<p>Hi Everyone,</p>
<p>I'll be a freshman at CMU H&SS next fall. I plan to double major in Information Systems & Statistics. Is this do-able? I just wanted to know the rigor of the Information Systems major and the Statistics major. So if you guys had any information about these majors, I'd really appreciate it.</p>
<p>Thank you. I'm very excited to join the CMU community! Go Tartans!</p>
<p>woohoo! i’m an IS & Stats major myself and so i’m feeling excited/ obliged to answer your question! </p>
<p>before we talk about the actual requirements, bear in mind that the IS program is by admission only and is available only as a primary major. This means 1) if you want to do IS, not only that you need to apply and get admitted, but that there needs to be space. Depending on your cohort’s IS intake, this may or may not be a problem for you. For my year, a more-than-expected number of kids decided to enroll in the IS program, and so the program was almost full with only 3 seats left for transfer students - if i remembered correctly - when our freshman year started (the IS program is a very small program and the faculty expressed explicitly that it is of their intention to continue keeping it small). On the other hand, popularity of the IS major seems to have increased quite a lot over the years. At least from what I’ve observed, many people (more than the number that the program could take in), decided or undecided, within or outside HSS (now called the Mariana Brown Dietrich College of H&SS…), are wanting to transfer into the program. 2) if you want to do IS, you must declare it as your primary major - not as an additional major or minor. But if you’re really into IS, then don’t worry too much about this requirement. This could put you at a disadvantage only if some courses offered by some other departments give priority to enrol to primary majors of their own departments. E.g.: economics. But the stats dept as far as I know doesn’t have that kind of practice. Advanced stats classes like 36-401 are reserved for stats majors, but I think the stats dept doesn’t really differentiate btw primary stats majors and additional stats majors when it comes to registration for those classes.</p>
<p>now let’s talk about the actual requirements. </p>
<p>first of all there are the prerequisites. As an HSS student, you need to clear 5 courses known as the freshman 5. Then, if you’re serious abt IS and want to graduate on time, make sure that you take 15110, 15112, 15121 in your freshman fall, freshman spring, sophomore fall respectively. Those are the computing prerequisites of IS. Having said that though, you may be able to skip 15110 or 15110+15112 depending on your AP credits and/or CS placement test score (which should take place sometime in June or July). Anyway, the important thing is that you need to clear 15121 (or 15122, which is a more rigorous class than 15121) before sophomore spring - that’s when the IS professional core courses that come with 15121 as a prerequisite start. For stats, in addition to the calc classes which you may place out of using AP scores, you need to take 21256 or 21259. You can’t place out of these two using AP scores. Advice: if you get credits for 21120 and 21122, take 21256 or 21259; if you have credits for 21120, take 21256 or 21259; if you have credits for neither, take 21120 followed by 21256 or 21259. This may sound complicated, but you’ll have a pretty good idea after going through the blackboard course which is intended to introduce you to everything that you need to know. (oh, forgot to mention, 21259 is known as ‘calc III’, the most advanced one of the basic calc classes). On top of that, you need to take 21241 (essentially this is linear algebra). In essence, my advice: complete 15121 before the start of sophomore spring; and complete 21259 and 21241 ASAP, latest before the start of junior year for 21259 and latest before the start of senior year for 21241. 21259 is the prereq for 36225 which is the prereq for 36226 which is the prereq for 36401. 21241 is another prereq for 36401. so you don’t want to wait until senior fall to take 36401 because you would want to have the opportunity to take some advanced stats electives and/ or do research, which all require 36401.</p>
<p>As you’ve probably seen in my badly-phrased last sentence, the core courses for both majors are highly sequenced. For IS you need to take 67270->67371->67373->67475. Each course is the prereq for the one that comes after and each course is offered only once a year, meaning that the moment you miss one of them, you fall one whole year behind. For stats you need to take 21259->36225->36226->36401->36402 (and 21241 somewhere before 36401). again, each course is the prereq for the one after, and 36225, 36226, 36401, 36402 are offered once a year only (21259 and 21241 are offered every semester). These are just the ‘core’ requirements. You still have requirements like 3 courses in Disciplinary Core and 3 courses in Content Area for IS, and a bunch of other stats classes for Stats, not to mention HSS GenEd requirements. This may or may not be correct, but personally I find the highly sequential nature of both majors makes it ultra hard to study abroad. You can’t miss out any of the core courses in the sequence so you have to find an appropriate replacement class abroad, yet many of the classes, especially some of the IS ones, are very hard to find a replacement for. </p>
