<p>How work intensive would it be to double major in Computer Game Science and Mathematics? How many credits would I have to take per quarter on average to graduate in 4 years? Would it be better for me to just minor in mathematics so I can take more CGS electives, since I plan on becoming a computer game developer in the future? I personally love both of these subjects and I would enjoy to study them both more in-depth, but I don't want to kill myself with work at UCI. What do you guys recommend?</p>
<p>I’m going to argue that grad schools and employers care less about your SPECIFIC major(so long as it’s relevant) and specific courses taken than they do experience and the overall scope of your knowledge. I’ll make the point that in an ideal world, you’d double major in both(consider applied and computational math) and take on a number of projects which convey an interest in the field. (Who would YOU rather hire, someone with extensive knowledge of programming and mathematics and demonstrated interested in the field, or some guy with no real world experience and who loaded up on a bunch of extra courses that because he thought it would be “cool”?)</p>
<p>Ohh and fair warning, at the end of the day, if you’re programming, you’re looking at lines of code and praying that it executes properly. It doesn’t matter if you’re making a financial model for a bank or a physics simulator for a game, the work is a lot more similar than you’d like to believe. A lot of people say that the difference between app programming and game programming is that app programming is more event driven while game programming processes in real time… guess what… clear example here of something else.</p>
<p>My personal philosophy is that during your undergrad you should “branch out” and cover your area of interest from multiple angles. This makes you more well-rounded and gives you options. I for example am interested in finance and split my focus between econ, statistics and accounting and have a major and two minors. You’d be amazed by the number of employers that say this is the “perfect combination” and this is in entirely different fields(auditing, tax, corporate-finance, banking, credit analysis, IT consulting, health care consulting, strategy consulting, etc.). The same applies to what you’re doing. Comp Sci and something like math, physics or stats to back it up allows you to tackle problems from angles DIFFERENT from the rest of your zombified videogame loving nerd-peers(and there’s A LOT of them). </p>
<p>Some advice, go join VGDC, look it up.
[Video</a> Game Development Club @UCI](<a href=“http://www.clubs.uci.edu/vgdc/blog/]Video”>http://www.clubs.uci.edu/vgdc/blog/)</p>
<p>Very interesting stuff. I will be doing information and computer science, which I don’t really understand what is the difference from computer science.
I was thinking of minoring math also, but at the same time I wanted to do something with business. Minor in management? Math? Or something else? Or nothing</p>
<p>ICS vs. CS is about the same from what I understand, the main difference is the inclusion of a few informatics courses(they’re relatively easy). I honestly believe employers would view the two as largely interchangeable.</p>
<p>minoring in management isn’t too bad an idea. It’s definitely a GPA booster.
requirements
A. One lower-division core course: Management 1.
B. Four core courses selected from Management 30A, 101, 102, 105, 107, 109.
C. Two other Mgmt courses
I’d do 30a(accounting), 101(management science), 107(information systems), and 109(finance) but that’s just me.</p>
<p>The math minor is basically math 13 + 120/140 + 5 random math courses of your choice. It’s fairly flexible.</p>
<p>It all depends on how many additional courses you would need to take to double major. I’m an incoming aerospace transfer, and I’m seriously considering double majoring in aerospace/mechanical because it only requires 4 more courses, so I can still graduate in 2 years. If you find double majoring requires significantly more classes, where you have to take more than 4 years to graduate or you have to take a huge number of units per quarter, I seriously wouldn’t bother, you can always get a master’s in the other one.</p>