<p>Hi. I am a currently Brown student (moving up to be a sophomore) and I was wondering if anyone here is a CS or ECON concentrator or a CS/ECON concentrator. How difficult is it? What classes should I watch out for? Is this the major that kills everyone? My current advisor is ok, but I feel he is a bit unrealistic when I ask him questions like this… let me know. Oh ya how big of a difference will the ScB make versus the AB degree. Right now I am leaning towards the ScB because it will make me better at thinking of solutions to a wide arrange of problems in CS.</p>
<p>I did a moderate amount of CS (more on the computational side of things as opposed to software design… it’s in relation to AM) and tons of EC. How hard things are will be relative to what stuff you’re good at, I guess. Most students that plan to do CS/Econ got tripped on the CS-part of things, since it is traditionally has been one of the most demanding majors at Brown. Out of curiosity, have you taken CS classes at Brown? If you have, how did you find it? If you haven’t, I suggest you try some of the courses first and see if it’s for you.</p>
<p>AB/ScB distinction makes little difference in the long run. I doubt that doing ScB will make you ‘better at thinking of solutions to a wide arrange of problems in CS’.</p>
<p>Yes I took cs15, nc’ed cs16 (cs16 was a pain for me, I don’t like to make excuses but I felt that if Spike (Prof. Hughes) was clearer about topics and didn’t rush through the material so much I would have been more successful). </p>
<p>So this is my tentative schedule the fall:</p>
<p>cs19 (filling in the void for cs16)
cs31
econ-0110 (currently reading a torrented copy of mankiw’s poe )
apma1650 (probably get a tutor for this course meet once a week, I am not so sure how hard (or soft) this will be)</p>
<p>spring:</p>
<p>cs36 (most likely)
cs22
econ macro (not math)
probably an english course</p>
<p>I don’t think I will have much of a social life in the Fall besides Friday night. But, if I feel if I can keep up and stayed focused I can have a good semester. NCing 16 was good because it humbled me and my aspirations and made me rethink what I want to do with my life and my time at Brown. Which made me question the CS/ECON route.</p>
<p>By the way, I have done all of the CS math requirements math100-520</p>
<p>ECON0110 doesn’t really have to be studied over the summer, imo. If possible, you best be redirecting your summer efforts to one of the other three. </p>
<p>Don’t know too much about CS myself, though the CS concentrators that I knew that graduate…today…mentioned it was a pain(though one was one of your TA’s…)</p>
<p>Did you make sure to utilize TA hours? Early?</p>
<p>I enjoyed APMA1650 when I took it. I didn’t find it particularly challenging, though the professor will be different this ear and a large percentage of the class did struggle, based on the exam results.</p>
<p>I’m more or less in your place - I’m a rising sophomore who is contemplating a CS-Math ScB. So for what it’s worth:</p>
<p>CS19 with Professor Reiss was somewhat insane. But I’ve heard rumors from several people, including a TA, that the professor for this fall wants to teach it entirely in Scheme, with a large Java project at the beginning that’s pass/fail to ensure everyone knows the language.</p>
<p>I also took CS32 (I’m not sure if you’ll take this - it’s required for the ScB but not the AB). I found it easier than 19 in some senses, but I had 1 bad project early and spent the rest of the term trying to make up for it (finally did). The lectures were somewhat helpful, particularly because about 1/3 of the course involves programming in C/C++, and that was covered throughout the term. Everyone spends the entire term designing and programming a project in small groups, and one needs to stay focused throughout the term to complete it. It’s a useful course particularly because of that project, as it will prepare you to work with others in programming (valuable for the workforce).</p>
<p>I’ve also heard that CS22 is not particularly useful or challenging, but I haven’t taken the course yet, so I don’t know for sure yet.</p>
<p>Having taken CS at Brown before, you likely have a sense of that side of things. I’m planning to focus mainly on AI and algorithms, but your interests may differ. I’ve gotten the sense that Econ courses, while not the most challenging offered at Brown, are far from the easiest, so I’d imagine that either track will be difficult.</p>
<p>What would you like to study outside of these areas? The ScB is still a very large number of courses, even though you have completed the math requirements. Do you want to commit to doing a research paper/project/program in your senior year? Would you do it anyways?</p>
<p>To: justbreathe</p>
<p>I tried to utilize the TA’s but I would usually have several questions about each of the problems. So I would usually talk the problems over with friends and we would all agree that was the correct solution. Unfortunately most of the time it wasn’t the correct answer. I know CS is a tough major, but I feel like its what I want to do with my life. :).</p>
<p>To: Uroogla</p>
<p>CS22 should be interesting I had several friends taking the course, they told me just to be very explicit about everything in the homework. My friend was in CS19 and the projects seemed to be quite ridiculous.
