How difficult is the Comp Sci Minor?

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Southern California
1

I’m accepted to USC Marshall, but I feel like having a Comp Sci minor will increase my employability and job prospects. However, will a Comp Sci minor be too difficult while attending to all the Marshall classes? I have no background whatsoever in engineering or anything in that nature.

Also, is the comp sci minor math-heavy?

2

Having some CS experience and computer programming skills could increase your job prospects, probably more so if you want to work at a tech company. Even if it’s another line on your resume, you’ll learn useful things. For example I know some one that works with a lot of excel files and he wrote a script that will organize and process them, so things that used to take him hours to do by hand he can get done in minutes.

I don’t think getting a CS minor will be too difficult. It will definitely add to your required courses and some of the CS courses are difficult, but a number of Marshall students do this, so as long as you put the effort in, you should be fine.

CS Minor reqs: http://www.cs.usc.edu/academics/undergrad/minor.htm

  • Some of the classes involve logic and math for proofs, but it’s not the kind of math like calculus that many people dislike/find difficult. However, this CS type of math you may dislike in a different way.
  • The good news is that to get into the minor you need to take the intro classes, CSCI 103 and 109, so you’ll get a taste of the CS math and programming before officially declaring a CS minor.

If you’re really worried about difficulty, or just want an easier option, you should look into one of the simpler but still good minors offered at ITP, which many Marshall students do http://itp.usc.edu/minors/

  • Computer Programming is the general one I’d recommend, but you may want to do a specific one, such as Enterprise Information Systems
  • You can contact a counselor to get more info about how to declare it, and I’d recommend taking ITP 165 first to see how you do first.
  • I’m pretty sure you could take CS 103 and 109, and if you want to stick with computer stuff but not get the more rigourous CS minor, you could still go for an ITP minor and CS 103 would count as the pre-req for ITP 365.
3

HEY ME TOO! I got into Marshall but I want to do Comp Sci, does anyone else have any opinions?!?!