Which is better for Data Science, a double major in Math & CS or Physics & CS?

My dream occupation is to work as a Data Scientist.

I'm soon going to be completing my first semester as a physics student, as part of an incredibly prestigious physics program. We get to run an experiment at CERN in our third year! I'm currently ranked highly in this program (top 25%), and I could push myself to top 10% if needed.

Thing is, I'm not really interested in working as a physicist.

Should I switch to Math CS? (I'd be in a mediocre program.)

Note - I'm currently in both physics and CS, not just physics. I'm asking if I should switch the physics major with a math one.

Topic learning data career education

Category Data Science

1
answered at

My background is Physics undergrad, Physics grad, now in industry. Some advice off the top of my head:

  • If you can push top 10%, do it (always do your best).
  • Don't be surprised when jobs in industry don't care about you ranking/gpa (some do, some don't.). Rank/gpa is important for grad school however, and grad school is important for careers in data science
  • Major in what makes you happy.
  • If you stay in physics, learn to code and take some stats.
  • Physics will always impress people and there are many machine learning/ data science opportunities in physics.
  • Physics will teach you how and where to apply machine learning rather than being given perfect datasets to learn with.
1
answered at

Depends what field of data science you want to be in, and what you find most enjoyable. Its entirely possible to be a data scientist with just a physics degree. I did IT because I was interested network analytics, I know people who did psych because they wanted to do people analytics. Business degree to do marketing analytics.

If I was to do it again I would major stats, minor comp sci. Because really understand statistical concepts would be a huge plus, and having some programming skills is a huge plus to put you ahead of the pack.

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