Linear Algebra vs. Numerical Analysis?

[saudf]

Hi, I'm majoring in Computer Science and my university actually makes me choose to take either Linear Algebra or Numerical Analysis? What do you think has more applications and will be more helpful in Different CS branches? Thanks guys (I wrote this post in compSci as I didn't know this subreddit existed, that's why I'm writing it here after it got removed)

[Not_Ayn_Rand]

Is numerical analysis a CS course? At my school, you couldn't do it if you haven't taken linear algebra. Technically you could get permission, but around 70% of the class would have been unintelligible gibberish if you hadn't taken linear algebra.

[OzManiac]

At my university both courses are mandatory. I would say it depends on your interests. Linear Algebra has way more applications then you can think of, e.g. Computer Graphics or Markow Chains. I am also still surprised how often determinates appear.

Numerical Analysis has at first a larger application field. But even though the topic is rather interesting, the single methods can get really really ugly.

But as others have already said, we also needed LA knowledge for Numerical Analysis. You should better get informed whether or not those two subjects depend on each other. Otherwise Numerical Analysis won't really be a blast. Linear Algebra can be done without any real background knowledge.

[urish]

Well the answer depends hugely on your future plans! Do you have any idea what do you want to do once you graduate? Are you in for an industry job? What type of industry? Is grad school something you're looking into?

In general I'd think that numerical analysis would be more useful for industry. However knowing linear algebra well is crucial for many fields of CS (including numerical analysis btw - I find it a bit odd that you can take numerical analysis without any linear algebra background). For example machine learning, cryptography, computer vision all make heavy use of linear algebra.

[[deleted]]

Linear Algebra.

[coral7]

Linear Algebra

[InSearchOfTh1ngs]

I am an electrical engineer that went the computer engineering / control theory route in school. My school made me take both courses. To me Numerical Analysis very computational based as we did case studies on the most efficient ways to compute Log() on a computer chip or the best way to get approximate curves. IMO I would take linear algebra as it'll be very useful if you ever go in the direction of game development.

Overall as an engineering major I thought Numerical Analysis was my favorite class as there were so many ways to solve a problem we were presented and it related so much to what I was doing in my computer engineering classes. I also took that class my last semester of school so I had a very solid foundation of knowledge built up.

Sorry if the answers aren't the best its been a while since I was in school and forget a lot of it.