Can't Decide on Major for Computational Linguistics & AI

[Tony11235]

I am struggling to decide on a major, and I have two years left. I want to go into computational linguistics and AI. I cannot decide between linguistics, mathematics, computer science, and cognitive science. I'm sure about cognitive science, with a concentration in computation and AI, but I don't think that's enough to get into a computational linguistics program. I'm three courses away from a mathematics degree, but I have only B's and C's in all my math courses, which I am guessing would not look good. I am 7 courses away from a BS in computer science, but I don't enjoy every class which I'm required to take. As for linguistics, 5 easy courses. What do I do?

 

[J77]

If you want to seriously get into AI as a career choice, I'd go for Maths - with emphasis on Discrete Maths.

I think it's best not to specilise too early and the Maths will give you a more solid foundation than CS with a bit of discrete maths taught on top - plus you can teach yourself the programming language/architecture side.

 

[Tony11235]

Math I think I'll defintely go with. As for programming, I know java, C, along with lisp/scheme, and I already have a minor in CS. But I love linguistics too and that's pretty easy for me I think. BTW, there's not many discrete math courses in our Math department. The only courses that come close to qualifying are modern algebra and probability theory.

 

[J77]

Certainly probability would be helpful - Bayesian statistics and all that...

Can you do any graph theory courses, or logic programming?

And they must teach basic set theory in the core Math degree...

 

[Tony11235]

Logic programming and basic discrete maths are all taught in the CS department, I've had them. However there is also a course I'll be taking, Fundamentals of Computing Theory:
Fundamentals of formal language theory, computation models and computability, the limits of computability and feasibility, and program verification.