineering side of things. I think I see more CS grads do robotics and compliant motion planning these days than mechE and EE grads, but that could just be my own selection bias.
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Lucky there are applied computational math programs to meet this market need.
Rather make middle class salary doing things that I enjoy with a degree that I’m happy to say I have, than do something I hate for the rest of my life just to buy a bigger TV or a faster car. -
an engineering major with a computer science minor
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To get hired as a mathematician you’ll need a PhD.
CS is employable right off the bat.-
You won’t be doing CS with just a bachelor’s as much as you’ll likely be doing some form of engineering, but you’re right that CS makes for more employable candidates
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you aren’t a mathematician unless you have at least a PhD, wtf
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You can be employed as a mathematician with a masters.
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Porque no los dos, mi sis?
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I’m a mathematician because I do math, proof me wrong.
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>proof me wrong
i think you proved yourself that
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math is better if you want to learn something, or make a lot of money.
computer science is better if you are kind of dumb (be honest with yourself).
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>lot of money
Lmao.jpg -
>lot of money
>math
hahahahahahahahahahahah
hahahahhahahahahah
nice joke man-
literally $300k starting
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Neither, both are completely useless as degrees.
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Sat on the freeway with a "Will Prove Shit For Food" sign
Made 100k
How was your day, losers? -
Whatever you do, just try your best to be productive and make your undergrad years fruitful. I’m finishing up my undergrad in maths and for the past 4 years I have only done pure maths; now I’m finding it difficult to find a job I would be happy with. My advice is to major in something you like and also work on projects or participate in extracurriculars because those are the things that will ultimately land you a wagie role.
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definitely CS
i dont have a tech bachelors degree (liberal farts) but took a few tech classes (statistics & database mgmt) at part of grad school program.
taught myself full stack dev
i have about 2 yrs pro exp, 4 yrs amateur exp (off and on).
and now interviewing for $100/hr – $125/hr on contract remote jobs, and around $300k salary in San Francisco bay area, related jobs.
I didnt need a CS degree and although I appreciated my undergrad time and used it as a social entrepreneur (dont wanna doxx myself) , if I had more CS credentials Id get higher up the chain, faster.
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The contrast is so great that it’s not even funny. There are people on LULZ and some I know IRL that can’t find a decent software engineering jobs despite majoring in CS. And then there’s people like you who come from outside and still make so much bank.
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I am also very interested in both, and ultimately decided on a math major and CS minor. I really haven’t found CS program that look rigorous enough for me to be proud of completing them, and that self actualization is very important so I don’t kill myself.
I think UMich has a decent CS program, but most seem like really easy web dev stuff. I think the random shitty programs that are so common will eventually devalue the meaning of a CS degree, and it will hurt those with a CS degree once the mass exposure of frauds with web dev degrees comes to light. Mathematics is generally a standardized set of courses and always respectable at an accredited institution, granted its pure mathematics or applied mathematics and not a degree woke af on education. With that, any employer can determine that your mathematics degree will hold weight regardless of the university you attended. This thought process need not apply to those attending well known institutions.
You will also have an easier time transitioning from a mathematics undergraduate degree to a CS graduate degree, while the opposite is essentially impossible unless you were already very close to a double major in math and CS. You can verify this with coursework requirements for graduate programs in both fields at any university.
Lastly, it is extraordinarily easier to enter a mathematics undergraduate or graduate program at any institution due to the overwhelming number of people going into CS because they know its the new hot meme for money; the same applies to data science.
With a mathematics undergraduate degree, you are hedging future risk for graduate applications, and increasing your chances of being hired at the cost of a possible top end salary. I would rather be safe and not greedy.-
This anon has solid advice but I’d say don’t choose math if you’re low IQ
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Anons I’m currently doing a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from a top uni in Canada. But I started late and won’t graduate before 2025. What can I do with a math degree at the bright young age of 25?
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bump
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