<p>Phew, long post. If you’ve read until here, you may have started to think that doing a double major in IS and Stats is hard. It is, however, honestly, (in my opinion, of course), very feasible. Other than the highly sequential nature of both majors, you should have room for all the required core courses and electives and at the same time be able to graduate on time. Double-majoring is very common though not an obligation at CMU. An additional piece of good news: one of the content area in the IS curriculum is Quantitative Research Methods & Analysis, and you can use advanced stats electives (those that you take after completing 36401) to count for that requirement. There is, however, a limitation on double-counting, but I won’t go into detail here and you’ll find out either on your own or be told by the IS advisor soon enough. ah, i probably want to qualify me saying that “you should have room for…” a bit. I came in with lots of AP credits and after my freshman fall, I’d completed majority of the HSS GenEd requirements and was left with only 3 more courses to take for those requirements. So again, it depends on your AP. Also, if you’re willing to overload (meaning taking more classes than usual during one or more semesters) and can do well even though you’ve overloaded, you should be fine in terms of completing all sorts of requirements. </p>
<p>One last word, or maybe a few last words: I strongly encourage you to refer to the course catalog frequently and carefully. It’s very useful. Basically everything I’ve said here comes from the catalog, except that I’ve highlighted the hidden information on stuff like the sequential nature of the courses. Also, talk to your advisors. If you’re not admitted as an IS major, you’re undeclared and assigned to an HSS advisor; otherwise you’d be advised by the IS advisor from the start. It’s also important that you come to college not being narrow-minded about your intended major. Keep an open mind and explore for yourself. People here at CMU do amazing work out there in different departments in different areas or across different disciplines. Don’t be surprised if your interests and/ or intended area of study change soon. They may even change often. At the same time, though, it would certainly be helpful if you could keep an eye on the prereqs and sequential nature of the requirements when crafting your first schedule. Be flexible and be well-informed, so to speak. Welcome to CMU & HSS and all the best!</p>
<p>(my apology for my inconsistent use of uppercase letters. bad habit.)</p>
<p><a href=“http://coursecatalog.web.cmu.edu/collegeofhumanitiesandsocialsciences/departmentofstatistics/[/url]”>http://coursecatalog.web.cmu.edu/collegeofhumanitiesandsocialsciences/departmentofstatistics/</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://coursecatalog.web.cmu.edu/collegeofhumanitiesandsocialsciences/informationsystems/[/url]”>http://coursecatalog.web.cmu.edu/collegeofhumanitiesandsocialsciences/informationsystems/</a></p>
<p>after reading your question again i realized i may have gone off a little bit by focusing mainly on doability in terms of scheduling classes and completing requirements… in terms of rigor, i think you’ll be fine. idk. i’m not that ahead of you actually :/</p>
<p>also, if you’re thinking about stats in grad sch, take 21127 concepts of math (it’ll probably be reserved for CS majors in the first semester). it’s a prereq for upper-level math classes like 21355 & 21356 real analysis i&ii. you’ll want to take those classes to be competitive for grad sch admission. or is it too early to talk about grad sch with a freshman? lol</p>
<p>Wow jellycat!! Thank you so much! That was a lot of helpful information and I appreciate you taking the time to reply to me. You pretty much answered my question about the information systems and statistics major very comprehensively. I don’t really have much else to ask, except in your opinion, do you think statistics courses are easier [in terms of workload/tests/projects] than information systems. Currently, I am deciding between a double major in info systems and statistics, or a double major in economics and statistics. Right now, i’m getting the feeling that economics and statistics may be slightly easier lol. My school doesn’t offer ap comp sci, so, in truth, I feel like I’m not that prepared to be an information systems major. I also have another question jellycat about ap credit. I got a 4 on the AP Calc BC exam, with an AB subscore of 5 in my junior year. Currently, I am taking Calc III and Diff EQ. I know CMU gives credit for a 5 on the Calc BC exam and a 5 on the Calc AB exam - I was just wondering would I stand to get any credit? I got a 4, but my AB subscore is 5. Also, would a 5 in a English Lang Comp count for any Gen Ed requirements/ credit? When I visited the H&SS website, they said that regardless of AP score on english lang comp, every student has to take Interpretation and Argument. Once again, thank you jellycat. Best wishes for you too!</p>
