- #1
colonelcrayon
- 88
- 0
I'm a rather bemused American high school student who needs advice on choosing a college major. The future is starting to seem very close, and I'd like your help in condensing all of my interests into one field. If it's relevant, I'm looking at colleges such as UT-Austin, UMichigan, Cornell, and UMinnesota.
I really like solving problems. The most intriguing sorts of problems are those that involve taking a precondition, finding patterns, and developing those patterns to reach some sort of conclusion. I obviously enjoy mathematics (esp. proofs), but other areas of science are cool too. Chemistry is absolutely fascinating and physics appears promising. Even geology seems like it would be fun. The only areas I dislike are evolutionary biology / genetics (which is boring) and other biology beyond the purely chemical level.
My goal is to be involved in discovering something new. Fields such as finance and software engineering are not attractive because they seem entirely artificial - a new financial model or programming language is not the same as a new understanding of the way the universe works. I don't care about being rich - I'm a very frugal person - but being unemployed or employed outside my field would be a problem. I care a great deal about career stability.
Statistics and data analysis seems like a really useful area to me, but I would want some scientific connection. The same goes for computer science.
I enjoy public speaking, debate, and teamwork (unless my team members are idiots).
I guess what I really want is to combine my interest in logic and patterns with scientific research. Do you think that a hard science + statistics or math double major would be a good pairing for grad school or industry? If so, what science field would be the best fit? If not, why not?
Also, would an engineering degree be preferable to science in any way?
Sorry for the somewhat inarticulate and disorganized post. I appreciate any comments.
I really like solving problems. The most intriguing sorts of problems are those that involve taking a precondition, finding patterns, and developing those patterns to reach some sort of conclusion. I obviously enjoy mathematics (esp. proofs), but other areas of science are cool too. Chemistry is absolutely fascinating and physics appears promising. Even geology seems like it would be fun. The only areas I dislike are evolutionary biology / genetics (which is boring) and other biology beyond the purely chemical level.
My goal is to be involved in discovering something new. Fields such as finance and software engineering are not attractive because they seem entirely artificial - a new financial model or programming language is not the same as a new understanding of the way the universe works. I don't care about being rich - I'm a very frugal person - but being unemployed or employed outside my field would be a problem. I care a great deal about career stability.
Statistics and data analysis seems like a really useful area to me, but I would want some scientific connection. The same goes for computer science.
I enjoy public speaking, debate, and teamwork (unless my team members are idiots).
I guess what I really want is to combine my interest in logic and patterns with scientific research. Do you think that a hard science + statistics or math double major would be a good pairing for grad school or industry? If so, what science field would be the best fit? If not, why not?
Also, would an engineering degree be preferable to science in any way?
Sorry for the somewhat inarticulate and disorganized post. I appreciate any comments.