Math in Undergrad, CS in Grad: My Pivot Story

I started my college journey as a Math major, completely convinced I’d be buried in proofs, theorems, and late-night problem sets for the foreseeable future. And honestly, I loved it: the logic, the structure, the challenge, it all clicked. But then, somewhere between semesters, I randomly signed up for a CS course, mostly out of curiosity. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but that one choice ended up completely changing how I thought about my future. A few years later, here I am, pursuing a Master’s in Computer Science, something I never would’ve imagined back then. This is the story of how I made that switch, what I learned along the way, and why changing fields isn’t nearly as scary as it sounds.

🧭 How I Caught the Coding Bug

In my freshman year, my parents were nagging me to take at least a CS course, mainly because coding is a useful skill (especially in math research which I wanted to do), and I wanted to understand what the hype in CS was about. I took the Introduction to CS class, and really really enjoyed it. I enjoyed the structure of the class (learncs.org similar to that, it was during COVID), really enjoyed the contents and enjoyed thinking of new algorithms to solve problems.

🎒 How Freedom Shaped My Switch

Thankfully, I was able to take almost every course that I wanted to take, except 1. CS courses opened up for everyone after the CS majors had registered and that allowed me to register for the courses I wanted to take.

Until my senior year, I’d taken more CS courses than math every single semester. That allowed me to gain necessary experience I needed for research projects, make more friends in the CS community, and make connections with the professors as compared to a minor.

💥 When Curiosity Turned Into a Career Path

Admittedly money was a factor. However, to some degree, CS allowed me to apply some of the mathematics that I learned. One of the reasons why I chose cryptography was because it’s application combined with mathematics which I like.

There are still universities that require you to have a CS degree before the Masters degree. Managing pre requisites isn’t super easy either because the pre requisites sometimes don’t transfer over (the new university has to recognize the classes I took as equivalent to the classes they offer).

Beyond those though, I don’t think I had any specific issue that stemmed from me not being a CS major. I had issues, such as asking for LORs or writing SOP (proving fit wasn’t an issue because I’d done research in CS, CA’d for CS courses and math as a major is very close to CS), but I don’t feel anything because I was a Math major.

🧠 Grad School Isn’t Harder — It’s Just Different

Here’s my hot take: I don’t feel that grad classes are necessarily more difficult that undergrad classes. Grad classes are usually more specialized for a topic while undergrad classes usually want to teach you a more broad range of topics. Yes assignments are tough in grad classes, but they are tough in undergrad too, and maybe a bit more tougher too because you’re just overall less experienced. What can be a bit much to juggle is if you have a TAship along with research and classes.

That being said, grad courses can be really fun to take.

🚀 My Real ‘Welcome to Grad School’ Moment

To some degree yes. It wasn’t a class or assignment, mainly just about my research experience because I had my own research that I had to work on. Of course, I’d have my mentors helping me, but as such it was my own thing. That’s what made me think about how Masters is different from Undergrad.

Another thing, not related to class or assignment, but socializing became different. It’d be a lot more mature, a lot more about the work that you were doing.

🧮 Where Math Gave Me Wings (and Where It Didn’t)

My math background gave me an edge in the more theoretic courses. I knew how to write proofs, how to work with them etc. and it was something that students from a pure CS background might not have been the most familiar with.

On the flip side, students who came from a pure CS background had a much easier time in the earlier courses because they might’ve known several concepts or languages that I didn’t know about. Thus, the earlier introductory courses were much harder for me.

🌆 UIUC vs. Purdue

They’re surprisingly similar. I know I mentioned about research being a differentiating factor, but beyond that they’re fairly similar. This makes sense considering both are closeby midwestern universities.

The courses are very similar, infact a lot of courses are close to direct 1 to 1 translation, even for graduate level courses.

The community is fairly similar too, there are a lot of Indians in either university, and a lot of nice people you can make friends with.

🧭 What This Journey Taught Me

Honestly, the skillset required for undergraduate math courses versus coding (only coding, not theoretic computer science) are fairly different.

If you get math homework, you need to start it off immediately, you’re not going to get it immediately. You need to think about it several times before getting the answer.

Coding is something a bit different. You generally have a good idea about what to do, it’s just implementing itself can take some time. If you're good at that you can finish homeworks on the last day. This can be a different skill, which is one thing I developed.

🌱 Why You Should Just explore different streams

If you need to take courses to, say graduate early, then honestly keep going as is.

If you have space to do so, honestly, do try to take courses that interest you if you can. Audit them if you’re worried about your grades. I’m taking a history class this semester that I really enjoy. It’s usually the highlight of my day.

☕ 4 A.M. Coding and the ‘I’m a CS Kid Now’ Era

Not a story per se, but I’ve spent staying awake until 4am finishing CS assignments close to every week that semester and honestly I think that should capture my transition