I am fairly certain that by the time I am a certain I will want to do the research paper/project/program. It will probably be something social-Browncentric-web 2.0 (I have a few ideas now but I am still cultivating them).</p>
<p>why would anyone major in cs AND econ? I don’t understand this. On another note, can anyone list the most rigorous majors at Brown and maybe mention where AM-econ stands?</p>
<p>Arapollo/Uroogla:</p>
<p>Anything taught by Reiss is ridiculous actually. That man is a fantastic programmer (have you ever noticed the number of monitor screens he has on his room?), but unfortunately this does not translate into the ability to create projects that mere mortals can accomplish in a reasonable amount of time. I’m more in the camp that advocates CS19 solely for those with a lot of prior programming experience, but if time is a concern of yours then you can try using it to replace CS16.</p>
<p>airbag:</p>
<p>There are a lot of interesting overlapping problems in CS and Economics. Tough to list them all, but let’s try to get you an idea… For instance, Amy Greenwald in the CS department does a lot of work in artificial intelligence – that is, creating autonomous decision-makers under specific constraints. To create such robust system, you’d need a rock solid programming background, but the applications can be very economics-based: simulated auctions, dynamic pricing, and a bunch of game-theoretic problems.</p>
<p>Dynamic programming is widely used to solve multi-period asset allocation problems. Linear programming is used all the time to optimize systems. And there are a lot of fantastic problems in finance that cannot be solved analytically, that requires you to resort to numerical methods to approximate the solution (i.e. exotic options pricing).</p>
<p>Regarding AM-Econ and its rigor, see my post on your other thread.</p>
<p>airbag:</p>
<p>One of the term projects in CS32 this past spring was a stock-market game, designed for educating students on how it works. A more advanced version of it would have contained computer AI. Things like this would be relevant projects.</p>
<p>Both the applied math and computer science departments are supposedly very good. I haven’t had great experiences with the two applied math professors I had, but I know there are many more, and the classes were still challenging. Econ itself might not be quite as rigorous, but all ScB concentrations are quite rigorous. I really can’t see one being looked down upon for doing any of them.</p>
<p>arapollo:</p>
<p>I’m still unsure if I will take CS22. It is not explicitly required within my concentration, and I have covered the majority of the material on the syllabus in the past. Because it’s not a programming course, though, I don’t see it being too bad taken with another CS course.</p>
<p>icebox4:</p>
<p>I found his assigned projects to be rather hit or miss. Some were reasonable, some were slightly challenging, others were absolutely crazy. As a freshman, I did have enough time that I could reasonably spend 25 hours on a project in 1 week, and this helped somewhat, but one has to be prepared to do this and then still not necessarily get an A.</p>
<p>Oops! I had an unclear pronoun in my post. I meant, the CS concentrators I know(including one that was your TA for CS16) all agreed that CS16 is a pain in the butt. They heavily recommended that I take CS15, but told me not to take CS16. So take heart, seniors finishing off their careers found the class frustrating also. </p>
<p>@airbag: I think your concern about “most rigorous” is misguided if your concern stems out of your post-grad plans. You’ll do well with whatever concentration you choose as long as you excel in it.</p>