<p>I agree, they all say the hardest majors are the ones that you really just don’t like to do, though the amount of work/studying may vary between some.</p>
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true true :/</p>
<p>Does anyone else find these “majors” really, really general? I would think of these as more of schools within a university than departments. And where does pure math fit in?</p>
<p>A survey of undergrads at my school showed physics, chemical engineering, and aero/astro engineering to be considered the most difficult courses of study, but I would be impressed if anyone in any major here got by doing only about 20 hours of study a week.</p>
<p>I think it’s pretty obvious that if you’re a terrible artist, being a fine art major might be very, very difficult for you. If you’re a self-proclaimed math ■■■■■■, then yes, any engineering discipline will be next to impossible. But does that mean the difficulty of a subject solely depends on the perception and aptitude of the student? I seriously doubt it. </p>
<p>As a former art major myself, there were certainly times where I was faced with an immense amount of work, requiring hours of carefully planning and timely execution. All that pales in comparison to being a CS major, as not only has the workload generally increased, but the manner of thought/execution required is a lot more rigorous and taxing. Trying to figure out what color scheme to use on a pseudo-impressionist acrylic painting isn’t quite the same as putting together a hefty program where one stupid mistake could lead to hours of chasing seg faults and wondering which algorithm you screwed up. If your painting of the nude woman in soft orange lighting looks more like a dude, you might get a B+ for effort. If you used partial fraction decomposition on all the trig substitution problems on your calc midterm, you’re probably screwed.</p>
<p>I’m certainly not implying that arts majors are vacuous and inferior, but certainly not as “difficult” as STEM.</p>
<p>I’m in #2… physical science… metorology falls into this</p>
<p>I was an engineering major. For me, my toughest class was architectural design. I sucked at that.</p>
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How about a situation where you have an international student that is good at math and science but has poor English skills? I’m sure that majoring in STEM would be quite easier for such a person than English.</p>
<p>I do recall that many engineering majors took humanities and social studies breadth courses passed / not-passed (C- was the minimum to get a P in this case, and neither P nor NP counted in one’s GPA). While most of the humanities and social studies courses typically taken by non-majors for breadth purposes were fairly easy to pass (and low workload compared to some of the ones required for majors in those subjects), getting A grades was not necessarily easy, especially for those whose ability in that general area was relatively weak.</p>
<p>On the other hand, some of the engineering students with more well rounded abilities did take those breadth courses for letter grades.</p>
<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>
<p>i’m planning on studying chemical engineering. How hard is chemical compared to other engineering majors?</p>
<p>Probably close in workload/difficulty as others.</p>
<p>Lol I find almost anything Yahoo posts to be BS. Take a look at this article.</p>
<p>[Most</a> Stressful Jobs for 2013 - Yahoo! Finance](<a href=“http://finance.yahoo.com/news/most-stressful-jobs-for-2013-153356236.html]Most”>http://finance.yahoo.com/news/most-stressful-jobs-for-2013-153356236.html)</p>
<p>It is almost laughable to put PR executive on the same list as being a soldier.</p>
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<p>Personally I think this aspect makes science and engineering subjects easier. It’s very clear whether or not you’re correct in solving problems. On the other hand, when writing an essay it’s hard to tell if your ideas have been developed enough or are argued well enough. Just because there are no right answers when discussing literature doesn’t mean you can write whatever you want and expect to do well.</p>
<p>Argued and developed well enough on whose grounds? No such wiggle room in math, for example. You either get the tangent line or you don’t. And as far as art goes, who’s to say any of that rubbish currently on display at modern art museums is art at all? As for the phenomenon of gravity or magnetism, that’s been pretty well documented. </p>
<p>Given the choice of writing a final essay on the themes and metaphysical interpretations of Gravity’s Rainbow in a post-Industrial Western European context or taking a final exam for Physics E&M, I’ll take the former everytime. At least I’d have a fighting chance with the essay, provided my knowledge of both subjects was mediocre at best.</p>
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I wasn’t making an analogy. Instead, I was providing a counterexample. Believe it or not, there are people out there that find math and science to be easier, and your experiences of these subjects are not the same as everyone else’s, as per the example I gave previously. Similarly, the students that advance far in the USAMO/IMO/Putnam/etc competitions probably roll their eyes at the math problems in classes that most STEM majors take, but it is quite probable that many of them wouldn’t be as successful acting or playing a musical instrument.</p>
<p>Yeah, I kinda mentioned that before. In any case, if I cared enough to offer empirical data, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a much higher fail/drop rate for STEM majors. </p>
<p>Quick, name three starting Div 1 football players who majored in math or engineering!</p>
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<p>Yes, the fact that there is no wiggle room in math makes it easier, at least for me.</p>
<p>I think I would have a much easier time taking a Physics E&M test than writing on essay on, or probably even reading and understanding Gravity’s Rainbow</p>
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<p>Note, however, that the risk of death on the job for military personnel varies by what country you are serving, and what branch you are serving in. For example, in the Iraq combat zone in 2003-2006, US Air Force and US Navy personnel had a lower death rate than all US men age 20-34, but US Marines and US Army personnel had a higher death rate (not that big a surprise).</p>
<p>However, there is one highly sought-after job in the US where 18% of those on the job died on the job (half of those by murder). Not counting successful murders, an additional 30% were targeted for attempted murder or threatened with murder.</p>
<p>I’m a double major in Mechanical Engineering and Theatre (BS, BA). </p>
<p>There are 2 kinds of theatre majors, those who take it because it’s easy and those who take it because they want to learn. To learn theatre and to learn it well is a LOT of work. Being in mainstage shows is more than just a part time job, and those really dedicated theatre majors are doing side projects and lab series shows on top of the mainstage shows AND their coursework. </p>
<p>Now, mechanical engineering is a different type of terrible and there are also different types of engineers. Those who don’t care, show up, and depend on the curve to help them pass, or those that stay up all night to complete their assignments or study for their exams (I guess there are also those with good time management skills… not me though;p). </p>
<p>Now, I find theatre much more inherently interesting that ME which makes it more ENJOYABLE, but it still makes it hard because I don’t want to **** it up. </p>
<p>Engineers like to say that their major is the hardest (hell, I do it), but I’d like to see a ‘typical engineer’ prepare and perform a monologue for an audition and see what they say.</p>
<p>As a music major, I know people judge and say “it’s easy,” but I take twice as many classes as my peers for half the credit hours. Most classes are 0-1 credits but require more work than other non-music classes that are 3 credits. So I don’t think #4 is as laughable as people make it out to be.</p>
<p>Here is a compiled version I found, check it out: [Most</a> Demanding College Majors | CollegeWiz - Online Resource for College Life](<a href=“http://collegewiz.com/2013/01/08/most-demanding-college-majors/]Most”>http://collegewiz.com/2013/01/08/most-demanding-college-majors/)</p>