<p>Don't everyone immediately dismiss the difficulties of a humanities-based courseload. I respect those who have talent and ability for math and science, but just because one is studying history or English doesn't mean their workload or intellectual capacity is inferior. They're future professors/teachers, lawyers, politicians, museum curators, philosophers, poets and authors. They're studying the humanities to embrace, preserve and prolong the quality of our society, in literature and the arts and in law and politics and in intellectual thought. And it's not that easy.</p>
<p>Due to some scheduling problems, I ended up taking a fairly heavy courseload this semester, all humanities classes. I'll take a cue from bing and describe what I have to do:</p>
<p>1) and 2) 2 300-level history courses: 100-130 (on average) pages of reading for each class every week; midterms and final exams in each class; 3 papers for each class; and a 15 page research paper for each class
3) Philosophy: 15-20 pages every night (sometimes reaching into 30 pages); 4 extensive papers due throughout the semester. This is a 200-level Philosophy. It is my hardest class, I would say, taking even more concentration and effort from me than the histories.
4) Literature (200-level) class: two page paper due every single week, 8 page research paper due, 50 pages of reading every week
5) 200 level Political Science course: Pretty standard class: midterm, final exam, quizzes, large final paper and 60-70 pages of reading per week.</p>
<p>That's a ton of reading (and about 30 different papers to write). What's harder is trying to remember the content of the readings, and understanding them. And then writing good quality papers. </p>
<p>So no, humanities classes aren't a little walk in the park, even compared against the engineers and the chem majors. I'm not saying they're the hardest majors, but don't dismiss them either.</p>
<p>English would be a hard major for me. Except i do like to read. It's the writing that would kill me, really.</p>
<p>I think, like some posters have mentioned, that the difficulty of a major depends on the student, and the quality of the school. The hardest major has got to be the one where students are left in the dark on any of their questions because the school provides next to no support for them.</p>
<p>Just as an example:</p>
<p>I'm sorry, but this...
</p>
<p>is an opinion of one student's perspective/experience on his/her major. For another student, this stuff could be like a walk in the park, and taking communication classes that ask the student to meet 10 strangers, and share a story about their own life with each stranger is TOO MUCH!!! </p>
<p>You see, it depends on the personality, passions, comfort zones, etc. of the student.</p>
<p>Also, nobody should make pure assumptions on which classes will be impossible ... I'm not good at math (somehow got a 690 math SAT, stress the somehow) and was absolutely dreading a statistical reasoning and analysis class that's required for my major. It was hard at first, but I got the hang of things and finished at the top of the class. A few others did really well while some failed miserably. This was one class where I knew i'd be doomed for a bad grade but the outcome was much different than I expected. </p>
<p>On the other hand, it seemed like no matter how hard i worked or how well I wrote, i couldn't do better than a B+ on any of my history papers. Remind you that I had four (two intro and two upper-level) english classes that emphasized writing under my belt and I had A's in all four of the classes. Why I couldn't get an A was beyond me. </p>
<p>Some classes will be really intense and some will be easy regardless of your major. </p>
<p>I'll tell you, for this labor law class that i'm in, i'm up with my group members working on the homework well past when the pre-med students have gone to bed. What makes this class different is the fact that our grade is based heavily on nightly homework assignments and a big research paper (no midterm or final) while for most other classes it's a midterm, a final, some labs and a grade.</p>
<p>I won't dimiss English, or philosophy or Religious studies majors because these people have to know critical analysis, logic, and an enormous amount of facts and figures as much as engineering majors have to be familiar with statics and process design and differential equations.</p>
<p>I have no qualms, however, of making fun of restaurant managment, family studies, or fashion design majors' courseloads.</p>
<p>There are many lists of people who were philosophy majors on the internet. Search for them if you want. The fields run the gamet of possibilities.</p>
