<p>Hi, my daughter got admitted into University of Washinton (UW) for 2016 class. She applied for CS and she got pre science as major. she is interested in math too. does anybody has any idea about UW "Applied and Computational Mathematical Sciences" (ACMS) major? how hard is it to get into this major? will there be jobs in this field, if she is doing BS in this major?
please, enlighten us.
Thank You.</p>
<p>It’s not hard to get in. When I did, it was practically open registration, but I’m not sure if it still is, but it should be easy enough. There are a couple things I have to say: </p>
<ul>
<li>ACMS is not CS. If your daughter is dead-set on CS and did not get into the program, she should not go to UW. The upper division acceptance rates for UW’s CS program are ridiculously low. She might be able to get in with the upper division crowd, but I wouldn’t take that risk if other options were available. </li>
<li>You can get the same jobs CS majors can. There’s a shortage of Software Engineers, and many companies are hiring ACMS majors as interns.</li>
<li>There is some potential for math related jobs, although the vast majority of the ACMS majors I know have gone on to grad school or CS related jobs. </li>
<li>I think it’s a good major, but it’s somewhat undefined. You have to put some effort into learning everything you want to learn. The flexibility is nice, but I feel like if you just go for the minimum requirements, you might feel like a jack of many trades but master of none.</li>
</ul>
<p>Thank You acmsmajor.you gave us useful info.</p>
<p>Lots of Economics people double Economics with ACMS’ Mathematical Economics option.</p>
<p>@xAVIFM, She doesn’t like econnomics. </p>
<p>we are also thinking about under graduate degree in informatics too. any thoughts? is it easy to get into? totally confusing about UW majors. thanks.</p>
<p>I do not recommend the major in Informatics. As an Informatics major , I can tell you that it’s a major that people only take as a CS substitute. Nobody wants it. It was easy to become an Informatics major, but due to increasing demand, even becoming a “worse CS” major is getting harder to get into. That said, it’s still fairly easy. </p>
<p>I would urge your family to reconsider your choice in college if your daughter has any intention of doing CS. The University of Washington accepted 16% of the applicants for the CS major. Many more students don’t even apply for the major- they know their chance at getting in is nil, but it’s where they’d be if they could. The size of the CS department currently sits at 30% of what it should be. In order to accept all the students within the university that want the major, it would likely need to be ten times its current size. </p>
<p>The thing is, University of Washington earns its top 10 ranking in CS by serving a small tiny portion of its students very very well, and by being cutting edge in CS research. The problem is that this by consequence means most of the students aren’t served at all. </p>
<p>As it is, I’m graduating wishing I had picked another college. Or transferred anytime. I’m still thinking about transferring somewhere and starting fresh on an undergraduate degree. I’ve wasted four years of my life and haven’t learned very much. Certainly not as much as I wanted it. Don’t do Informatics. Don’t come here.</p>