Not in college yet, but a high schooler who is trying to prepare for what I want to do in college. I’m a fairly average student (think a school like University of South Carolina or Auburn) and I have some interest in being a comp sci major after taking electives in school.
I figure my since I most likely will go to an average school, I won’t have amazing job prospects out of college.
What could be a double major with something else in addition to comp sci to increase my job prospects right out of college?
I was thinking possibly doing comp sci with mathematics and possibly looking into some actuary positions in addition to comp sci, but am unsure if an average student can get that kind of job without a specific major in that field.
Which double majors usually pair best with/complement comp sci?
Companies do not care about double major or minor or what not.
Just your computer science degree.
Take courses in what you love. If you can finish a minor on the process or if you just need to take one or two more classes, then go for it. As far as my friends and I have experienced, no one cared about other than the “computer science” major.
If you really want to stand out then get high gpa, do research, have internships from senior year of high school related to software.
There may be some specific jobs where CS plus out-of-major study in specific other subjects may be helpful. However, these are not the majority of jobs to which CS majors are recruited for.
An example would be cryptography, where additional math courses in algebra and number theory may be helpful.
Another example would be natural language processing and translation, where knowledge of additional foreign languages may be helpful.
I work in a job that involves a very hybrid skillset, where I do cryptography, computer/cyber security, software development, and high-performance computing. Almost all the hires doing the same job as me have double majors and/or minors. I was Math and CS, which is very common, but there’s also those that paired one of the two with engineering majors, such as Mechanical or Electrical, a foreign language (I actually had significant language coursework as well, in 3 different languages+linguistics), and even things like Cognitive Science. I actually received a slightly higher entry salary because both of my majors related to the position. And I tailored my electives in both majors to be things that would be useful for cryptography, which I knew I wanted to go it. I took things like Number Theory, Coding Theory, Numerical Analysis, Probability, Statistics, Computer Security, Simulation, etc.
If you’re interested in math, I highly recommend pairing it with the CS major. I have found that it really enhanced my CS abilities. Even a minor in math would be beneficial.
And just to add, another area where math is helpful is Algorithms. The people that develop algorithms are usually mathematicians (at least at my and other related employers), not computer scientists, and having a background in both is very helpful.
Pish Posh. You can have amazing prospects out of an “average” school. Get internships. Getting hired is more about what you can do than where you went to school.
I have yet to seen a cryptography job posting for undergraduate internships
99% of the jobs for undergraduate will be software engineering.
Computer scientists are mathematicians just as physicists are mathematicians. I think you are confusing computer science with computer programmers. You can do computer science without any computers.
This.
I double major in Data Science but I didn’t get fantastic internships (didn’t even get placed on the data science team for my previous internship smh). Meanwhile my friends without any double major worked at Apple, Facebook, Amazon, etc.
Ultimately, as a high school student, you don’t need to worry. Double major is something you decide during college.
You are not looking in the right places then. I happen to know of several, and did one myself.
No, I am not confusing computer scientists and computer programmers. Computer scientists are not mathematicians- I am both, but that is not always the case. The reason the mathematicians do the algorithm work (again, I’m not saying this is everywhere, but at my employer and related ones, this is true) is the computer scientists typically do not have the mathematical maturity or knowledge to create them. You can teach a mathematician about coding and computer science, but you can’t necessarily teach a computer scientist the mathematics needed.
@eyemgh CS market is very different than engineering, and I don’t think business classes would be a hinderance for CS, but I also don’t think they would really help much, except if you wanted to going into certain fields or work for certain employers (ex. software developer for a bank might want to understand finance at some level; that might be a bad example, but is the best I can think of right now).
I disagree. The field of Computer Science was branched off from Mathematics. In fact, it was started by mathematicians and most famous Computer Scientists made significant contributions to mathematics. Now, the question is, can Computer Science majors do mathematics. That is a whole different question all together and really depends on the curriculum of the school. I think the problem is that most school’s CS curriculum prepares the students to be a software engineer, not a computer scientist. It is actually pretty difficult for you make contribution to most subfield of Computer Science without using any mathematics. In fact, I would argue that a typical day as a theoretical computer scientist (like a theoretical physicist) is the same as a mathematician.
Go do something totally out of the fixed career path. Helps manage stress with ease and it will keep you happy throughout college. Moving out of comfort zones usually does.
I have a different slant. Full disclosure, not in CS or math or engineering. However, I own and operate a financial business. Try to view things from 30k feet. What do you want to do? Virtually all of your entry level jobs (in CS) will be technical in nature. Is that what you want long term? Then take as many technical courses as you can. Analytics and Big Data are the current rage (landing grads jobs from Target to the FBI).
If you see yourself in management or as a leader, you’ll likely need to be more well rounded. I would suggest taking courses in subjects that interest you and provide a world perspective. PoliSci, History, Economics, Global Studies, etc. (If that interests you). People with hard skills (CS) and additional interests tend to do quite well long term. They generally are more engaged and more engaging in the world around them and that gets noticed by senior management.
I know many MANY people who started out on “the line” in engineering, CS, etc. They are now in senior management and do very little technical work. They understand it, know how to think and solve problems, but they farm most of that out to the younger CS guys / gals while they run departments and businesses. About 5 - 7 yrs in the career, they were tapped for leadership and it was because of the soft skills, not the technical stuff.
Just depends on the job that you’re aiming at. If you wanna go with data science, math is a good minor. If there’s a specific industry you wanna do CS in, like something in the medical field and developing new medical technologies, you can minor in bioinformatics. Just tailor towards your interests.
Don’t worry about having another major/minor in order to stand out. The best way to stand out in terms of your CS skills is through previous experience (internships) and projects you have worked on. It shows the employers that you actually know how to code and apply your knowledge into something real-world based.
I think what rickle1 says is excellent advice. I am a senior HPC systems analyst (BS CS/MS CS) and my boss’ background was a PhD in English literature! I asked him once how he ended up on his current career path and he said it started when he installed Linux on his laptop at a time when that was not a common thing to do. Sometimes you just need to be inspired and/or lucky. My own path was a combination of IT work experience, and then the CS degrees with internships. FWIW, my “mentor” at the internship was a recent CS/Physics dual major, who later got a PhD CS and is now tenured faculty at a top university with a large lab and multi-million dollar grants. The degrees plus internships plus work experience, in any order, make for a strong resume.
First off you should explore CS a little more. Most colleges support tracks (specializations) within CS that could influence any minor or secondary major you might take on. For instance, a math minor could be beneficial if you take a cryptography or AI track. Maybe biology if you’re interested in Biocomputation. Find out what you like in CS, then consider your options.