<p>LOL...I fall into both categories. I have a B.S. in chemical engineering, but I also have an MBA (not finance concentrated).</p>
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As for communications, let us see, anyone ever read or tried to use a manual written by an engineer....
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<p>It's not actually necessary to insult engineers in order to refute this person. :)</p>
<p>So, picox thinks that the more accessible a field is, the less intrinsically intellectual it is. Okay, I know other people who think that too. And I think it's incorrect. Needing a lot of background knowledge isn't what makes a field intellectually rigorous. Formalism isn't what makes a field intellectually rigorous either, though it can help. In the sciences (including bio), whether natural or social, intellectual rigor comes through things like good experimental design and quality data analysis, which require critical thinking. In engineering, it also comes from good design, and also good requirements management, good testing, good usability, and so on. In the humanities, as far as I can tell (they aren't really my areas of expertise), it seems to come from rigorous analysis and an ability to see and explain the connections between things. In all of the above, one is required to be able to explain oneself in writing, which is its own process, and, if done well, is intellectually rigorous.</p>
<p>Therefore, a given practitioner in any of these fields can be using and displaying intellectual rigor, or not.</p>
<p>The relative difficulty of getting good grades in majors varies by school anyway, and has little to do with the intellectual rigor of the field. I will give you that it has to do with the classroom rigor of the major at that school. But that still doesn't tell one very much. Someone who makes it through a given school in a "hard" major is demonstrating strong brainpower (though, depending on the program, they may or may not be demonstrating critical thinking) just to have made it through, but someone in an "easy" major is not demonstrating a lack thereof - you can't infer anything about their intellect one way or the other.</p>
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<p>Do you understand what prestige is? Prestige (as I understand it) is the level respect/honor accord to a person by the general populace. How many famous engineers or physicists do you think people know the names of? Probably none. How many people with arts/ social science degrees could the random person name? Probably far more. Most people in the public eye who are deemed to have "prestigious" jobs are in the fields of law, politics, business, or even the arts. Generally, people are more impressed by the CEO or local politician than the guy who designed that bridge or does theoretical math all day. You say that "Personally, I'd be much more impressed by someone who got a degree in EE from Georgia Tech than someone who got a degree in social sciences at HYP." I, and most people can name about 5 people off the top of my head with SocSci degrees from HPY (Ohhh, try about every president ever elected) and who the hell can name an engineer from GTech?</p>
<p>You make the mistake of thinking what degrees you think are more respectable are more prestigious. And, in you mind, perhaps they are. Outside of you little world, no one gives a damn what you are "personally impressed by". What you are "personally impressed by" has no bearing on prestige.</p>
<p>picox, I understand what you mean, and in many ways agree with you. </p>
<p>While I recognize a societal need for social workers, paralegals, first-grade teachers, and retail clerks, the brain power required to train for and do these jobs is just not on par with other fields such as astrophysics ("She IS a rocket scientist."), Chemical-petroleum-nuclear engineering, etc. Certainly, one can find smart, savvy, educated, and dedicated people in every field. It is just that one can excel in social work without being able to do the highest (or sometimes even higher) math. One can seldom excel in those technical fields without also excelling in the softer sciences or liberal arts. </p>
<p>And, before everyone flips out, there are indeed exceptions to every rule.</p>
<p>excuse me? any one here ever learn about EQ? guess not, cause some of you ain't showing it....</p>
<p>I find that statement ignorant and rude to all the teachers and others out there who study, and work</p>
<p>not on par with is such a terrible thing to say, and I am offended by that comment</p>
<p>And you know what, being able to do higher math is not the be all end all sign of intelligence, and thank god for that</p>
<p>What a narrow point of view to have, that brain power is only exihibeted by being math smart, that is truely pathetic</p>
<p>What is it about being able to do "higher math" that shows some sort of higher being, as you imply?</p>
<p>Egad, thank goodness more people disagree than agree, because i see elitism in that last post, along with classism and shallowness</p>
<p>As for exceptions, exceptions implies rarities, and I doubt that</p>
<p>Wow, just wow</p>
<p>I think a better question would have been which majors are more lucrative and/or difficult. In that case, I doubt anyone here would argue that the majors you listed are not lucrative or relatively difficult compared to other majors. However, in terms of respect or prestige, it really depends on the individual. While I agree with you in that I respect people who pursue these harder majors more than those who do not (due to the sheer difficulty of these majors), that can certainly not be said for everyone. So, as to your question, what are the most prestigious college majors, there isn't one steadfast answer.</p>
<p>If you think math is harder than social work, grow up, my niece has one of the hardest jobs you can ever imagine and what it takes to get that degree is amazingly difficult work</p>
<p>but guess doing some math problems is harder then working with an abused child</p>
<p>I said MAJOR not career path. Even though at least objectively engineers have better "stats" than liberal arts majors, they almost invariably have lower gpas. Comparing the intellectual requirements for being a social worker and being a mathematician is like comparing apples and oranges. Whilst being a mathematician will most nearly require higher objective and abstract thinking, a social worker will require tools a mathematician does not always have including as you said prior EQ and perceiving feelings. And of course, the only certainty is that there are exceptions.</p>
<p>This was some good trolling. Nice job picox.</p>
<p>Picox: A "eureka" moment for me. Why don't you write about your keen observations of your fellow man for one of your application essays?</p>
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Again, some fields require more cerebral work (to use your term) and are therefore more prestigious or meritorious (in an academic context) than others.
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<p>I'm seconding Davnasca- you have no idea what the term prestigious means.
