<p>@aldfig: I think a more suitable analogy would be how the international STEM student would fare in a major of his/her native language. One of my high school friends is a tenure track professor at an upper tier university in English literature, and based on the random musings and anecdotal diatribes throughout his academic career, it’s interesting to see just how subjective some of his coursework was. Is there really a right answer when you’re writing an essay dissecting a literary work? Conversely, is there ever a “well, you got pretty damn close” answer when you’re drawing free-body diagrams of forces or measuring inductance/capacitance in a circuit? </p>
<p>The Tacoma Narrows bridge is a perfect example of why the difficulty of STEM shouldn’t be downplayed, no matter how much Shakespeare some poor sap has to read over a weekend.</p>