<p>Perhaps the question shouldn’t be hardest v. easiester majors, but most practical v. dumbest majors.</p>
<p>For example, if you major in subject where the main skill is learning Latin, it may be hard - but it’s also dumb.</p>
<p>On the other hand, you could major in something like Nursing, which could be considered easy, but it’s very practical.</p>
<p>“You thinking I’m wrong doesn’t make me wrong. 15 percent of the population could make it through an engineering curriculum? That’s a hypothetical statistic that you just made up.”</p>
<p>It was an educated guess based on distribution of IQ scores in America, not pulled out of my butt.</p>
<p>It somewhat saddens me that the opposite of practical (read: gets you a job in industry) is apparently “dumb.”</p>
<p>^^^ Life’s tough, buy a helmet.</p>
<p>…I swear, half the people on this forum have their head irretrievably lodged up their ass…</p>
<p>Lol, can you say that in Latin?</p>
<p>How do you say dumb major in latin?</p>
<p>I suppose making fun of “dumb” people on the internet helps you justify whatever it is you do with your life? You get to sit back and anonymously pass judgment on someone with a different opinion than your own? I hope this is just the “greater internet dickwad theory” at work here, for the sake of your family and friends.</p>
<p>^^^ Hey, don’t get all huffy.</p>
<p>You’re the one who posted that we have out heads shoved up our butts, so as the old saying goes - if you don’t want none, don’t start none.</p>
<p>So if people are having problems accepting other opinions, you are just as guilty.</p>
<p>As far as my own family and friends, that’s none of your business.</p>
<p>I have been more than reasonable in all of my posts, you’re the one with the hostile attitude towards anything humanities related. I’ve never once said a bad word about any technical degree.</p>
<p>That said, lets agree to disagree and start over.</p>
<p>Call it ‘tough love’, but I do not want to see anyone become poor as a result of studying something just because they ‘like’ it or it’s ‘fun’ or whatever else the kids are using to rationalise their short-sighted actions.</p>
<p>Classics, what are you going to do upon graduation: translate Latin? Work for the Vatican?</p>
<p>I think TomServo had it pretty much right. I feel like some majors are more challenging, or ‘rigorous’ i suppose. The toughest likely being physics and engineering. </p>
<p>I’ve always been interested in math and science and had a bit of a natural talent for it. English/History was never a top priority, and I never spent much time on those courses, yet I found them to be extremely easy, and the math/science rather challenging, despite my interest. Granted, these english/history courses were low level, but even Chem I for engineering required some hard work, for me anyway. By the way, I am a MechE major and I’ve always wanted to be one, not for the money, but I feel like a job in that field would be interesting and fun. My second choice would have been physics, also because I find it very interesting, especially quantum mechanics and astrophysics. The money is nice for being an engineer, but I disagree with that person that seemed to think it was the key to success. </p>
<p>Music and art are someone strange majors, in that it really is mostly the people who have natural talent that go into them. I would likely struggle a bit, though I do have a bit of talent in both areas, but not a lot of passion to pursue a degree in either. It depends on how serious you are in these majors I think. My sister is in architecture and is finding it to be difficult and spending almost all her waking hours working on her models. However, she has friends who have a fair amount of free time who are in the same program. They just don’t try as hard and get lower grades, but they’ll still likely get the degree. I know architecture isn’t the best example of art, but I thought I had a good example there. </p>
<p>One of my friends is doing graphic design at Champlain college and it is an absolute cake walk for him. Would it be hard for some people? I suppose, but I’d have trouble believing it if you told me, lol. </p>
<p>Also, I liked the football/soccer bit. I just happened to play soccer at my high school, but it was just as the one person offered… the football team was utter garbage, and the soccer team went pretty far into the playoffs every year. The football team was basically the kids who were too fat to run for 90 minutes, though I realize this is not the case at most high schools in the United States. </p>
<p>…just some thoughts on the thread.</p>
<p>@ Van - I have wanted to be a teacher in some capacity for a long time, so I will probably either go on to my masters, perhaps after doing Teach for America for a couple of years so as to have my loans forgiven; I’ve also thought about going for a Ph.D, as I also have a huge interest in writing books and that would let me pursue both goals. Of course, one has to be realistic about the Humanities Ph.D market…</p>
<p>Since you’re so focused on money, by the way, you might be interested to know that my high school Latin teacher recently added a sixth class to her schedule and now makes 90,000 a year, with 15 years experience, and has won multiple grants and scholarships to spend summers studying in Rome and around Pompeii; it doesnt’ sound like she has a bad life at all.</p>
<p>I just thought of something, so I thought I’d throw in another two cents. I think that in general you can sort of group majors into two categories. The first group requires a high IQ, the other requires a lot of natural talent, not to say that “high IQ majors” don’t require talent. Take something like marketing and sales. You can be taught everything in the books, but if you don’t have a knack for sales, you just won’t make it. So there’s another factor in determining difficulty, I guess.</p>
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<p>Show me how you estimated the minimum IQ necessary to succeed in a catch-all “engineering curriculum.” Did you estimate the percentage of the population that could complete each engineering school’s curriculum and take a weighted average of these percentages, based on the size of the engineering school?</p>
<p>What the hell did you do? Your guess isn’t educated. It doesn’t even sound like you’re educated–no offense.</p>
<p>It’s ironic that some of you guys advocating engineering, math, and science add no rigor to your thoughts. You just spew senseless comments. As a technical major, I consider you an embarrassment.</p>
<p>I just thought I’d post a few thoughts. What kind of rigor would you have liked?</p>
<p>I’m specifically referring to comments made by Van and Tomservo. One pretends to understand how a person can maximize their life utility. The other pretends to know how many students are capable of completing an engineering curriculum, and using this assessment to compare average humanities students with average engineering students.</p>
<p>IMO, neither Van nor Tom deserves to graduate from college. </p>
<p>To say that engineering attracts a different type of student than a humanities degree is fine. Engineering types may potentially be more competitive, and it is often true that technical courses have grade deflation. These two effects potentially imply that top engineering students had to understand engineering better than top humanities students had to understand humanities–at least as far as grades can show.</p>
<p>To say that this implies anything about the “average engineering student” or “who is capable of successfully completing an engineering curriculum” is to loudly proclaim your ignorance in basic analysis–a skill that technical majors should possess.</p>
<p>…there’s really another thread on this?!?!</p>
<p>Psychology can be quite rigorous. Writing science is really much harder than expected. Getting A’s is hard because of the set of criteria used to mark Psychology reports - from my friends majoring in Psychology.</p>
<p>Birth –> time wasted –> begin school –> enter high school: study SAT, study AP courses, volunteer weekends at soup kitchen to list on college app –> enter college: study engineering –> graduate, get job as engineer: make money –> buy big screen television –> die</p>
<p>If you don’t do this U R A DUMBASS</p>
<p>^ You forgot “boink secretary” somewhere in between “make money” and “die”.</p>
<p>:D</p>