How hard do you think it would be to double major in English with a concentration in writing and Computer Science?
Doable, but depends where you go and how much time you have.
First off, you’d want a school that was really good at both; you are there to learn and excel, not just get the degree so get the best education you can. Some place like UW Madison, for instance. Then you’d need to figure that the CS major probably has a core of 16 to 20 classes out of the 32 you’ll need to graduate. All of your non-core classes in the CS major are going to have to be in English if that’s allowed (some don’t allow more than a set number of classes in one field) and those classes will have you writing long essays at the college level. Both the CS and English work are very time intensive exercises so you aren’t going to be taking 6 classes a semester, you’d burn out and it’s not worth it. It’s great that you can consider both of these but you may need 5 to 6 years if the curriculum is not flexible.
If duration is critical for you, or if you can only get funding for 4 years of undergrad, you may need to look at a school that has a flexible curriculum with no fixed gen ed requirements. That would be Brown, or Rochester, maybe Hampshire. A LAC with strong sciences, like Oberlin, could probably work as well.
Lastly, if there is a particular component of writing you are interested in - rhetoric (UW-Madison), technical writing (Penn State), creative (Iowa) - that may guide you toward the larger universities that have solid technology programs and are known for writing specializations.
It may be easier to have another major along with CS if the CS major is not an engineering based one that requires more math and non CS science.
A non engineering based CS major may require more like 15 out of 32 courses, rather than probably 17 or more. English majors probably requires around 12 courses. But then there may also be general education requirements not covered by the majors.
For each college, add the following courses or credits:
- Needed for CS.
- Needed for English.
- Needed for general education, not covered by CS or English majors.
Then subtract any that AP or similar credit can exempt you from. If the result is no more than the usual number of courses or credits taken in four years, then it is doable.