How much CS as a physics major does one need?

[Michael73]

My son is a rising college freshman who is majoring in physics (and thinking about adding a second major in math). He also has an interest in computer science and programming. Through his own research he's discovered that a lot of the day-to-day work of academic and professional physicists involve some level of programming and heavy data analysis.

How much CS should a physics major take as an undergrad? Is it worth trying to get a minor in it or would several targeted classes suffice?

 

[berkeman]

You will get better answers from Physicists (I'm an EE with some CS background), but I would think that general CS courses like compilers and operating systems and database systems would be of limited value. Courses on numerical analysis programming would be much more in line with the Physics work, I would think.

Do you know what classes he is looking at taking? Is he already familiar with programming, and if so, in what languages?

 

[Michael73]

My son hasn't actually decided which school he's going to yet...UW Madison announces admissions later today and Cornell comes on Tuesday. Either way, he's been admitted to Indiana University and Purdue University.

This topic was raised in part because of a thread on FB for parents of admitted students at Purdue. Someone's son applied as an engineering major in the fall and in the interim decided to change to CS and was told "no." There were 5,700 CS applicants for less than 400 spots. Not only is Purdue not allowing anyone to transfer into the CS program as a major, but in the last few days they've frozen CS as a minor, too with no spots available. At this point only a handful of intro CS classes are even available.

When combined with the idea that at least some amount of CS classwork is beneficial for a physics major, all of the above raises the question if he isn't better off choosing a school where classes (or even a minor) is available?

As for his existing knowledge base...he was involved in his high school's FIRST robotics team as part of the programming team and is self-taught in PHP and some ASP.Net.

 

[Vanadium 50]

As I said in October, your son should come here and join the discussion. It's his future.

 

[symbolipoint]

This part is something like what was happening some decades ago:

When combined with the idea that at least some amount of CS classwork is beneficial for a physics major, all of the above raises the question if he isn't better off choosing a school where classes (or even a minor) is available?

Such major field and maybe some of the courses were said to be "impacted programs" or "locally impacted programs", so entering or changing to it as major field was either difficult or not possible.

Physics as a major, probably will never become like that, but any and all STEM field majors will be able to register and attend at least any "required" computer science courses for their chosen major - degree.