Well right now I'm going to school for a BS in Comp. Sci, and since my university does not require a minor, I was just going to take random classes to fill up my credits, but the more I think about it the more I'm thinking I should do a minor. Right now my my choices are either math or economics. I'm thinking economics because it would make it easier to get good paying jobs at a bank or the like working on financial applications. But I'm sure I could get the same thing with a math minor, plus more. Now I know the obvious answer here would be go with math, and thus this is a pointless thread, but how practical is it, from what you guys have seen, to have one or the other? Would it even matter in the long run? Any input is helpful :icon_bigg
minor in financial business if possible, as that will be beneficial if you program for banks, etc. Minor in math if you want to be a teacher/professor some day. Economics/business minor helps, but getting an MBA is much more beneficial than getting either of these two.
Economics won't particularly help you with that. What you're probably looking for is financial mathematics, if your university offers courses in that stuff. Beyond that, if you want to pick up some knowledge in the field, you ought to get acquainted with some of the more common instruments and how they're valued. I have this book which is a pretty good introduction: http://www.amazon.com/Fixed-Income-...=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1267123450&sr=1-5 (check the table of contents to see if there's anything of interest to you in there)
Usually with a CS degree program you can get a math minor with 1 or 2 more classes. It really depends on if you are willing to spend the time and money to take however many more econ classes you would need vs. what you would get out of it.
Try to take something outside your area, but correlated to CS. Business or accounting would be good for a financial industry career. If your school has it, consider looking into business law since intellectual property and copyright issues abound in software development. Math might not necessarily be a good choice; you will/should be getting a good background in math and it could be assumed that you have one with a degree in CS. I've seen people get things like a "Computer Studies" minor with a CS degree, and that just comes across as lazy to me. If you really want something to show for the math classes, look into whether or not your school has certificate programs. Usually, it will just be a small fee to get one since you have already taken the classes. <-- PhD and professor in CS
Wouldn't you say that "CS math" is tilted more toward the discrete mathematics side of things though? I'd say (from my own biased perspective as a CS/math double major ;-) ) that there's still value to be gotten from studying math if you branch out into other areas than that.
"Programming" is definitely geared towards discrete mathematics, but once you get into various aspects of CS, you'll need a lot more: algorithms (algebra/calculus), graphics (geometry, trigonometry), language design (lambda calculus), compilers (everything + 1), etc.
*scratches chin* Really. I think I might have to bug you via PM some day. (just curious to get into some discussions about programmers in general and sometimes their love for doing things badly, i say this since I bypassed the uni route so I can't relate to understand why).
Definitely go for a business minor. You'll benefit greatly from it later on. If that doesn't float your boat, Mathematics would be a good choice.
*looks at the 1700 (seriously) lines of code quickly cobbled together to do poker hand ranking and hand-to-hand comparisons* :lol: Yeah, usually it's just laziness or the path or least resistance/most reuse. Other times, it's because of overbearing professors which drill in a certain way of doing things that is the "only right way" of doing it (I'm not one of those professors, I really only care about the fundamentals and the results). I can say that code I write for my eyes only is really different than code I write for examples or other people's use though.
Yeah. For me it's an anoyance of poor resource management, over use of stl stuff (there are good in them, but sometimes they are inappropriately used), Too many layers of complexity for simple task, poor use of templates (dear god scaleform has a case that drove me insane when debugging it, simple piece of code launched into a crazy use of hash tables with lots of template use which became a nightmare to debug) .... I'm sure I can come up with more. :banghead: I will admit though. Some of my old code (mostly when I did stuff in c) is pretty bad but still straight forward and functional. =)
Alright, thanks for the advice guys! I've pretty much narrowed it down to Business, Math, or nothing as it really doesn't matter. Since my school for some reason does not let you minor in business unless your majoring in another area of business(I have no idea why), I'm gonna go ahead with with math.
I faced a similar problem with my double major (which started as a required minor). I had been going through a set of courses which would have graduated me with a BS in Comp. Sci with an additional major in Logic and Computation. Instead of a last higher level logic course I ended up taking some somewhat silly low level European philosophy course so as to end with an additional major in Philosophy. Despite philosophy being seen as a 'lazy' study in itself (by anyone who hasn't actually studied it at all), it seemed very much that 'Logic and Computation' would be seen as even more lazy coming from C.S. Not sure if that helps at all, but is a somewhat similar situation. Good luck deciding. EDIT: d'oh, should have read all the way to the last post...
as somebody who dual-majors in CS (my last exam is friday! Yay) and Economics I can say that it's a good combination! Plus, a little understanding of economics never hurts in general in becoming a well-rounded member of society.
It would definitely help with ERP. You might consider an accounting minor too - never pay for financial advice again! Plus, the most complex thing I have encountered so far are accounting systems and their inner workings.
Math Math Math As someone who works in the technological aspect of finance, I punch myself in the balls from time to time for not taking more math. I was a Liberal Arts (Japanese) major so my math sucks massive donkey balls now but it would make my life so much easier. Getting a job in a bank as a quant can be a nice gig, but the math is WAY harder to learn than the Economics. Get the math degree. If you're really serious about swinging your cock around in a bank after graduation you'll want to look into a Masters in Financial Engineering and those require sick math. I've toyed w/ the idea but the fact is I'd have to take at least 2-3 Trig/Calc classes to get back up to speed.
