Which Majors Best Prepare for Writing Scientific Software?

[putongren]

Hey all,

I'm 31 years old and went to a decent school (Northwestern University) but dropped out during my Sophomore year. Thinking what I really want to do with my life for a decade, I came to the conclusion that I want to write software for scientists and astronomers. I read all the time in the news that scientific discoveries are made with highly complex and sophisticated scientific experiments. Most if not all of these machines require computer code to run them.

My question for everyone is what majors should I get in order to fulfill my goal of writing software for scientists? Should I major in Physics and CS?

Thank you.

 

[general_ebisu]

Major in both physics and computer science, or electrical engineering and computer science.

 

[twofish-quant]

Most if not all of these machines require computer code to run them.

And most of the code can be downloaded from the internet.

http://iraf.noao.edu/

My question for everyone is what majors should I get in order to fulfill my goal of writing software for scientists? Should I major in Physics and CS?

Either will work. The degree really isn't that important. Once thing that you can do right now is to download the software from that site and then try to make it work with your own telescope.

Also it will help a lot if you get a higher end digital camera and start playing around with lens. All optical astronomy is is digital photography with a really big lens.