So, I recently found myself typing up a longish email in response to a high school junior trying to figure out this whole college thing. In particular, the full story looks something like:

• I post a Quora answer in response to a question about majoring in mathematics.
• A user comments, asking if I would field some additional questions by email. (I've since deleted the comment, to protect the privacy of the requester.)
• I spend the better part of an hour typing responses about what it's like to be at Harvard, what it's like to joint-concentrate CS/Math, and some advice on applying to colleges.

In the end, it seemed like there are some other people I know who might want to hear such off-the-top-of-my-head insights. But then again, if you're not a high school student, the rest of this post is going to be pretty useless for you; be forewarned.

In any case, I've reproduced (most of) the email exchange below.

Hi Ross,

My questions are as follows:

1. From your profile I learnt that you major in both CS and Math; what is majoring in two subjects like? Barely have no time to do anything related to social life (not to mention you are in Harvard)? I also want to double-major in CS and Math when I study in university.
2. Did you spare any effort to prepare for applying universities before you were admitted by Harvard? In other words, did you put a lot of time in extracurricular activities (and sports)?
3. Scoring high on SAT requires a huge amount of vocabulary, could you tell me how you memorized words?

Best wishes,
AAAA BBBB

AAAA,

(1)

Regarding my experiences in the

Harry Lewis once said to me "Flip through the course catalog, write down the 32 courses you most want to take, and then figure out which concentration requires the fewest changes to what you've written down. Then pick that one."

As it turns out, I had many CS courses, several math courses, and was planning to write a thesis (most likely on the math-y edge of CS theory). So CS/Math was a perfect fit. (Math/CS is strictly more required courses, and requires approximately the same writing commitments.) But basically, it feels like I've turned in a piece of paper that convinced the admin that the thing that I was going to do anyway, is well-aligned with their expectations for academic rigor. It's no big deal.The real question, I suppose, is then: "What is it like to study Math and CS at Harvard?"

In general, and in a word, exhausting. Your fellow students are excellent, and if you have a day when you feel like you're not, it can get pretty miserable. It gets better when you realize that everyone is best at some subset of fields, and if you're lucky, you'll find the particular subset that you do well at, and

In a word: no. In three words: haha, really no.

I've taken CS50 -- which is the hardest CS course most Harvard students will take -- and CS161 -- which is the hardest CS course at Harvard, full stop. 161 (Operating Systems) more or less ate my life (it didn't help that I was taking five courses that semester), and still I found time for my friends. When I was going into my third 20-hour coding day (you learn, eventually, that all-nighters are just inefficient), I would still take time to eat dinner with my friends -- and they were the ones that helped me get through that hell.

More than a few of my closest friends are people that I've met while working on some CS project (CS@Harvard is almost compulsively partner-oriented), but even so, it's not like I've only got a circle of CS friends; I'm one of two CS concentrators in my eight-person blocking group.

At the end of the day, CS might eat your life, but it won't eat your friends. They'll be there for breakfast after your all-nighter, and they'll be there to drag you to a party the weekend after your project is due. And, if my experience is any guide, you'll find people in