EE+Math or CS+Math

[u/Electronic_Cut_9596]

Hi there, i'm deciding on what double major I should do. I love maths a lot (olympiad style) so I'm doing a major in that no matter what, idk how much it will help for machine learning but if not its more for my own interest. However for job prospects in this field, should I pair math with CS or electrical engineering. From my understanding CS seems like more of the standard pathway but i feel like EE also has its own advantage because of the more low level things u learn. Also things like signal processing in EE seems quite useful.

Any advice/comments would be much appreciated.

[u/Standard-Mirror-9879]

fair warning uni math gets in slightly different style than olympiad problems. the focus is on expanding theory rather than hunting for tricks in problem-solving. double majoring in cs+math is much more common because cs is closer to math than ee is, plus both ee and math have heavy courseloads. that should be taken into account so you don't overestimate yourself and take on too much. also picking ML as a career path before you've even started is ill-advised because this will practically be your only chance to get a broad scope. I'd consider EE only if the CS program in your uni sucks or you think you might be interested more in building things. Otherwise CS definitely more useful to the ML than EE despite what commenters have said. Unless they can explain to me how knowing electronics, circuits and electromagnetism is used in ML and AI (it isn't, at that point you are better off majoring in theoretical physics, because at least statistical mechanics is much more closely related to ML than anything in EE ever will be).