Is A Computer Science Double Major Worth It?

I am a incoming computer science college freshman. I really want to have the job offers rolling in after I graduate. In addition, I want to make myself more attractive to employers. How should I go about this? Should I add another major with computer science. I am not worried about the time length because at my orientation last week, my counselor told me I have over 30 credits. I don’t necessarily want to double major, but I am willing to put in the work if it means more job offers, a higher salary, and high job security.

Out-of-major course work can help with specific types of CS-related jobs that involve applications related to your out-of-major course work. However, such areas are all over the place, so there is no one set of out-of-major course work that applies to all such areas.

The biggest factors in what you can do are:

  • Choose CS courses covering the commonly used concepts like algorithms and complexity, operating systems, networks, databases, security and cryptography, software engineering or projects.
  • Do well in school.
  • Be willing to relocate to where jobs are.
  • Be willing to do your own job search if your school is not as highly recruited (e.g. not local to a high concentration of jobs).
  • Try to get paid summer internships (or co-op jobs) relating to your career goals, or otherwise demonstrate proficiency in writing software (e.g. significant contribution to a well known high quality open source software project, or writing your own phone application that becomes popular and is seen as high quality).

Factors outside your control include:

  • Conditions in the computer industry and others hiring CS graduates at the time you graduate.
  • General economic conditions at the time you graduate.

Getting an internship will make you more competitive in the job market than having a double major. Pick up skills that are valuable to employers (and this will depend on what field you want to go into–looking at jobs that interest you and seeing what they list under required or wanted qualifications will help you get started). Don’t add another major for the sake of adding another major. It won’t get you any of the things you want. Work experience and learning high-demand skills will.