Getting Into Scientific Computing & Career Options in Computational Science

[lubuntu]

After a long bumbling few years and with much help on various thread from the physics forums folks, I think I am now going to take the path of least resistance and finish up my CS degree.

Prior I had planned to go through with a physics degree, but it just isn't practical at this time and I want to get out of school for at least a few years sometime soon.

So I don't really want to go the typical CS route and become a boring Java developer or something, I'd like to get involved in scientific computing and computational science.

I figure I'll do some independent study and research as my school doesn't offer too much in this regard. Will I have to get a math minor to be really competitive in this field? I'd like to head into a Master and/or slightly possibly a Ph.D. in this field in the future, what else should I consider as I'm finishing up my degree.

Also, where does one find jobs in scientific computing? As much as I look all I can find is the typical IT type jobs, I'm not really sure to look for something more specific to my interests and get a sense of my career options.

Thanks again Physics forums.

 

[lubuntu]

ps. How much better would my background in this field be if I major in math and minor in cs?

 

[maverick_starstrider]

There's a lot of industry jobs for scientific computation and the like and no it's not IT work. There's really a whole lot of applicability depending on how you specialize. You could do more like engineering simulations for new products and such or you could do ground water modeling (which, I'm told, is more interesting then it sounds) or atmospheric modeling. In general, computational modeling and simulation.

 

[maverick_starstrider]

I actually have a computational science/physics specialization degree and looking back I think a degree that was more applied math with minors in scientific computation and physics would have been a better build.