Applied Math -> Computer Science/Computational Engineer/EE

[MathWarrior]

I am nearly done with all my basic undergraduate course work and will soon be pursuing the rest of my applied math degree. There are a variety of upper division classes that I have the option of taking. I was wondering which ones seem best suited if you were going to get your masters in either computer science, computational engineering, or EE upon graduating.

Ive been looking into 3 specific topics carefully to see if they are of any use in any of these fields, Nonlinear Dynamics, PDE's, Mathematical Optimization, or graph theory. Which 2 of these topics do you think is best suited?

Thanks.

 

[chiro]

I am nearly done with all my basic undergraduate course work and will soon be pursuing the rest of my applied math degree. There are a variety of upper division classes that I have the option of taking. I was wondering which ones seem best suited if you were going to get your masters in either computer science, computational engineering, or EE upon graduating.

Ive been looking into 3 specific topics carefully to see if they are of any use in any of these fields, Nonlinear Dynamics, PDE's, Mathematical Optimization, or graph theory. Which 2 of these topics do you think is best suited?

Thanks.

Hey MathWarrior and welcome to the forums.

My suggestion based on your choices of EE, computer science, or CompE I would say PDE's and Mathematical Optimization. For computer science, graph theory would probably be a compulsory subject or part of a Discrete Mathematics subject that is pretty much required in that degree.

Since you're doing applied math you are obviously going to be better prepared than say only doing pure math subjects.

One thing I should point out to you, is that with engineering you usually have very rigid models that have to be followed and they have to be used because things must work as intended. On saying this some applied math subjects don't start off with the kind of rigid assumptions that an engineering model will use, so just be aware of that.

 

[MathWarrior]

Yeah those two classes are the ones I was thinking of taking, but I am not sure how useful PDE's are? Perhaps someone can enlighten me on where id encounter those in the fields I specified.

There are a few other courses like mathematical modeling for biology, but that seems like it wouldn't be of much use. There is one 2 other classes I am also able to take as extra upper division: Abstract Algebra, or Number Theory. I just want to take whatever will be the best suited for my field.

 

[chiro]

Yeah those two classes are the ones I was thinking of taking, but I am not sure how useful PDE's are? Perhaps someone can enlighten me on where id encounter those in the fields I specified.

There are a few other courses like mathematical modeling for biology, but that seems like it wouldn't be of much use. There is one 2 other classes I am also able to take as extra upper division: Abstract Algebra, or Number Theory. I just want to take whatever will be the best suited for my field.

Many problems in applied science deal with systems that involve more than one input variable. A good PDE course will touch both on analytic methods and numerical methods. From this I think you can see why it would be a valuable subject to choose.

I really can't see a huge amount of benefit for engineering with regard to Number Theory and Abstract Algebra, but for computer science number theory might be beneficial especially in the context of cryptography.

Personally if you want to do engineering any subject where you "get your hands dirty" has my vote. A lot of math courses work with "nice clean models" that have analytic solutions but most modeling problems aren't like that. So if you get courses that deal with "dirty" models that you have to use and analyze in any kind of context (biology, economics, physics, chemistry etc) then that will definitely help you.

 

[MathWarrior]

Is there any use for chaos theory and linear dynamics in any of these fields?

 

[chiro]

Is there any use for chaos theory and linear dynamics in any of these fields?

I am not sure if you meant "nonlinear" instead of "linear" dynamics, but if you meant the former, you might be interested in fluid dynamics which is basically capture in the Navier-Stokes Equations.