<p>I know some of you are going to say they can't be compared, but let's do it anyway!!!</p>
<p>Which one is harder to learn? At which level? Which one do you think it's more important to grasp? Which one changes the most during college? Remember, when I say English, I mean Lit studies and writing programs.</p>
<p>It would probably depend on if you're right brained or left brained.</p>
<p>Math's harder to learn at the higher levels, if you don't have the appropriate foundation.</p>
<p>In English, there's not really any prerequisite for "understanding" a work of literature - after all, if it required a great amount of scholarly knowledge, that literary piece wouldn't have reached so many people and become well known.</p>
<p>Math can become incredibly hard at the highest levels and can be nearly impossible even with the best professors and the proper preparation.</p>
<p>On the other hand, literature can get long and arduous, with some students writing theses that are the length of a book.</p>
<p>@karabear: I'm quite skeptical of the idea that people can be meaningfully classified into "right brained" or "left brained", and particularly that english and math are opposed to each other in the classification.</p>
<p>@Srunni: This is often not true of older literature. Biblical or other mythological references, for example, were obvious to audiences a few centuries ago, but usually go over my head unless it's pointed out.</p>
<p>As far as which is harder, my opinion would be that it's English. Learning English is much, much easier than math, but English classes have so much damn work that it ends up being more difficult. At least for me.</p>
<p>How much of math is applicable to something, versus, like, exhibiting knowledge of mathematical concepts? How much of it actually matters beyond the classroom?</p>
<p>Depends on whether your primary focus is pure or applied math. You will have a hard time finding applications for axiomatic set theory or lie algebras, but there definitely are applications for statistics, optimization theory or numerical analysis.</p>
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Depends on whether your primary focus is pure or applied math. You will have a hard time finding applications for axiomatic set theory or lie algebras, but there definitely are applications for statistics, optimization theory or numerical analysis.
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<p>Such as? (I majored in math and had to settle for a job that has nothing to do with math.)</p>
<p>And to answer the original question, English is harder than math. Verbal abilities (something that requires sheer brainpower) predict IQ a lot better than math skills (a set of rules that can easily be learned).</p>
<p>I never quite understood how one can learn to understand literature. I can understand a piece of writing after someone explains the meaning to me, but when I try to understand the next piece on my own, nothing clicks.</p>
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I never quite understood how one can learn to understand literature. I can understand a piece of writing after someone explains the meaning to me, but when I try to understand the next piece on my own, nothing clicks.
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<p>How good is your vocabulary? Do you know the dictionary meaning of all the key words in the sample piece of writing? Also, what's your enthusiasm level? Do you care about what you are reading or are you just forcing yourself to read something you don't care about?</p>
<p>I personally find that some metaphors and figures of speech are hard to interpret if one does not have a firm understanding of the frame of mind of the author.</p>
<p>It's all about the context baby. Figure out where an artist/author is coming from and you'll realise why and what s/he's writing about.</p>
<p>Moire, what do you mean by verbal abilities? He asked which one is easier to learn, not perform. English would undoubtedly be the easier one to learn, conceptually.</p>
<p>However, practice is a whole different ball game. I don't even think that question can be answered. Proving theorems requires brilliance (some problems have existed for thousands of years) just as writing masterpieces does.</p>
<p>and you're asking how optimization theory or stats can apply to real life fields? How about engineering and you have multiple ways of solving something and you require the most cost efficient method? How about risk analysis? Honestly.</p>
<p>The legitimate answer is that it depends on the individual as to which of the two is harder.</p>
<p>Statistically, I would imagine a smaller percentage of people could succeed at mathematics than English. The reason being that it is not <em>easy</em> to learn the rules of math, even though the rules aren't complicated.</p>
<p>^I respectfully disagree. Anyone can be good at English, but you have to have an innate ability in order to master it. Practice can only get you so far. In math, if you practice enough, you will succeed. Math students are a dime a dozen, standout english students are far less common.</p>
<p>Math students may be a dime a dozen, but math students with high grades in college are scarce. Note that calculus is easy for all math majors. Doing well in a class that isn’t based on proofs is meaningless for higher math.</p>
<p>This is a dumb thread. There are like 100s of these topics on this forum; search for them.</p>
<p>How about this:</p>
<p>Math = better economic success, better respected, more valuable.</p>
<p>English = personal enlightenment, “personal success”, and so fourth.</p>
<p>In college, Math, by itself, can almost be considered a liberal arts subject, just like english. All you can pretty much do is become a teacher in the end. By math, your probably mean Engineering/science vs english. </p>
<p>Engineering/sciences is known to be the most rigorous major. Even majoring in something like physics or biology is very rigorous.</p>
<p>English, on the other hand, is pretty rigorous too. However, the work load is different. You have a lot more papers to write, and a lot more books to read. But in general, unless your going to Yale and majoring in literature, you could say that in most colleges the sciences are harder to major in than english/liberal arts. </p>
<p>If you mean math as in just plain old math, then the question would be which is easier for you. Out of 12 years of school, you must know by now which subject is easier to comprehend.</p>
<p>But hey, these are my personal views that I see through my limited knowledge and ignorance. I find paying a quarter of a million dollars to study in literature/writing a big waste of money and time. I don’t see the big, powerful people in our society holding degree’s in American literature…or calculus.</p>
<p>math is harder for me…i can do calc fine but cant apply it in word problems at all ): and the thought of the crazy complicated math in technology makes me realize how smart im not. i couldnt imagine understanding any of that.
but i am good at english (: i loove analyzing lit…</p>
<p>ok, but how will you be able to utilize that for the next 50 years of your life?</p>
<p>Future Resume:</p>
<p>Hello goldman-sachs, I am good at analyzing literature. I went to Yale and majored in drama. Please hire me!</p>
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<p>I’ve never understood why some people feel they should offer opinions on topics which they know nothing about. The vaast majority of middle school students have absolutely no idea what college math is like. Heck, the majority of college students don’t really know what college math classes (and upper division classes in particular) are like.</p>
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<p>I’m going to assume you meant to add “standout” in front of “math students” too, as the current sentence is a rather trivial observation. On the other hand, it doesn’t really make sense to say that there are far more standout math students than English students, unless the thresholds in the two subjects are very different (in which case it’s an apples to oranges comparison) or there are far more students studying math than English (and I very much doubt that this is true).</p>
<p>Actually those inane “Anyone can be a math major but only a few can be literary geniuses” arguments seem surprisingly common.</p>
<p>Anyway, here’s [a</a> study](<a href=“http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/1004/1004.2731v1.pdf"]a”>http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/1004/1004.2731v1.pdf) that suggests that Math (followed by Physics) has the highest cognitive threshold for being successful in the major. Math majors actually had both the highest average math SAT score and the highest average reading SAT score</p>
<p>“This is a dumb thread.”</p>
<p>I completely agree with this statement. Humanities majors are going to say English is harder because it requires true greatness to analyze whatever, blah blah blah, and math majors are going to say math is harder because it can be quite abstract and you need to put in tons of time doing practice problems or whatever.</p>
<p>I’ll say that math is harder. As a math major, I’ve taken a bunch of humanities classes (including some literature), and I’ve found them all to be pretty easy. Doesn’t stop the students in the class from going on about how hard it is.</p>
<p>Why is it that they have easy math and science classes for humanities majors, but no humanities classes for science majors? Flame away.</p>