Should I pursue physics or computer science? I am currently a student at a German high school in my senior year. (In case you don't know the German education system: Students get to choose two subjects which they focus on. In my case those two subjects are math and computer science.)
I've always been fairly certain that I wanted to study physics. This was/is due to my deep love and admiration for the subject. To see whether I would actually like to pursue a degree in the subject, I decided to watch two lecture series which mostly covered classical physics (They were from TU Wien, by professor Wagner). I was immediately hooked and especially enjoyed the mathematical rigour.
However, during the last 2 1/2 years, I started to take computer science. This led to me developing a great interest in the subject. And as I did with physics, I started to watch some lecture series on the subject. (MIT 6.034 Artificial Intelligence, Fall 2010; MIT 6.S191: Introduction to Deep Learning) The thing which stood out to me was that unlike physics, computer science appeared to be a lot more applied and a lot less mathematical. None the less, I still appreciate computer science for its power as a tool and merit as a research subject.
As to my general aspirations, I eventually want to pursue a PhD in either CS or Physics and hope to end up working in R&amp;D/academia.
So my question is which of the two degrees I should pursue. (As far as I know, it's quite hard to get a masters in a subject which you didn't get your bachelors in. This at least seems to be the case here in Germany.) On the one hand, I want to learn all about physics and enjoy the rigorous formal education that comes with it. On the other hand, CS seems to be a far more interesting field research-wise, developing far quicker than physics and showing more promise for emerging technologies.
All in all, I don't dislike physics research (topics), but it often seems either super high level or extremely narrow and inconsequential, to me. Contrary to this CS seems like a far more manageable field, which progresses quite quickly and also seems to offer quite a lot more open positions.
Lastly, I also don't know about my career opportunities. But it seems to me, that a degree/education in CS is more economically sensible.
(I hope I don't give you the impression, that I love physics and hate CS, it's really not that black and white to me, I just seem to have a slight preference for the physics curriculum. Nevertheless, I still greatly enjoy learning and doing pretty much every area of CS, which I have encountered so far.)
I greatly appreciate any of your input and am looking forward to it. However, I do recognize the vagueness of my question and know that there isn't a clear-cut answer to it, still, I'm eager to hear your perspective/tips on the matter and hope that you will inform me about any possible misconceptions I might have.
(I've also considered a degree in math, but seem to lack the enthusiasm for the subject.
In case some further elaboration is necessary: I'm afraid that I might be missing out on my chance to acquire a thorough understanding of physics. But also worry that, by choosing physics, I might hinder myself from getting into tech/CS-research later on and worsen my future career/job prospects.
P.s. The university I'm looking to study at is the TUM)
Best regards,
Justus
:)
We cannot tell you what to do with your life, that's for you to decide.
However, note that there are mixed degrees and many programs for either Physics or Computer Science will require you to choose a minor subject, which then would be easy picking for you. I'd recommend to start either with a mixed variant or with one as the major and the other as the minor. If your university has both as fully fledged degrees, it should be easy to switch if you notice during your studies you like the minor more.
In addition, in most Physics degrees you get some basic programming exposure as well. It is typically not thaaat hard to switch and do the master in the other topic. I know quite a few Physicists that now work as software engineers. The other way around seems a bit more rare, but also possible (there is less automatic exposure however).
If you are really ambitious you can also try to study both, given that there is some overlap, that can arguably be easier than say computer science and History.
German examples for mixed degrees (from a quick-search, you would need to check what TUM specifically has to offer in that fashion):

https://www.zbh.uni-hamburg.de/studium/informationen-fuer-schueler/was-ist-physinf.html
https://www.merkur.de/leben/karriere/neuer-bachelor-kombiniert-informatik-mathe-und-physik-zr-12539261.html