<p>make me more marketable when it comes to finding jobs? Or going onto grad school for a masters in computer science or something along those lines? Or would I have to take more Comp Sci classes than the two intro ones for it to even be worth learning about the subject? Could I also possibly do engineering if I wanted to?</p>
<p>I'm going to be an Applied Math major with a concentration in statistics and acturial science. As an elective I'm going to be taking ODE. </p>
<p>I have the option of taking 2 comp sci classes or taking 2 biology classes in order to boost my BCP gpa/sgpa for medical schools... To be quite honest, I don't really want to go to medical school because I'm sick of relying on my parents. I want to get a job right after college so I can start paying off my debts. (I'm 3 classes away from completing the premed reqs).</p>
<p>I need advice. I'm going to be 64k in loans. I'm trying to make my degree very marketable and I'm also trying to open up my options. I'm for sure that I want to be an Applied Math major with an econ minor. I thought it might be a good idea to supplement with 2 comp sci courses. This way I can go onto engineering if I wanted to, actuarial science, and a plethora of other stuff.</p>
<p>Summary:</p>
<p>Applied Major Major with Stats and Acturial science concentration/ Econ minor - Good idea for this job market?</p>
<p>Would taking 2 intro comp sci courses open up my job options?</p>
<p>Oh yeah also I thought this would be relevant. My goal is to basically land a job for wall street and work in a cubicle crunching numbers while making a decent salary (55kish and eventually capping at 100k)</p>
No. Employers will expect any STEM major to know a modicum of computer programming. It can be reasonably assumed that you would cover about that much material in two semesters of introductory programming for computer science majors. If you don’t know the equivalent of that, you will be at a disadvantage… so in a sense, yes, if taking those courses teaches you anything, it will be valuable information.</p>
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I tend to advise against going to graduate school for something in which you don’t have much breadth of knowledge, nor any real interest to gain depth of understanding. Doing an MS in CS after a BS in Math where you’re not doing much CS isn’t something I’d agree with. That’s an opinion, of course.</p>
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To stand out as a math major who can do CS work, significantly more CS work should be required. Math majors can take engineering courses as well to be more competitive for engineering (as opposed to software) roles, but for a variety of reasons (historical, labor economics, etc.) it might be harder to move into engineering from math than into software from math. </p>
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If you want to do CS, why specialize in statistics and actuarial science? You should do fine for yourself if you try to become an actuary with that kind of preparation. If you’re serious about going for software, I would recommend you drop at least the actuarial science bit and focus on taking a greater number of CS and discrete math courses. If you want to get into data analytics, keep the statistics stuff; statistics and probability are incredibly useful for any STEM field, and CS is no exception.</p>
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Wait, what? Medical school? Come on, man. Pick one or two potential fields that are related and just go with those. If you want to do medical school, forget about CS, forget about actuarial science, and take some courses that will prepare you for medical school. There’s (generally) not an official “pre-med” major, but clearly courses in things like biology, chemistry, physics, psychology, etc. couldn’t hurt. If you don’t want to go to medical school, forget about taking biology courses to leave yourself a back door.</p>
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A better strategy is to figure out, right now, what you’re best at doing, and what you like most, and put everything you’ve got behind one plan and go with that. Nobody is going to pay you a $100k salary because you’re minimally competent in 4-5 different fields. If you want a stable career with decent pay, you’re going to need to be able to offer real value in 1-2 related fields. Math + CS is a fairly common combination that is marketable. CS and Actuarial Science are both marketable by themselves. Medical school generally makes people very competitive, although as you point out, it means more loans and a longer time to reward. Of all the things you’ve said, I might recommend you reconsider minoring in economics… if marketability is what you’re going for, you’d be better served doing math and something else. Math by itself is a versatile degree, but its versatility and flexibility make it less competitive for specific roles than more focused degrees (my experience, anyway).</p>
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Sure, this would open up opportunities to become an actuary, a data analyst, a business analyst, and a software developer or computer programmer (especially in organizations or roles supporting actuaries, data and business analysts).</p>
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No, unless you’re not learning the equivalent of these courses from the rest of your degree program. Realistically, as an applied math major who is aspiring to be an actuary or data analyst, you should be fairly comfortable programming in at least one production-strength language (C, C++, Java, etc.) as well as capable in a mathematics package or two (MATLAB, Maple, etc.)</p>
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Try to focus on something you are good at (talent, ability, inclination, etc.) and enjoy (think about it outside of class, read about it, enjoy classes on it, etc.) and try to be the best darned one of those you can be. The applied-math-with-statistics-and-economics-and-computer-science-who-could-have-gone-to-medical-school-or-been-an-actuary-but-wanted-a-job-as-an-analyst thing is just too much.</p>
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$55k is not a great salary for someone working on Wall St. To even live comfortably in New York, especially if you want a family or anything, you might want more than that… especially given that you will want to pay down some loans, right? You may want to consult some cost-of-living adjustment calculators and look at some national and regional wage data. I can recommend the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook (just Google “BLS OOH”). Check the A-Z index for a wealth of information (nature of the work, conditions, education and training, job outlook, employment, salaries, etc.) on a huge number of careers (computer software engineering, engineer, etc., just to be safe you should read through as many as you can and try to figure out which sound cool). </p>
<p>I’m for sure that I want to be an Applied Math major with an econ minor. I thought it might be a good idea to supplement with 2 comp sci courses. This way I can go onto engineering if I wanted to, actuarial science, and a plethora of other stuff.
<p>I would advise any math major who wants to get into software to AT LEAST take the “CS core” which are courses in…</p>
<p>Algorithms
Data Structures
Organization of Programming Languages
Operating Systems</p>
<p>Not only will these courses give you the foundation that the other CS majors have, these four courses will probably be requirements to get into just about any M.S. in Computer Science program.</p>
<p>For additional marketability, take some courses in the following I.T.-related areas:</p>
<p>Database systems
Computer Networks
Information Assurance</p>
<p>Thanks a lot. I am going to major in applied math and minor in Econ purely out of interest and marketability. I like math specifically stats and it’s the one subject I’ve been good at. I honestly have no interest in computers, I was just curious to see if I would need CS courses to make used marketable. I don’t want to be uncompetitive to employers simply raise I lack knowledge about CS.</p>
<p>And I’m going into my junior year next year from a bio major to applied math, so I have the premed courses almost done already and potentially a bio minor (2 classes away). My dad really was pushing me to go to medical school but I don’t think it’s worth all the debt. Is rather get a stable job, pay off my debts, then consider what I want to do.</p>
<p>My gpa is rather low for a bio major but since imswitching to something I like, I’ll have a better shot at improving my gpa.</p>
<p>If your GPA is low, then MD school in the US is not a realistic possibility.</p>
<p>Having the introductory level CS courses (or equivalent self-educated knowledge) may not give you much of an advantage, but it will avoid putting you at a disadvantage from not knowing anything about CS at all.</p>
<p>I was considering DO schools from the first place. and I’ve seen that, but I find it highly confusing. I’m not sure if acturial science will pay off or not because I’ve been lurking on these boards and I keep hearing how the job market is so small for actuaries. And how difficult the exams are.</p>