Hello, I am a student going to Berkeley this fall.
I have some decent programming experience and I do not think it will be that challenging for me to get into the CS program. But since I was also little bit interested in data science, I was thinking of double majoring in Statistics.
But I was wondering whether it actually worths the time and effort.
If I double major, I’ll probably have less time to do club activities and do research paper and all those stuff, and probably more workload and stress overall. And I wasn’t sure if double majoring has pros that supersedes the setbacks I’ll face by attempting to double major.
What’s the difference in salary like, my choice in the job market, and company preferences.
Thank you very much
I don’t think you need to decide this now. Take the intro classes in both majors and after a while
you may feel more or less passionate about either, and go for major/minor, dbl major or simply drop one.
Yes having both would help in certain types of jobs, but then again, an undergraduate and graduate degree would be better than a dbl major. Don’t do this if it would extend undergrad school, that would be a waste.
Agree with @blevine. If you start taking the intro classes for both, there is a good chance that you will end up with a major in one and either just taking some courses or a minor in the other. This is usually easier than a double major.
CS + statistics seems like you want to go into data science, although major in one with substantial electives in the other may be sufficient.
https://career.berkeley.edu/Survey/2016Majors can let you know what kind of jobs that CS and statistics majors at UCB find, but it does not break out those with the specific double major of CS + statistics (those with double majors are included in both majors’ listings, but are not specifically noted).
Be aware that both CS and statistics are restricted admission majors. CS requires a 3.3 GPA in three CS courses, while statistics requires a 3.2 GPA in math prerequisites and a B- or higher in one of the first two upper division statistics courses.
A major in statistics can mean a lot of different things, but at a school like Berkeley it likely means a lot of theoretical statistics that would be overkill for a data science job. I would recommend @ucbalumnus 's option of a “major in one with substantial electives in the other.”
I am super late in the conversation but I’ll just throw in my two cents.
RelicAndType probably gave the best possible answer; it’s concise but has all of the information needed. Cal is very theoretical albeit a top stats program in the nation (if you’re talking about research universities).
Data science =/= statistics…data science mainly focuses on extracting data using programming whereas stats is very much focused on inference; they kind of overlap but think of stats being a more formal and pure version (stats is still applied, big time)…doing stats over-qualifies you for DS jobs, like Relic pointed out
I talked with my stats adviser and he repeatedly said to not do a double major, especially if you’re doing a B.S. It may be different at Cal, but I wouldn’t be surprised if their advisers said the same thing. He said it was OK for me to minor in Philosophy, so you may want to take a look into minors instead. It seriously isn’t a lot and in some cases you can fulfill the minor through GE. Also, you may actually earn a minor in the way. As a stats major, if everything works out, I’ll get a minor in CS.
If there is a DS minor, do that without a doubt. Stats minor? You may want to look into the curriculum and see if you have time, but it shouldn’t be too much.