Here's a thought to ponder: all of the HYP like schools are thought of being highly prestigious; the entire world knows of them. However, I think most can agree upon how high the grade inflation is there.</p>
<p>Difficulty of work does not equal prestige. It just means that you're didn't choose the "easier" path.</p>
<p>(For the record, I'm a future eng. major; personally I think a lot of the humanities majors are very "prestigious," especially education majors.)</p>
<p>here are jobs/majors the OP finds less respectible and less worthy (according to his/hers own criteria:</p>
<p>police officers
nurses and doctors
contractors
teachers
historians
translators
court reporters
vets
technicians
air traffic controllers
911 operators
graphic artists
poets
novelists
journaiists
directors
chefs
farmers
emts
Anthropology
Geology
Oceanography</p>
<p>and pretty much anything that involves living breathing things</p>
<p>and the OP and a couple of others deem difficulty of a major by the level of math courses taken</p>
<p>now, is that an intelligent conclusion to make? that somehow the higher math classes are the only way to gauge difficulty of a major or a job? or the intellegence of the person?</p>
<p>and that those that take the higher math classes are somehow worthy of more respect and prestigious because they took some advanced math?</p>
<p>I for one, am aware that there are many other ways of using that brain power besides some math equations</p>
<p>Funny, I always thought of the math/science classes as easier because the tests involved finding that one "right" answer. All those other "vulgar"-type classes seemed much more difficult, because they required one to think abstractly and critically in order to apply general concepts to human situations.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.econphd.net/guide.htm%5B/url%5D">http://www.econphd.net/guide.htm</a></p>
<p>Midway down the page, there's a table listing college majors by average GRE score. This isn't meant to be conclusive evidence by any means. I'll happily agree that there are several different kinds of intelligence, and standardized testing measures just one set of them. There does exist some correlation between standardized testing and the general definition of "brain power" (IQ). </p>
<ol>
<li>Physics</li>
<li>Mathematics
...</li>
<li>Communication</li>
<li>Education</li>
</ol>
<p>This was just the first thing I googled up; If any of you can find better objective evidence instead of making broad, general claims, I'd love to see it. </p>
<p>Also, what's with this implication that education majors must surely have higher EQ than science majors? Isn't that just as unfair a generalization?</p>
<p>my reference to Eq was to certain posters</p>
<p>and I looked at the scores</p>
<p>if you look carefully, beyond the totals, you will see that the math scores, and I am assuming the test includes some advanced math, which is not needed for many majors is what brings up those "top"scorers</p>
<p>their other scores- verbal and analytical writing are not any better and often worse then the other majors</p>
<p>so this GRE test anayliss you postsis by NO MEANS a objective evidence</p>
<p>just cause you have been trained to do higher math, doesn't mean you are more worthy of prestige than someone who did pretty good on the math, just hasn't done it in awhile</p>
<p>and sometimes you need to look beyond just the total, and look at the parts, that is much more meaningful</p>
<p>I know some incredbily brilliant people who forget their algbebra</p>
<p>I don't put down the engineers who didn't do as strongly in the verbal as other students, not at all, but I don't elevate them for doing better in math</p>
<p>there is something to looking at the bigger picture while checking out the details, something very important in life, something that requires thinking and not making assumptions about people because of one section of a test</p>
<p>Fair enough -- I didn't notice that, myself. Thanks for bringing it up. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, I think it is telling that while there often is a huge disparity between the math scores of science and non-science majors ... there is far less of a gap between the science and humanities majors when it comes to the other areas (where humanities majors should theoretically have a commanding lead.) Indeed, physics majors have the 6th-highest English scores across the board, beating out several non-science disciplines... and math and physics are the two single highest-scoring areas in analytical writing. </p>
<p>I'd still like to see more data though... I agree with you that one study is not compelling enough evidence in itself. And as a math/physics person, I am certainly biased :)</p>
<p>I'm guessing that picox/peacocks is yanking our chains, or is incredibly naive. I'm an architect and have both practiced and written about architecture for the last 25 years and I can tell you it takes as much brain power to design a building and follow it through as it does to conceive of a book and carry it out. I can also tell you that I have met plenty of idiot architects in my day, and plenty bright ones. I do not have any higher regard for architects--heck, there's nothing to becoming an architect--just stay up all night, make cool, complicated drawings, and use a calculator;)--than I do for my older son's' fabulous high school social studies teacher, who made him write and think more than any other teacher he has had or may ever have. My stepfather is an aeronautical engineer, my mom is a history teacher, and I am in awe of both of their brains, as both of them are wiser and quicker of wit than I am. And so on. I can only hope the OP's question is devil's advocacy; it certainly makes for dialogue, if that's what he's looking for.</p>
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<p>picox~ why would you start such an inflammatory thread? it speaks to narrow thinking in a world where we'd better develop as many aspects of ourselves as we can.</p>
<p>It amuses me greatly that you don't think that a major in Art requires abstract thinking.</p>
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<p>Obviously this thread is irrelevant to reality. Although I lurk about academia in Princeton's Ecology and Evolutionary Biology department (where I am getting my A.B.) we have great relationships with faculty from many other departments: geosciences, chemistry, aerospace engineering, mathematics, molecular biology, and civil engineering. One of my best classes (Astrobiology: Life in the Universe) was taught by six very good professors in everything from astrophysics to chemistry, to geology and genetics. I think the OP needs to step out of the box and look at what people actually do with their degrees, rather than the assumed "prestige" of their majors. Some of the best research occurs when work is done between fields. </p>
<p>Take a look at what Profs. Martin Wikelski (Ecology) and Jeremy Kasdin (Aerospace Engineering) have done:</p>
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