Transferring from UMass Amherst CS to UW Seattle Informatics — worth it?
I'm a freshman (sophomore from this fall) at UMass Amherst studying CS, Statistics, and Data Science and considering transferring to UW Seattle's Informatics program. I'm an international student from India, currently doing ML research at 2 labs in the university, on the quant arm of one of the investment funds on campus, and honors.
My interests lean heavily toward AI/ML, NLP, and quant finance rather than traditional SWE, which is part of why Informatics' applied, interdisciplinary angle appeals to me over a straight CS path. UW's proximity to the Seattle tech ecosystem and its pipelines into big tech are also a big draw. I'm also exploring the possibility of double majoring in Informatics and UW CS — though I know UW CS is a competitive internal addition with only around a 30–40% acceptance rate even for current UW students, so that's not guaranteed.
That said, I'm not sure the switch makes sense. UMass CS is a solid program, I've already built meaningful research experience and extracurriculars here, and it will be a huge social change for me aswell.
Has anyone gone through UW Informatics, especially with a quant/ML/data focus? Has anyone attempted the Informatics + CS double major, is it realistic given how selective CS admissions are internally? Or transferred from a similarly ranked program and felt it was or wasn't worth it? What would you weigh here?