Admissions Tips for a CS and physics major

[ricke7s]

Hello, I’m an undergraduate student pursuing degrees in both computer science and physics. I was wondering if anyone here has graduated with these degrees and applied to a physics graduate program. I’m curious about how graduate programs evaluated your applications. In addition, if I’m interested in doing research in quantum fields related to materials or computational physics, what kinds of undergraduate research experiences would be most valuable?

 

[CrysPhys]

What country are you in? By "graduate program" do you mean master's or PhD?

 

[ricke7s]

What country are you in? By "graduate program" do you mean master's or PhD?

PhD and I reside within the USA

 

[Choppy]

The fact that you're double majoring likely won't factor in too much. They'll want to know whether you have the necessary coursework for the specific program you're applying to. Usually the double major just means that where other applicants will have a wider breath of options that they've taken, you will have focused yours in such a way that you've covered the core material for the other major. Sure, a computer science second major is likely to be helpful for getting into a sub-field that's heavy on the computational side, but most physics majors will have had some computing and numerical methods training.

When it comes to undergraduate research experience the specific field tends not to be as important as what you do with the opportunities that you have. In my experience it's a lot more important to find a project that you're passionate about and a mentor that you gel with and learn the ins and out of how to set up a long term research project, how to make incremental progress and systematically track it, how to analyze and write up the results, etc.

 

[CrysPhys]

Hello, I’m an undergraduate student pursuing degrees in both computer science and physics. I was wondering if anyone here has graduated with these degrees and applied to a physics graduate program. I’m curious about how graduate programs evaluated your applications. In addition, if I’m interested in doing research in quantum fields related to materials or computational physics, what kinds of undergraduate research experiences would be most valuable?

PhD and I reside within the USA

What year are you in? If you are confident that you intend to pursue a Physics PhD program, there's not much advantage in pursuing a double major. You'd be better off taking some CS courses as electives, and spending more time on advanced undergrad physics courses or undergrad research. E.g., if you are interested in materials, you want to take at least a solid-state physics course.

On the other hand, if you're not quite sure, a degree in CS could serve as a good Plan B backup.