<p>You people may think I or others exaggerate. But those people who you see in your dorm once a week, and never leave their dorm to do anything except to eat or go to class, those are your BMEs and ChemEs. Both majors are the end of free time. Its not the difficulty, its the amount of work. The problems involved varioius forms of math and science all in one problem, and often even a problem that is really simple require tons of work to describe everything, and calculate everything. This major no matter how smart you are, it is not easy. NO ONE in the world can say all the topics are easy in ChemE or BME. None. Zip. Nada. Some classes will be easy for some, but still take a boatload of time. Other classes will just be plain hard and take a boatload of time. Nothing in engineering is easy across the board. </p>
<p>As far as communications, its considered a cake major at my school. Thats why all the hots girls do it. If you can hold a conversation, you can do it. Almost every engineer nowadays must be well versed in public speaking, because our jobs revolve around working in teams doing work and discussing issues. Its a myth that all engineers are nerdy, in fact, many many go on to become CEOs, doctors, and lawyers. In fact a quite sizeable amount of big time CEOs are engineers. We are taught everything under the sun, speaking, math, science, history. We also have no social life in college, so thats the trade off. But we could have one if we had the time easily.</p>
<p>Who says that CEOs, doctors, or lawyers can't be nerdy? Nerds probably exist in every major, and I bet there are more in engineering than other fields. Does that mean every engineer is a nerd, or that being a nerd is bad? Not at all. Engineers are taught everything under the sun? Well, I cant agree with that, but you do go very in depth in mathematics and sciences. Social life you choose. For instance, you're here and not out with friends. That's your choice. Also, anyone could have a 'social life if we had the time.' That doesn't really mean anything, and I know engineers with social lives.</p>
<p>I think one of the largest difficulties with a question like "what is the hardest major" is that no one knows first-hand about more than one or maybe two not to mention differences among schools and among individuals,</p>
<p>Chemical engineering is traditionally considered the most difficult of all forms of engineering because it usually has the most requirements to graduate, and that's probably followed by EE. I won't rank BME in terms of difficulty because that really depends on the concentration you choose to do.
Though I will note how physics majors do as much if not more work than engineers as they're expected to know the basics of engineering in addition to other things... that and I don't think anyone will argue that advanced relativity and quantum dynamics is a simple matter!
A word about the humanities majors: traditionally they tend to be held in lower regard by the technically oriented majors because, as a friend of my put it, "we take their classes for fun!" So what I'm trying to say is no one could be a good engineer without knowing how to write and do critical analysis on a decent enough level, but you can definetely be a good humanities student without having to know a thing about calculus. So the conclusion in this case is drawn by the fact that this is not really a two way street!</p>
<p>I think the thing with philosophy is that sometimes you spend half the time trying to actually comprehend the question. I have actually cried over philosophy essays as my brain just could not seem to grasp the concept and find a answer. Mind you i did get in the top 20% for that class ... maybe the tears were worth it!</p>
<p>
[quote]
I have actually cried over philosophy essays as my brain just could not seem to grasp the concept and find a answer.
[/quote]
Believe me, you're not the only one. My philosophy teacher gave us an essay on Zeno that made my head spin. </p>
<p>I disagree about the one-way street point made by stargirl. One of my friends actually switched into Pratt (engineering) because of our humanities FOCUS. If it comes down between learning diffie q's and learning philosophy, you'll find me making a beeline for the math! :p</p>
<p>The amount of work does not correspond to the difficulty of the major.</p>
<p>I honestly don't find English to be a hardest major by any means. English is reading and writing. A major like Physics requires: reading, writing, and math. English is very focused, where as Physics you need to be well rounded. That's just my 2 cents.</p>
<p>DRab, you know engineers with a social life, and so do I. The first day of school they tell us engineers this. Schoolwork, Social Life, Sleep. Pick two. The vast majority of people choose no sleep. I go to UCONN a school where partying is expected. Not many nerds here in engineering at all, mostly smart cool people who realized engineering has higher potential then other majors. Heck some of them aren't even smart, they just know the major has potential. The thing is engineers can have social lives, most choose not to for most of the week. But if you want to do well, you pick to not go out as much, and if you do go out, you cut out sleep from your life.</p>