I am a Computer Science student going to college in the fall. I am really interested in studying accounting and I have developed an interest for it while in high school. I am pretty much a nerd spending all of my time studying, so the course load wouldn’t be a problem. I just want to know if the double major would make me more attractive to employers or increase my value in the workplace?
Take a breath. You don’t declare a major (no less a double major) until the spring of your sophomore year. I suggest before deciding that you take some college level classes in both disciplines and see where your interests and aptitudes lie.
A Comp Sci & Accounting major don’t really fit together in terms of prospective career positions. Comp Sci & Finance might work since a lot of companies (particularly tech companies) are hiring growth and business strategy analysts which combine a lot of the skills in finance modeling with database skills that comp sci majors develop. It’s typically pretty hard to double major in those two areas though since comp sci usually has a pretty abundant workload.
Accounting and computer science could be a good double as accounting systems are all computerized. Some of the accounting work is the testing of these computer systems. In addition there are companies that build and maintain accounting systems.
Will it increase your value? It depends, what are you looking to do once you graduate?
If you’re particularly interested in audit ( as opposed to other things like tax) then you would be very valuable. When performing audits your accounting background will provide you a very good understanding of a firm’s business. Much of your work would revolve around assessing internal controls for the firm so you would deal with the IT specialists that design these controls. Having a degree in computer science would allow you to better understand the technical aspects, so you won’t have to rely on the expertise of other IT people. You would essentially be able to take on 2 different roles if you wanted to and the firm agreed.
Also, as a CS major you will likely also know a lot about database structure, SQL, etc. Very valuable!