[Der_Melon]

Hi guys:

I'm weighing up my options between computer science and mathematics. Mathematics have always been my strongest field of study and one i'm greatly interested in. While on a open day to imperial college i found out that their computer science course is genuinely amazing and done more research into the subject however i couldn't find much first-person accounts of what it is like to study computer science.

So i wanted to have some feedbacks and advice regarding workload, life style and career prospect regarding both degrees and also whether a joint mathematics and computer science course is worth doing.

Many thanks

[Fallen]

(Original post by Der_Melon)
Hi guys:

I'm weighing up my options between computer science and mathematics. Mathematics have always been my strongest field of study and one i'm greatly interested in. While on a open day to imperial college i found out that their computer science course is genuinely amazing and done more research into the subject however i couldn't find much first-person accounts of what it is like to study computer science.

So i wanted to have some feedbacks and advice regarding workload, life style and career prospect regarding both degrees and also whether a joint mathematics and computer science course is worth doing.

Many thanks

I am going to keep this very short.

I would only study Computer Science, like any other subject, if you are passionate about it or think you will be. Of course you don't know exactly what will be in the course, and you don't need to, but you should be confident that you will like it.

I know lots of people who study joint honours in Maths and Computer Science, and they all seem to enjoy it. I know one person who decided early on he didn't like the CS part, but had no problem switching to pure Maths (only very early on, and university dependent).

The prospects from both courses are extremely good. You can most certainly go to work in a technology/software firm with a degree in Maths, and likewise you don't have to work in those sectors if you go for Computer Science. Both are highly respected and highly sought after degrees, so if you get a good degree in them a job shouldn't be an issue.

[StaticContext]

I was in the same position, a while back. I chose (M.Eng) Computer Science/Software Engineering over the (MMath) Mathematics undergraduate degree at Manchester. Maths is also my strongest field of study, but I think I would have found it a little boring to do Maths on it's own. I have a joint interest between Mathematics and Technology. I've always wanted to be a programmer. I found that the Computer Science route was more suited for me! :-)