<p>People post on here that some classes are easier than others in a sequence, like linear algebra is supposed to be easy compared to calc II, physics III is supposed to be the fun and easy one, etc etc.</p>
<p>Well I'm just about done with all the lower division courses and I honestly hesitate to use the term "easier" for any of the math, science, or engineering courses. They all have had their hard/long hours of studying moments, either because of the material and/or the professor. When trying to compare difficulty, I find it an apples to oranges comparison, the courses are just different. </p>
<p>Has anyone else felt this way or am I just taking things too seriously?</p>
<p>To me, easier is in the professor. This can be found quite easily when looking at a certain website that shows the complete grading breakdown of every professor. The easiest class in the world can be hard when you get a prof that throws out 2% A’s!</p>
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<p>That would be my mechanics of materials professor. As he put it, he grades “Purdue style” (where he got his phd). Not that it’s particularly easy to digest material to begin with, but he definitely adds a lot of stress with his hard exams (count the puns!)</p>
<p>I knew his grade distribution from myedu, but had no choice due to schedule constraints.</p>
<p>professor shopping has been around for decades. We were all very familiar with some real hard grader math profs, and the easy ones as well. Since the math department saw fit to never publish professors’ names in the schedule, we circumvented the system by abusing the add/drop system to perfection (i.e. register for all 4 sections of a class and see who shows up 1st day of class… then drop the undesirables). This only worked on paper add/drop systems…</p>
<p>My long college career taught me that indeed, in most cases the difference between an A and a B is not the student’s effort but the professor.</p>