Best concentration for CS major

Reactor
Thu, 25 Jul 2013 16:16:32 +0000

Theoretical CS would be the best for grad school as well as in general, I believe. The reason is that it’s theoretical (i.e. not necessarily concerned with applied practices or ideas) and will offer a more fundamental view on what computation is, almost regardless of what tools are used to do it (and tools can always be designed). Supply by adequate math and you’re building yourself a fundamental understanding of the field, which should make applied areas more approachable. Theoretical CS would for example offer you an understanding of programming language theory as well a compilers, which enables you to make informed choices regarding what is “good” and what’s “bad” and why is it so, rather than being handed Java or something popular and told that “this is the industry standard”, which doesn’t really tell anything about WHY it’s an industry standard or why it maybe shouldn’t be (I think it definitely shouldn’t be from a programming language theory perspective). You need the theory to understand why there are certain things in computer science and to be able to draw a distinction between “good things” and “bad things”.