What major are you?

Talk about whatever is on your mind, if it doesn't go anywhere else.
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Postby smartalco » 2009.12.07 (05:56)

If you go with CS, don't be disappointed if you find you don't like it in a year or two. It takes a particular brand of insanity to want to deal with the interesting problems you'll deal with.
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Postby t̷s͢uk̕a͡t͜ư » 2009.12.07 (08:03)

DemonzLunchBreak wrote:I'm going to college next year. (Well, hopefully - haven't heard back from any schools yet, and I've only applied to one. You never know.) My options are somewhat limited by where I go to school, but here are the majors I'm interested in.
Applied Math
CS
Computational Finance/Financial Engineering
Mathematical Biology
Physics (and possibly pure Math if A.M. isn't offered.)

Actually, I'd appreciate advice about which to choose, especially from people interested in similar fields.
Some people give me crap for thinking about it this way, but I think you should go with whatever you'd like to do best as a career. Pick your major based on the job you can get with it, and your own personal interests should play second fiddle to that. Obviously the job should be one you enjoy doing, but the job market for people who sit around and think is extremely selective. Like the many millions who try to survive as writers but fail to earn a decent living, and every philosophy major who's back at home living with his parents and trying to make a living as a waiter. Don't end up in the same position as these people. It sucks. A lot.
Straight from the start, scratch off anything theoretical unless you want to be a professor. The only job that theoretical fields can give is teaching themselves again, and every other theoretical math / physics major goes off to do something entirely irrelevant. The number of MIT physics majors who sell out to Wall Street doing nothing at all relevant to what they studied is obscene. My brother, for example, has plans to either teach or to work for Los Alamos or the LHC lab; if you think you're enough of a genius to pull that off, by all means go with something theoretical. Otherwise, think more practically.
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Postby Calcy » 2009.12.07 (08:48)

CS with a business minor.

If only my school offered a music minor. I would have taken that in a heartbeat.
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Postby t̷s͢uk̕a͡t͜ư » 2009.12.08 (22:29)

DemonzLunchBreak wrote:If I were to pursue something that was mostly theoretical (or non-engineering) as a major, it would probably not end up being my career. "Selling out" as a physics major would basically be the idea.
In that case, I strongly recommend that you pick a degree relevant to what you'd like to sell out and become, but take classes relevant to your interests on the side. A degree in economics with a minor in math or physics will do you better on Wall Street than a degree in math or physics. And I'd still recommend you do something like this even if you plan on continuing to graduate school. If you go with something theoretical as an undergraduate, good frickin' luck finding a job to pay for food, housing, and tuition through your graduate education. (My brother works as a Physics TA for undergrads, and I, without a degree at all, make more money than he does.)
[spoiler="you know i always joked that it would be scary as hell to run into DMX in a dark ally, but secretly when i say 'DMX' i really mean 'Tsukatu'." -kai]"... and when i say 'scary as hell' i really mean 'tight pink shirt'." -kai[/spoiler][/i]
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Postby canned » 2009.12.11 (22:47)

I am studying to become a chemist ( Well, the exast name of the wing of university i study is called technology of chemistry)

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Postby GamingWolf » 2009.12.14 (19:07)

smartalco wrote: It takes a particular brand of insanity...
That's all I read and I didn't need to read anymore.
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Postby Pheidippides » 2009.12.14 (19:40)

Haven't had to decide yet, but leaning towards Chemical Engineering.
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Postby Destiny » 2009.12.14 (20:48)

Game Design to-be. My experience at NUMA will undoubtedly come in useful somewhere in the course.
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Postby epigone » 2009.12.16 (20:41)

flagmyidol wrote:
epigone wrote:Psychology!
epigone, what are you going to do with that major, specifically?
In all likelihood, I'll end up being a professor. Teaching, doing research, playing N 25/7 (one of those is a lie, you figure it out).
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Postby Nexx » 2009.12.17 (04:07)

George wrote:Genetics or Cell and Developmental Biology.
Molecular biology here.

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Postby jean-luc » 2009.12.23 (04:52)

I'm currently applying to colleges for the following majors, depending on the school. they're all mostly the same thing.
- Computer and Network Security
- Computer Security and Forensics
- Information Security
- Computer and Information Forensics
- Computer and Information Security
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