<p>I'm a second year student at the University of Texas at Austin, and I have a bit of a dilemma:</p>
<p>I came out of high school with a lot of credits, so many that it leaves me almost a year's worth of room to take whatever else I'd like or take on a second major. I'm deciding between adding a math major (which would take only 6 more math courses to complete) or doing what's called the "Business Foundations Program," which would take only 5 business courses to complete. Which one would better prepare me for grad school in CS? While I think math is always useful and it would definitely look good on paper, doing so would take a lot out of my time (MUCH more so than the business classes), hindering my ability to focus on CS as well or complete projects on my own. So, should I choose to focus on CS and take the most CS classes I can (along with the business courses), or should I add a math major?</p>
<p>Why not just take as electives whichever math, business, or other courses of interest without having to check all of the boxes for a second major?</p>
<p>Some math courses may be of interest and applicability to some areas of CS (e.g. algebra and number theory are of interest if you are interested in cryptography).</p>
<p>PhD program admissions won’t be concerned about a second major so much as your undergraduate research, recommendations, actual course selection, and grades.</p>
<p>You can try web searching for “math for AI” to get ideas of what math courses may be helpful.</p>
<p>I think the extra math classes will be viewed favorably for grad school. My d had a lot extra and went to school for theory, but changed to machine learning. They won’t care about business classes at all.</p>
<p>Most people I’ve talked to about this seem to think that more time to do projects and research is more important than more math.</p>
<p>@geo1113: I would mostly be interested in graduate school for the purpose of getting into an R&D position in industry and to more fine tune my skills in a particular area of knowledge within CS, such as AI and machine learning. I’ve always thought that I might enjoy pursuing either a CS or EE grad degree, and my only reservations about grad school are my desire to someday start a business of my own, in which grad school is obviously not necessary for.</p>
<p>Thank you, Kaelin. It does make sense what people mentioned about doing projects and research. Just make sure you have enough math covered. For example, the MS in CS program at my son’s school says that linear algebra and statistics (and of course, discrete) are required for admission.</p>
<p>If you can take independent research class for credit and research experience that would be a good plan. You may be able to do this for more than one class. You will need a professor who agrees to supervise you.</p>