Choosing majors

It is almost the time for us to choose our major. Luckily, there is NUS Open House these two days, which gives us a great chance to get better knowledge of majors. I have learnt much from it indeed. However, I haven’t decided which to choose yet.

In front of us, there are three main faculties, science, engineering and computing. It was quite hard for almost everyone to choose because there are a lot of choices. I love mathematics a lot and I was in the department of mathematics in Nanjing University, so I first think about mathematics and statistics. Pure math seems to be quite boring since it is all about theories and logics. On the contrary, applied math and statistics are both focus on practical uses of math.

From wikipedia, I know statistics is just a branch of applied mathematics. It makes me quite confused about these two departments. I got to the Open House and asked the professors of both departments. The professor from statistics told me they focused on data analysis and the professor from applied mathematics told me they mainly do something on mathematical models to solve various problems. I couldn’t understand what they explained to me at the beginning because mathematical models and data analysis seemed to be the same thing for me.

Since I was so confused, I stuck to the professors and volunteer seniors and kept asking questions. After they took some examples, I had the right ideas. Statistics is specially study uncertain phenomena and probabilities of a likely-to-happen thing, and then analyze or forecast according to the data. Applied mathematics focus on regular and relatively certain things, and then uses mathematical models to solve problems.

I was a little happier when I distinguished the two departments. However, I still don’t know which to choose because I think they are both suitable to me. To accompany my friends, I went to others faculties and departments with them. I heard a lot about others’ conversations, many people couldn’t decide their major and even their faculty. Lots of information about other majors didn’t arouse me much interest in those areas, but at least after knowing something about other majors, I almost had 100 percent certainty to study in faculty of science and learn something about math.

I know that lots of students are not sure which to choose. According to me, the prime belief is to choose the one I feel happy and free to learn it. Since there are still some days, I will think about my choice again to make a final decision. Wish all of us can successfully take our ideal majors.