- #1
davidbenari
- 466
- 18
I study Physics and my major requires me to take 6 optional courses in any area of my interest.
I am interested in pursuing a career as a programmer, but my university doesn't allow me to choose Computer Science courses due to their high demand. Perhaps I can take one or two CS courses but that's about it.
What I can take are courses in the Computational Science area. These courses are mostly in what you would consider Scientific Computing. For instance, there are courses in Numerical Methods for PDEs, Numerical Fluid Dynamics, Finite Element Methods, Statistical Computing and Learning, Advanced Data Analysis, Algorithms, Parallel Algorithms etc (you probably get the idea).
These courses use C++, Python, Fortran, R, and some of them, like Numerical Fluid Dynamics allow me to program in a supercomputer and work with Linux (I don't know why the course requires Linux knowledge).
Besides the fact that these courses are interesting in and of themselves, I was thinking they could provide additional knowledge in programming and help me become a programmer.
There isn't much of a market for numerical methods (according to my google searches). So my question is: will the things learned in these courses be transferrable to some programming job, perhaps as a Quant, to say an example?
What sort of jobs would fit this type of knowledge? I'm not asking you to mention a job that, e.g., is specifically about solving PDEs since that would be quite limited. But maybe you could tell me jobs that have the same intellectual atmosphere. Preferably, do not mention jobs that require Masters or PhD, which is what most Quant jobs ask for AFAIK.
Any thoughts? Am I wasting my time in these courses if I want to be a programmer? I know I should've studied CS if I wanted to be a programmer, but the fact is I did not and chose physics instead.
By the way, I already know programming and have taken courses in computational physics and numerical methods.
Thanks.
I am interested in pursuing a career as a programmer, but my university doesn't allow me to choose Computer Science courses due to their high demand. Perhaps I can take one or two CS courses but that's about it.
What I can take are courses in the Computational Science area. These courses are mostly in what you would consider Scientific Computing. For instance, there are courses in Numerical Methods for PDEs, Numerical Fluid Dynamics, Finite Element Methods, Statistical Computing and Learning, Advanced Data Analysis, Algorithms, Parallel Algorithms etc (you probably get the idea).
These courses use C++, Python, Fortran, R, and some of them, like Numerical Fluid Dynamics allow me to program in a supercomputer and work with Linux (I don't know why the course requires Linux knowledge).
Besides the fact that these courses are interesting in and of themselves, I was thinking they could provide additional knowledge in programming and help me become a programmer.
There isn't much of a market for numerical methods (according to my google searches). So my question is: will the things learned in these courses be transferrable to some programming job, perhaps as a Quant, to say an example?
What sort of jobs would fit this type of knowledge? I'm not asking you to mention a job that, e.g., is specifically about solving PDEs since that would be quite limited. But maybe you could tell me jobs that have the same intellectual atmosphere. Preferably, do not mention jobs that require Masters or PhD, which is what most Quant jobs ask for AFAIK.
Any thoughts? Am I wasting my time in these courses if I want to be a programmer? I know I should've studied CS if I wanted to be a programmer, but the fact is I did not and chose physics instead.
By the way, I already know programming and have taken courses in computational physics and numerical methods.
Thanks.