<p>haha no prob, i got bored last night while reviewing 21259 so i took some time off to reply… it’s amazing that you’re taking calc III and Diff EQ now in high school. But I’m not sure if CMU ever assigns any credit for 21259 (calc III) or 21260 (Diff Eq). I’ve never heard of that happening before. Also, the stuff taught at the university level is more sophisticated than they teach in high school, so it actually wouldn’t be that bad an idea to ‘repeat’ 21259/ 21260 at cmu. Right, i just recalled there is a girl in my 21259 class who took calc III in hs before. she’s taking it again now. (but what you’ve done in hs would certainly be good prep.) For a complete list of last year’s AP credit policy, you can view it here: <a href=“http://www.cmu.edu/hss/advisory-center/images/ap-f11-freshmen.pdf[/url]”>http://www.cmu.edu/hss/advisory-center/images/ap-f11-freshmen.pdf</a> They update it every year so there might be slight changes for your batch. I’m actually not familiar with the AP score/ subscore issue at all… I did say I came in with lots of ‘AP’ credits, but that was for the sake of simplicity only… my credits were from Cambridge A-Level exams rather than AP. So I can’t really answer your question about what calc credit you could get from your AB subscore. What would happen is that you’ll soon receive some letter from HSS, inside which you’ll find a link to a Blackboard course specially designed for HSS students. In that course package there is a Calculus Placement Test. I’m not 100% positive about this, but last year’s policy was something like anyone who obtained a 5 on AP calc BC received credits for 21120 & 21122; those with a 4 had to take the placement test to see which calc class they should be placed into. You’ll probably need to wait until when you go through that blackboard course to know what calc credits you will be receiving. According to the .pdf, you’ll be receiving some credit for a 5 on Eng Lang. That credit apparently does not count toward any of the GenEd categories but it does count towards graduation. You still have to take 76101 Interp & Arg. It is not possible to not take that class. Everyone entering the university has to take to it no matter what. (Lots of ppl find that class a pain in the butt, but some actually enjoy it. My opinion is that you need to pick a topic that interests you. It also depends quite a lot on the instructor.) </p>
<p>Economics. Hmm. It seems that you have the tendency to pick all the majors that come with highly sequential course requirements haha. As you’ll probably get to know later, most of the majors in HSS are designed in such a way that you can complete them in just 2 years (junior & senior yrs). The only two exceptions are Econs and IS. Econs classes are also very sequential. There are 4 degree options for an Econs major, I’ll leave that to you to explore on your own 
If you want to major or double major in econs, you’d probably want to start taking econs classes early, so that by the time you reach your junior/ senior year, you’ll have completed the core classes and can do some advanced research or stuff like that. In addition to double majoring in Stats and Econs, one of the 4 options I mentioned just now is a combined major in Economics & Statistics.</p>
<p>In fact I just finished my freshman year, so I can’t quite comment on the rigor of the upper-level IS/Stats/Econs classes. The 200-level stats classes that you’ll probably take (36201, 36202) are pretty easy, but my stats advisor said the upper-level stats classes are quite intense (Apparently not many people are aware of this, but the stats dept here is ranked 9th in the nation). For IS, most people say 67272 which is offered in sophomore spring would be the hardest. Upper-level IS classes seem to be mostly project-based. I came in with credits for 73100 Principles of econs so I didn’t have to take that class. Prof Klepper is teaching in the Fall and rumor has it his class is super hard… My friend told me only a dozen or so got an A. Regarding your concern with your programming experience… My high school did not offer CS and I came in with zero programming experience too. I find it manageable to start from scratch, at least so far it has been fine. There’re certainly kids who jumped straight into 15121, but majority of the IS kids do start from 15110. So don’t worry too much about that. Anyway, IS is not really that programming-intensive - at least in my impression.</p>