Minors for a Major in Computer Science

College Majors Engineering Majors
1

<p>Hey everyone,</p>

<p>Before I start I would like to say thank you in advance for taking the time to read my post and trying to help me!</p>

<p>Background information:
I live outside of Charlotte, NC, which is a huge banking city, and I would prefer to move back here after graduating.
I have taken math courses up to Calculus II with extreme ease. (I know that this is not impressive, I am just letting you all know that I'm decent at math.)
I am a rising high school senior and currently ranked first in my class.
I have some experience in computer programming and web development; I like programming and believe I would greatly enjoy a career in a related field.
I will have received enough 25 credit hours (of general education courses) before I begin my freshman year of college.</p>

<p>My Situation:</p>

<p>I am very interested in computer science and would like to either get a BS or MS in it. I would like to get a job in either software development or IT systems working for a bank (I mentioned I live in a banking center). I am interested in three other areas, however, and I am not sure which would be the most practical to minor or get a second major in. These areas are logic and methodology, mathematics, and finance.</p>

<p>Logic and methodology is a minor offered at the college I would like to attend and I believe it would greatly improve my ability to program as quickly and efficiently as possible. This minor would require a few logic courses and a few philosophy courses (both of which sound very interesting to me).</p>

<p>Mathematics is fairly self-explanatory as the majority of computer science topics greatly rely on math. If I do not minor or double major in mathematics I would probably quite a few extra math classes beyond what is required for a computer science major (Calculus I, II, II, Introductory Linear Algebra and Matrices).</p>

<p>Finance (or economics, maybe?) would be helpful for my own investments and for understanding co-workers, as I will most likely find a career working in the IT department of a bank.</p>

<p>I also read (in another thread) a professional suggesting a major in mathematics with a minor in computer science, as mathematics are transferable to nearly any computer science, and you will receive training for any programming language or software that you will be required to use for any job you get.</p>

<p>So please let me know what you think would be the most -> Practical <- thing for me to do in this situation. I would love to go off and get a PhD in Comp Sci, a BS in Math, a minor in Logic, and a minor in Finance, but I don't think that is all that practical unless I can locate some sort of endless scholarship fountain. ;)</p>

<p>Thank you again!</p>

2

<p>Well, if, as you say, you are planning to take extra math courses anyway, you’ll probably get a math minor almost without even trying. At least at my school, all but 2 or 3 Math minor courses overlap with a Computer Science major. I can’t speak to the practicality or employment benefits of things as I’m just a Sophomore myself.</p>

<p>If you want my personal experience I’m doing a CS major, Spanish minor (because I love the language and intend to work in areas where it is spoken), but I’m taking enough math courses that I could do a Math minor any time I felt like declaring it.</p>

3

<p>If you want to do a banking job, you could minor in Finance - there isn’t much overlap between Finance and CS in terms of course offerings.</p>

4

<p>CS and Math or CS and stat. If you are interested in grad school CS and math or CS linguistics. Everything that you will learn in Finance you could easily pick up from a few books. If you are really interested in finance look into some computational finance books and data mining. The CS and math or CS and stat I believe are the best choices because most advanced applications are based on applied math. Data mining, computational finance, scientific computing, computer vision, machine learning, …, etc are all heavily intertwined with applied math or stat. The logic and philosophy are just not that practical. Although the logic can look good for grad schools and if you look into software verification it can be very useful. If possible go for the second major with math or stat.</p>