Majoring in engineering!(specifically CS or SE)

<p>Hello, I will be a graduating high school senior attending one of the UC's as undeclared at the moment. I always wanted to be a computer science or software engineer, spending hours and hours on the computer computing codes(sounds kinda boring but it interests me.lol.)</p>

<p>Anyways, I only made an account on here to ask for advice..During middle and high school, I haven't been the brightest student in mathematics. My best year was probably 8th grade with Algebra 1 when I got A+'s. Into high school with geometry, algebra 2, precalc, and currently calc AB, I haven't been the best and only been pulling in B's and C's.</p>

<p>I suppose most of it is my fault as I typically don't study until the last night and not even spend much time on studying. </p>

<p>I was wondering if CS is primarily calculus or some sort. I'm pretty good at memorization and patterns...Thanks..Any advice would be lovely. Thanks.</p>

<p>CS is almost zero calculus. In fact, the course most similar to what you’ll be doing in CS is actually geometry. I guess you could say CS is like geometry without triangles.</p>

<p>How much Calc is required in computer engineering and electrical engineering? I may plan on dual majoring in one of them ( I am currently a CS major ) and I would like to get a feel for it.</p>

<p>Im not really sure about what is being asked, but a strong CS school will likely not be a in a LAC. It will be heavy on Math, usually providing students access to Calculus 1-3, Discreet Math or in some schools its called Discreet Structures, Linear Algebra, Calculus based probability and sometimes but usually not Differential Equations. So thats 6 math classes all together.</p>

<p>My rule of choose a good CS/CSE/SE,… school is to ask first if they are heavy on math, if they are you likely have competent real CSE professors in the department. Second we ask ourselves if they have any required classes which utilize a functional programming language. It could be Lisp, ML, Haskel, Scheme, etc. It doesn’t matter which one it is, Most schools like Lisp/scheme. My school did all of them. The third question we ask, is Theory Of Computation part of the curriculum, if it is great, if its not, you need to check if the material is covered in other classes. </p>

<p>Those 3 steps allow a person to choose a real computer science school. Schools that let students graduate with just calc1 and 4 years of java and c++ with no other fundamentals are really not worth their weight. See what Joel Spolsky says about Java schools. </p>

<p>Wish you the best.</p>

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<p>Every engineering school worth its weight will have Calc 1-3 and Differential equations (which is a topic of calculus). Some schools call Differential Equations Calc 4.</p>

<p>“How much Calc is required in computer engineering and electrical engineering?”

  • A lot, I imagine. Elecricity and magnetism usually involves calculus in multiple (usually three) dimensions.</p>

<p>Note: my comments reference the actual content (or major courses) of a major, not the supporting coursework. So while a good CS program might require 2 or 3 courses in calculus, you won’t necessarily see any of that in major courses.</p>

<p>Calculus III is slowly being phased out of more and more CS programs along with Diff Eqs. Now there is a very good reason to have Calculus III and Differential Equations…that is one is going into scientific software development. Courses like Numerical Analysis, Numerical Solution or Partial/Ordinary Diff Eqs and Numerical Linear Algebra are courses that many times are in BOTH the Math and CS departments.</p>

<p>Schools like U-Illinois have quite a few courses that span both of the Math and CS programs. The grad programs of Applied Math and CS at U-Illinois are such that one can take the same 10 courses and can get EITHER a MS is CS or MS in Applied Math.</p>