Edit: I recently dropped Math-CS as a major (and declared a math minor instead) since I really didn’t want to take the classes I had remaining for the major (MATH 20E, 103A, 103B, 154). I think the advice and statements below still hold true, so I’ll leave this up.
Over the past year or two, I’ve had quite a few people reaching out to me and asking questions about double majoring in Data Science & Math-CS. I thought I’d compile all of the questions I typically get here; hopefully it will be useful to those considering it.
Why did you decide to double major?
When I was accepted to UCSD, I was admitted as a data science major; this was prior to the “AI boom” and I believed that majoring in computer science would be better since it’s a more established major. At the time, there was still a process to be able to switch into CS. It involved taking the screening courses: CSE 11, 12, 15L, 20, 21, and 30. Then, some people would get selected through a lottery. Unfortunately, I didn’t end up getting selected, so I had pretty much taken 6 classes for nothing.
I was already planning on minoring in math since I wanted to take a lot of the upper division probability and statistics courses. On top of that, I was also interested in taking most of the machine learning courses.
After looking into the requirements for both majors, I realized I’d only need to take 3-4 additional classes that I wasn’t already planning on taking to complete the Math-CS major. This seemed like a pretty small cost, so I ended up declaring.
Should I double major?
Honestly, probably not; in practice, it doesn’t make the most sense. You can always just declare a minor, take the classes for fun, or graduate early.
I’ll touch on this more in this post, but nowadays the school you go to and your major aren’t enough to get you an internship or job. You need to have experience to get an internship, and you need an internship to get a job. If double majoring will take time away from gaining real experience, you definitely shouldn’t do it.
But, at the end of the day, it is your decision, if you do really want to do it, go for it. You can always drop a major later.
What classes did you take? What classes do you recommend taking?
Here’s my 4 year plan, along with some courses I really enjoyed.
I’d recommend creating your own 4 year plan, and listing out the classes you’re interested in. Try to identify which classes you want to overlap, this can change later, but it’s a good idea to atleast think about. Also, it’s probably best to take all of your general education requirements at a community college to save yourself some time and headache.
Other than that it really comes down to what you’re interested in. If you’re solely interested in data science or machine learning, take statistics classes and all the machine learning electives. On the other hand, if you’re interested in software engineering, take networking, operating systems, etc. Both majors offer a good amount of flexibility, so you should be able to dive deep into whatever you find interesting.
Do you think double majoring helped you get internships?
Honestly, probably not. Most recruiters will check if you go to a reputable school and that you’re majoring in a technical discipline. The marginal benefit of a second technical major is minimal at best. The experience you have on your resume is significantly more important, and like I mentioned earlier, if double majoring will hold you back from gaining that experience, definitely don’t do it.
What’s the process of declaring? When should I declare?
All of the instructions/resources to declaring are available here.
In my opinion, it’s best to declare during your second year, at this point you should’ve taken all of the intro classes and you should have a good idea of whether it’s worth the trouble.
Some classes across the CSE & DSC departments are very similar, do I need to take both?
During my time, the DSC department allowed you to petition out of certain classes if you took the CSE or MATH equivalents. For example, I petitioned out of DSC 30 & DSC 40B since I took CSE 12 & CSE 21. However, the CSE & MATH departments did not allow me to petition out of any requirements.
You’ll typically need to explain your circumstances and provide the syllabi for both courses as evidence within your petition. You can submit petitions here.