Hi,
I am a freshman in high school and am currently interested in the following majors:
However, my top two choices are computer science and behavioral sciences. Is this possible? I’d like to go to Stanford, Yale, or UC Berkeley-- of course, that’s wishful thinking. If I were to go to one of those schools, would this kind of double major be possible? What about the Ohio State University?
Thanks!
YESSSS 
I’m super-biased because this is my field. There is a whole field around this - variably called user experience, usability, human-computer interaction (HCI) and/or human-centered design/research. They’re overlapping areas. The basic concept is that you can design a really excellent piece of software/hardware that is completely useless because nobody knows how to use it, or it’s too difficult to use, or it doesn’t fulfill a need or function that humans actually want. So UX and HCI both focus (in slightly different ways) on designing and tailoring tech to the needs of actual users. There are different roles within this - designers and developers focus on user-centered design of the products; researchers bring in users to to actually test the products and report results to the developers. (Many places don’t have the budget for both, so they’ll hire one person or a few people who do both. They will lean heavily towards people who can do the design side.)
At Stanford, you would probably major in computer science and double major or minor in psychology. THe computer science BS at Stanford has a specialization in HCI (https://hci.stanford.edu/academics/degrees.php). There’s also a product design that combines coursework in mechanical engineering, art, and psychology.
Yale actually has a (looks new) joint major in computer science and psychology. You could also potentially double major in cognitive science and computer science.
At Berkeley, you could double major in psychology and computer science, or cognitive science and computer science. Berkeley has a pretty robust HCI community, with some researchers and centers going on around it. (http://hci.berkeley.edu/)
At Ohio State, you could double major in psychology and CS.
Anthropology and sociology are other social sciences that might appeal to you, although they’re less experimental in nature and dovetail less directly into HCI work.
I do also want to point out some colleges that have human-computer interaction or UX majors:
[url=<a href=“https://www.hcii.cmu.edu/academics/hci-undergraduate%5DCarnegie”>https://www.hcii.cmu.edu/academics/hci-undergraduate]Carnegie Mellon/url
[url=<a href=“http://www.hcde.washington.edu/bs/hci%5DUniversity”>http://www.hcde.washington.edu/bs/hci]University of Washington/url
[url=<a href=“http://catalog.drexel.edu/undergraduate/collegeofmediaartsanddesign/webdevelopandinteractiondesign/%5DDrexel%5B/url”>http://catalog.drexel.edu/undergraduate/collegeofmediaartsanddesign/webdevelopandinteractiondesign/]Drexel[/url] (Interactive digital media)
[url=<a href=“http://www.cc.gatech.edu/people-0%5DGeorgia”>http://www.cc.gatech.edu/people-0]Georgia Tech/url
Schools which offer a non-engineering-based CS major may have more schedule space outside the CS major to fit a second major or large numbers of electives in another subject.
@juillet ,
Thank you for your passionate response! I was just recently introduced to the possibility of studying behavioral sciences-- your analysis truly helped me out so much!
@ucbalumnus ,
There are engineering-based computer science majors? Wow, I am so out of the loop.
Yes, sometimes, CS is in an engineering division, usually requiring a larger number of non-CS science and math courses.
@ucbalumnus ,
Dang. This might be tougher than I expected, haha.
To piggyback on @ucbalumnus 's post, Berkeley has two CS majors. There’s one (a BA) in the College of Letters and Sciences, and one (a BS) in the College of Engineering. Berkeley says there is no difference in the amount of computer science classes between the BA and the BS; the only difference is the additional courses you take. BA majors take social sciences and humanities courses and BS majors take engineering and advanced math.
Ohio State similarly has two different majors. There’s computer and information sciences in the College of Arts & Sciences - you can get either a BA or a BS in that (the BA is probably better suited for a double major). Then there’s a BS in computer science and engineering, which is in the College of Engineering and requires a lot of engineering coursework in addition to math and science.
You’ll probably want to mainly look for universities/colleges at which the computer science major is just in the regular college of arts & sciences for undergrads, or where there really aren’t separate undergrad divisions like that (for example, at Yale, where all undergrads are at Yale College).
Note, however, that Berkeley CS and psychology majors in the College of Letters and Science are both now restricted majors, due to capacity limitations. CS currently requires a 3.3 GPA in its prerequisites to enter the major, while psychology currently requires a 3.2 GPA in its prerequisites to enter the major.
http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/csugrad/#petitioning
http://psychology.berkeley.edu/students/undergraduate-program/major-requirements
To give an example of the logistics of a double major, at Berkeley, CS requires 15 courses, while psychology requires 17 courses (but 2 overlap with CS), for a total of 32 courses. Up to 4 of them may be covered by specific AP credit, so a total of 26 to 30 courses are needed. The College of Letters and Science has additional graduation requirements, including 2 English composition courses (AP English credit may apply) and 3 or 4 breadth courses not covered by the majors (AP credit not allowed here). So you would need a total of 30 to 36 courses. Since most students take 4 courses per semester (most courses are 4 credit units), if you do not bring in much applicable AP credit, you may need to take overload schedules or an extra semester. In any case, you would need to choose courses carefully to avoid “wasting” any of your schedule space.
It would be much easier to major in one while taking electives in the other.
Berkeley also offers a cognitive science major.
http://cogsci.berkeley.edu/requirements
However, if you are not a California resident, Berkeley will be expensive. Before fall of your senior year, be sure to talk to your parents about what they will contribute and run each college’s net price calculator to get financial aid estimates to see which colleges are likely to be affordable.