<p>You people and your fads & concoctions. Old fashioned butter pecan. Only ice cream worth your time.</p>
<p>Ooh, you may have a valid point, Chucktown. Butter pecan is hard to beat.</p>
<p>Butter pecan is ranked 23rd out of 300 doctorate-providing flavors according to the US New Ice Cream Rankings. Top 20 or bust. #collegeconfidentialelitist</p>
<p>Or you can just lock the thread</p>
<p>And we just had our first hashtagged post.</p>
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<p>Astrophysics is harder.</p>
<p>Also, Moose Tracks.</p>
<p>Hi MaineLonghorn,</p>
<p>Well, I’ve learned something new today because I never even noticed (much less stopped to read) those locked discussions. You can bet I sure will from now on. Personally, I thought the response was a little too generic: </p>
<p>"What is the hardest/easiest Engineering branch?</p>
<p>The answer to this question will vary from person to person. It is safe to say the difficulty of any Engineering branch will be affected by your level of academic preparation, the level of preference towards a specific Engineering branch, your academic institution, your professors, your attitude, and many other factors too numerous to be listed here. Choose your major based on your interests; if you find <abc> Engineering interesting and you are well prepared, major in it."</abc></p>
<p>so I would have likely gone ahead and posted it anyway. Evidently I would have been opening myself up for ridicule as well. So, OP, don’t feel badly. (Although s/he’s appears to be long gone.)</p>
<p>It seems you are high enough on the CC foodchain that you have the ability to remember and find things that others cannot (or don’t know about, or don’t think to do). I think it would be really helpful if you (or anyone, really) could cut and paste a link to the most recent or most helpful past discussions. What if that doesn’t answer all their questions, or they want to express their own opinion? Is that where they should comment? I ask because I’ve also seen members mocked for reviving old threads, so it seems like newbies really can’t win.</p>
<p>I understand the people who have been around for a while (the “upper classmen”, if you will) feel like they’ve had enough with “stupid” questions and this is their way of putting an end to it, but I personally don’t think there are any stupid questions. Someone commented about the discussion always devolving into an argument where someone tries to make themselves feel better by bragging about how hard their major is. I didn’t really see that happening this time around. And isn’t that a lot of what College Confidential is about? Giving people an outlet to make themselves feel better–whether it’s asking for a boost in esteem, or having a place to boast (the parents have a rather long thread dedicated to this. Some might find this incredibly self-serving, but I love hearing all the good things happening to people), or getting some peace of mind at 2AM when official answers aren’t available.</p>
<p>Some of the responses people give, while funny and I admit to laughing at (inwardly, of course), border on bullying, don’t you think?</p>
<p>Mother: It seems you have a pretty sensitive heart and have taken this all really seriously. I would say don’t take a forum full of strangers all too seriously, but I don’t think that would really help (I don’t mean this in a bad way). </p>
<p>Bullying? That’s extremely far reaching, even for a tender heart, don’t you think? The world can’t always be coddled.</p>
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Then they need to answer a more targeted question. They need to offer some indication that (a) they are aware that they read the FAQ and that (b) the answer is not sufficient and then (c) ask a different question, like “which engineering major requires the most math?” or “which engineering major takes the most hours of study” or something different than the exact same question in the FAQ.</p>
<p>But asking the same question and expecting a different answer? There is a name for that sort of thing.</p>
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This ended really early - the threads where the ice cream doesn’t show up to the second page are the ones s/he was talking about.</p>
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Yes… and no. There are a great many people here who are more than happy to offer information and opinions, but the problem with this kind of ego-boosting behavior is that it inherently requires attacking someone else’s ego.</p>
<p>If I say that “Industrial Engineering is the hardest major” then I am engaging in the same kind of senseless chest beating as saying “<insert team=”" name=“”> is the best! WOOOO!". And if I say “Chemical Engineering is the easiest major” then I am actually picking out a large group of people and belittling all their genuinely hard work. And NONE of it has any basis in fact.</insert></p>
<p>Please note that there are ALSO threads or posts that likewise elevate engineering or denigrate other fields, and those are no more acceptable.</p>
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They are more about deflecting away from a subject that … well… borders on bullying.</p>
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<p>The problem is that it is the only answer. The question itself doesn’t have a more specific answer than that.</p>
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<p>The reason people get mocked for reviving dead threads is because 9 times out of 10, they are answering a question from that thread that has been dead for 5 years. Most of those people probably were Googling the topic and one of the results pointed to this board and they read it and felt like opining without looking at the dates.</p>
<p>When that is not how the thread resurrection occurs, more often than not they get a genuine answer and then also get told they should start their own thread rather than dredging up old ones.</p>
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<p>It’s not an issue of stupid questions versus good questions. Most of us here who have been here for a while do so because we genuinely want to help people out. Unfortunately, there are certain threads and topics that are poisonous to that goal, and this is one of them. As cosmicfish pointed out, this thread was merely derailed before it could turn into a shouting match.</p>
<p>You may be new to this particular branch of the board, which is fine, but trust me when I say that those of us who have been around it for a while will attest to the fact that those threads always eventually devolve into an argument. And for what? What is the tangible benefit of a discussion about the hardest engineering major? There are no benefits. All that can happen is a shouting match and/or scaring kids away from engineering with all the hyperbolic talk of how hard it is.</p>
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<p>Maybe in certain forums the goal is to give a place for people to boast or pat themselves on the back. Here we generally try and make it an informative and constructive but honest discussion. We aren’t going to tell a kid that he is a shoo-in for MIT if that isn’t true just to make him feel better. We aren’t going to tell her that the job prospects for civil engineering are amazing right now. We try to be honest and genuinely help people. Part of that, at least for me, is helping put a stop to threads that will likely be harmful based on the dozens more exactly like it before.</p>
