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I'm really interested in pairing my study program in linguistics with computer science, or studying astrophysics, but I've always struggled with math. I passed Precalculus in 10th grade with a B first semester and C second, and pulled a 600 on the SAT math section. This is as far as my high school math career goes. I just don't "get it" when it comes to advanced math.</p>
<p>So my question is this: have you, or anyone you know of, ever struggled with math and then went on to be great at it? Or do you just have to have "the right kind of intelligence"? It seems like every engineering major I know has been doing calculus from the womb, as of right now I can't envision myself ever passing a calc class, let alone achieving anything meaningful in CS.</p>
<p>If CS is anything like a math degree, then you shouldn’t worry too much about computation and arithmetic. At higher levels, it’s all about logic and reasoning. Of course, having the ability to perform computation and arithmetic are of course, invaluable. Math is something you just need to keep working at, and keep trying to crack, and once you crack the code, you’re set. So, keep at it, and good luck, OP.</p>
<p>Math and computer science require some of the same skills, but you don’t have to be good at math to be good at computer science. Both majors require the ability to break a big problem up into manageable junks. This is even more important for computer science than for math, whether you are taking a programming course or a class on algorithms or computer organization. Both majors make heavy use of abstractions, but computer science does it more “practically” than math. </p>
<p>Computer science is more accessible than math because it is more hands-on and interactive. You can play with code and circuits and try different things until you know exactly what’s happen and why it’s happening. You can make a small change and immediately observe the effects of that change. All of these interactions make the concepts and abstractions in computer science a lot more concrete than some trig rules in math. You would still have to take a few math-like theory classes for a CS major, but I wouldn’t let those deter you from the subject if you are sincerely interested in it.</p>
<p>(I don’t mean to hijack threads, but… there’s a new subforum dedicated to questions about science majors. In a good-faith effort to keep that subforum alive and well, I would suggest that future science questions be posted there. Thanks!)</p>