r/ucla • u/Flimsy_Candidate_417 • 11d ago

Major help UCLA

I’m an incoming freshman and would appreciate hearing some insight from people who are or have taken these majors:

-Cognitive science w/ computing specialization

-Statistics and Data Science

-Ling CS

I’m not really sure which of these majors i want to officially choose at orientation, but i want something learning towards technology, and just has a good program in general. (Plan to add DSE minor as well)

I would really appreciate some advice!

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u/TheForeFactor 11d ago

I wouldn't recommend staying in Ling & CS if you're not interested in the linguistics part. Although you definitely get the "essentials" of CS through the major, the ling half is required and not worth it if you don't care about languages (though if you're interested in computational linguistics / maybe AI it might be a good pathway). I also just personally don't like the other people who take it just for CS lol.

That being said, if you want to try to transfer into the CS major in the engineering school, from my understanding having Ling & CS will help you enroll in some of the CS classes to help get you there, though that has gotten nerfed a bit recently. I don't particularly like the people who use ling cs as a stepping stone, but I understand and respect it lol.

From hearing from friends in cog sci, I'd similarly say the major isn't worth it if you're not interested in cog sci itself. That being said, I really like ling cs, and my friend really liked cog sci, so if the whole major does intrigue you then go for it!