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<p>No, I don’t think that and this is just silly to suggest. We aren’t berating kids. We aren’t putting down their hopes and dreams. We aren’t belittling them (though this thread topic itself has the potential to do just that). We are merely derailing a thread in a humorous, metaphorical way before it can do any real harm to anyone. If we had more than one moderator then we could just have a moderator post a note saying these threads aren’t allowed and close the thread, but we only have one (MaineLonghorn) and even if she did that, someone would just decry censorship.</p>
<p>Long story short: most of us are here to help out students with questions, and threads like this impede that goal so we stop them before they get out of hand.</p>
<p>boneh3ad has a good suggestion - perhaps I should close threads like this in the future. I just need to check in on the forum every day or so.</p>
<p>Thanks for the good replies to mothergoldenbear - you did a better job than I would have!</p>
<p>PS - If any of you sees a thread like this in the future that you think should be closed, use the “Report Problem Post” button with a flag such as “ATTENTION - MAINELONGHORN,” and I’ll see what I think.</p>
<p>If you do end up taking that approach, I have seen it backfire before so make sure you don’t just close the thread without any reason. Make a post with a link back to the FAQ and/or the short version of the answer to the question, that is, that there is no objectively hardest major.</p>
<p>Just my two bits.</p>
<p>^^ Yes, I agree that some sort of reason indicating why it was closed should be offered, otherwise people won’t know and will just do it again. </p>
<p>I admit to being mildly softhearted, but even so, I went around most of my life not really knowing that I myself participated in bullying; it had to be pointed out to me. When my kids were in middle school I went to one of those presentations the PTA puts on where they talk about what bullying is. I was surprised to hear that even very subtle things, such as being dismissive, was a form of bullying. So if someone asks a sincere question and I ignore them, talk over them, poke fun of them for asking (hey, it’s all in good fun, right?), or turn away and roll my eyes, then that’s bullying. At least that’s what was presented to the kids by this nationally-known consultant the district paid LOTS of money to (so well known that I’ve forgotten their name! … but that’s more a reflection on me … it wasn’t important enough information to store given my limited brain capacity), and the parents were told that it’s worse when it is done by an adult, teacher or other person in authority so we should all be cognizant of it. I was never a “mean girl”, and not everyone will consider something this mild a form of bullying, but ever since it was pointed out to me, I look at is as one never knows what will push someone over the edge and I don’t want to be the one that contributes to it. That’s my perspective, anyway.</p>
<p>Of course, I’m still new to CC so I take everything at face value, and perhaps there is something about the OP that tipped others off that this was not a sincere request. I thought it was a reasonable and sincere question because my experience has been that almost every high school kid looking for a major wants to know if it’s hard or easy. That’s question #2 behind, “What major/career pays the most?” That’s what’s important when you are 16 or 17 years old.</p>
<p>BTW, why would this type of question have to be locked immediately? Once a discussion starts to cross CC lines, then I agree it should. There are some threads that die on their own because few people respond to them. Why can’t we let anyone ask any question they want?</p>
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<p>It isn’t that the OP is not sincere. He or she very well may have been. And admittedly, they probably had no idea that this topic gets out of hand quickly. Unfortunately, it does. Like has been explained previously, this topic is one that very quickly leads to a variety of undesirable situations such as arguments, bragging, misinformation… it’s just best to avoid it altogether.</p>
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No, that is perhaps being mean. I think your definition is so broad that it makes EVERYONE a bully. The definition I see is:</p>
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<p>To me, bullying requires a certain amount of intent. It is not our intent to bully.</p>
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Why would it be reasonable that there must be an answer to this? Is there an easiest orchestral instrument? A hardest professional sport? And how would you know unless you had a large body of extremely multi-talented people to assess?</p>
<p>And as to the sincerity, perhaps s/he was sincere… but many people who come on here asking that question are NOT. And whether ignorant or self-aggrandizing, this question comes up FAR too often to not be shut down.</p>
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Because the overwhelming tendency of these threads (when not transmogrified into assertions of ice cream superiority) is to degenerate into name-calling between people. It is a ■■■■■■■■ technique, and it not only adds nothing to the boards, it actively angers people who show up to help or get advice and instead get told that the major they worked 60 hours a week on is “easy” according to chemicalengineeringtroll1337.</p>
<p>Speaking of, why do trolls ■■■■■? I have seen them come and go, I just don’t get it…I guess I could ask the google, it always knows.</p>
<p>Hi everyone, </p>
<p>Well, thanks for explaining the other side. I agree with cosmicfish that the definition was overly broad, but I think the point was that we all are guilty of excluding people, shutting them down, belittling their concerns, etc—and it can be taken as a put-down. We appear to have driven away skyy90, which seems to fit definition #2—to cause someone to do something (leave) by making insults. Everyone takes away different stuff from all the input that comes into their life. I’m just passing on what was an eye-opener for me.</p>
<p>This seems to me like the perfect place to pose questions and ask for opinions because College Confidential IS a large body of extremely multi-talented people. Although it might seem like arguing, I like reading all sides so I can decide for myself whether or not their reasoning/arguments makes sense to me.</p>
<p>Oh, yes, trolls. That’s the word I was looking for. I guess when controlling the ■■■■■ population there will always be some collateral damage. 
I think that’s rather unfortunate.</p>
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<p>No insults were used at any single point in this thread.</p>
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<p>And you can do that in any other thread on this board. This topic, however, is a distraction from what I would argue is the mission of this forum, simple as that. If closing down these topics makes the board a better place then it is worth one or two people being disappointed that the thread didn’t go longer.</p>
<p>With that, I am closing this thread, since nothing more of value can be added.</p>