So, that may not be what you are talking about when you 'talk about studying linguistics' but - and this is in a way very funny because it is exactly the point of this whole discussion and yet we seem to have a misunderstanding right there - it is what other people will interpret when they say that you should 'study linguistics'. Maybe not to the point where you'd get a degree in it but even as an extra field during your high school studies.
And in my experience your CS degree example simply fails: CS does not prepare you at all for dealing with the various programming languages and their implementations of various concepts. The parts of CS that would apply to that bit you can pick up in a few weeks by reading some books and even then you're going to be dealing with implementation details most of the time by the time you want to apply that knowledge.
If you understand variables, assignment, control structures (if, for, while, pattern matching etc) and abstraction mechanisms (subroutines, functions) then you've got the bulk of it. But it isn't going to help you more than a little bit in tackling a mid sized Java, Rails or C++ project.
If you were going to design a new programming language or write a compiler for an existing one then it may well help, and also if you are going to be working on novel data structures or to try to improve what's already there.
Being a linguist or studying linguistics may well help me to read works in dead languages or maybe to analyze other people's writings. Because that's the kind of stuff that I see the linguists around me do that seems to actually use their skills.
If there would be a single bit of advice that I could give to someone that intends to study multiple languages then it would probably be: take a year or two of Latin. Even though it is a dead language that little bit of foundation will help you gain a much easier entrance into other languages all over Europe (if those are the languages you intend to learn).
If you are going to study in language areas outside of that region, say Asia then I have no idea what would help other than to move there an immerse yourself for a couple of years.
And in my experience your CS degree example simply fails: CS does not prepare you at all for dealing with the various programming languages and their implementations of various concepts. The parts of CS that would apply to that bit you can pick up in a few weeks by reading some books and even then you're going to be dealing with implementation details most of the time by the time you want to apply that knowledge.
If you understand variables, assignment, control structures (if, for, while, pattern matching etc) and abstraction mechanisms (subroutines, functions) then you've got the bulk of it. But it isn't going to help you more than a little bit in tackling a mid sized Java, Rails or C++ project.
If you were going to design a new programming language or write a compiler for an existing one then it may well help, and also if you are going to be working on novel data structures or to try to improve what's already there.
Being a linguist or studying linguistics may well help me to read works in dead languages or maybe to analyze other people's writings. Because that's the kind of stuff that I see the linguists around me do that seems to actually use their skills.
If there would be a single bit of advice that I could give to someone that intends to study multiple languages then it would probably be: take a year or two of Latin. Even though it is a dead language that little bit of foundation will help you gain a much easier entrance into other languages all over Europe (if those are the languages you intend to learn).
If you are going to study in language areas outside of that region, say Asia then I have no idea what would help other than to move there an immerse yourself for a couple of years.