I would say Chinese, because you will find more general-purpose use from this. Are you sure of what you want to do? You might change your major, take East Asian

I would say Chinese, because you will find more general-purpose use from this. Are you sure of what you want to do? You might change your major, take East Asian Studies, and do something completely different, as I have known some people to do in college - so I might not get 100% stuck on which would be better just for tech, either. Ultimately, it will take you two-three years to become fairly proficient, depending on the strength of your school's program and how intense it is. However, you should not pursue the language just because you think it will be good for your career - you should learn a language because you have an interest in it, too. (proficient here means that you will think that you are at all competent in this language... after 2 years, 5 days a week, you can go to China and impress your friends by 'surviving' quite well. Certainly, even after three years, you will be unlikely to really read much of any newspaper, etc. But spoken can be pretty good at this point.) Since you have a lot of time left, you could start a course in both and see which might appeal to you more, though be advised that Chinese seems REALLY hard at first when you are confronted with four different 'tones' and are just scratching your head when the teacher constantly tells you you are doing it wrong. But once you move beyond that barrier, essentially after a few weeks when you can cope with the concept, things get easier -- grammar is easy, it's really just about learning more characters, expressions, and the like. It is true that there are going to be a lot of Chinese CS people, many of whom will speak (some) English. However, Chinese opens up a lot of opportunities if you are dedicated to pursuing them. While the pickings are not as easy as they once were in China, there are still so few foreigners in China (in the grand scheme of things) that you can get involved successfully in different ventures, especially as a connector between China and the west. Be advised that both languages are serious business -- for native English speakers, Russian is up there, and Chinese is even harder. That is not to discourage you, but just to say that if you are going to undertake learning them, you have to be really serious about it. Learning Chinese is a lot of fun, but definitely will involve a lot of work. Both countries have some rule of law issues, among other problems, but again, you have to ask yourself what your intentions are. Languages don't just translate into some special linear relationship of increased success - you have to put them to work.