<p>I'm searching for an ideal college to attend right now and in a few threads here on MIT I've heard that there's an environment of educational masochism surrounding so called "hardocre" majors. I was wondering; what are those majors?</p>
<p>I plan on majoring in pure mathematics or theoretical physics (and I am somewhat interested in philosophy), and are either of those subject some of the more brutal ones?</p>
<p>I'm already aware that mathematics is one of the most difficult and time consuming majors on most large campuses, but is it one of those that students will supposedly major in just to show off how masochistic they are?</p>
<p>Also what can I expect from MIT's math deparment that I won't find at some of the other school's I'm considering- Princeton, Stanford, Berkeley, Columbia, Cornell, Duke, Rice, and UT Austin?</p>
<p>lol........... I'm sure jessiehl will have something to say here. I think the whole point of MIT is that it doesn't matter what major you are in - they're ALL hard, especially because you have to get through core, and because MIT classes are just generally fast-paced. Why are you asking if math and physics are more brutal? Does it matter? Do you love them? So, math has fewer requirements than a lot of majors to get a degree, but you can always do more than that. As far as physics goes, I don't know; I've heard junior lab is hard. It's unclear; are you trying to find a major that you can do just because it's hard?? I mean, I am sure that there are people who do math just because it's hard, but that's definitely not the best way to go about choosing a major or ensuring success, especially because at MIT they're all hard. </p>
<p>You might be interested in reading some of the more recent posts of "What don't you like about MIT?" But, what would be an ideal college for you? You don't really state that in your post...</p>
<p>Thanks for your response Lalaloo. No I'm hardly basing my major on how hardcore; I'm planning on majoring in mathematics (or a closely related field)no matter what school I choose to attend. Actually it's because of several of the posts in the "What don't you like about MIT?" thread that I'm asking this. From the way it sounded in the posts I read there are a handful of "hardcore" majors that many students who choose to take them boast about how much more they have to work than most other students.</p>
<p>Currently I go to a private school for students interested in math and science and I'm already quite familiar with the entire "I stayed up for 36 hours straight to study for this test and I got an A. I'm such a badass!" sort of attitude and I'm wondering if that's the sort of environment I could expect to find within MIT's math students.</p>
<p>I'm not a current student at MIT, but based on what I have heard, I do know that while math department matches up with every other math department in the nation in terms of difficult and strength of its students, the actual act of getting a math major is "not difficult." Please don't take that out of context, and I don't mean to insult math majors.</p>
<p>There are three paths one may take to get a math major: Theoretical mathematics, applied mathematics, and general mathematics. Theoretical mathematics is the most difficult of the three because there are more course requirements, and just because it is harder. Analytical mathematics is has less requirements, but seems to require knowledge of other subjects like physics. You may be interested in that one. The path taken by most math majors is general mathematics: the only requirements are a class on differential equations and eight other math classes of your choosing. I believe that is the least requirements of any major at MIT and it has more flexibility than any other major. That said, many math majors take "easier" classes, but by no means easy classes, for their eight classes, while others challenge themselves to an extreme level. It depends on the student.</p>
<p>A lot of people consider 10 (ChemE) and 8 (physics) to be of particular difficulty. That said, all the majors here are difficult (and with both of these majors you can choose an "easier" route).</p>
<p>I think the issue of "hardcore majors" is getting a little overblown here -- I mean, yeah, people do think about these things at MIT, but it's not like people sit around every day bragging about how hardcore they are. (That's called wanking, and it's frowned upon.)</p>
<p>Strictly speaking, I can't think of any times that people explicitly "boast[ed] about how much more they have to work than most other students." It's usually pretty implicit, and very few people actually get confrontational about it to the point that anybody else would actually be offended. It's more eyeroll-inducing than in-your-face offensive.</p>
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I'm already aware that mathematics is one of the most difficult and time consuming majors on most large campuses
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</p>
<p>Difficult, sure. But 'time-consuming'? I don't know about that. Math, especially theoretical math, is noted for being a field in which the problems are ones that you either 'get' or you don't, and if you get it, then you will probably take relatively little time. {On the other hand, if you don't get it, then you can literally spend your whole life on a problem and still never be able to solve it.} In other words, clever insights are far more important than just brute-force busy work.</p>
<p>Contrast that with certain other majors like EECS or Chemical Engineering that are loaded with extremely time-consuming projects and labs, which may not be that complicated to do, but you still have to spend the time to actually do them.</p>
<p>ChemE is one of the most "hardcore" majors in the sense that it has the highest number of specific required classes. If you're doing ChemE, you have to be really committed to that specific education, which is why it has that hardcore perception.</p>
<p>By contrast, Math has the fewest specific requirements. You can pretty much choose your own cohesive curriculum and get a math degree. It's in this sense, and this sense ONLY, that math is an "easier" major. Easy in the sense that you have more freedom, so you're likely to take classes you enjoy, and you'll do better in them because you enjoy them. Not because the classes are actually easier.</p>
<p>Some majors are considered "hardcore" just because of a taxing lab element. Physics and aero/astro come to mind.</p>
<p>EDIT: Obviously you can pick easier math classes to fulfill the requirements, but in my experience, most people don't. The people I see doing the math general degree are all the people taking two or three graduate math classes a term. :/</p>
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...but it's not like people sit around every day bragging about how hardcore they are.
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<p>Well, most people, anyway. ;)</p>
<p>In general, the majors that get the hardcore stereotype are either (or both of):</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Majors that society at large puts on a pedestal in terms of how tough and mystifying the subject allegedly is (e.g. math, physics).</p></li>
<li><p>Majors that have some particularly notorious class or class sequence that anyone in that major has to take (e.g. physics - Junior Lab, aero/astro - Unified). The catch is that the major has to be popular enough that people <em>know</em> that the classes are notorious, so architecture, for instance, gets screwed, despite its ultra-hosing studio requirements.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>In general, disciplines (at least in sci/eng) that are more mature get a more "hardcore" stereotype than less mature disciplines. This makes some sense, because you have to acquire more background to do anything interesting in a mature discipline, and there is generally a more quantitative understanding of more mature disciplines, and "requires a large knowledge base to do original work" and "is more quantitative" are two features that are commonly conflated with rigor.</p>
<p>The problem with the stereotypes, of course, is that all the things I have discussed are not the only ways for a course of study to be difficult or hosing. Someone working in a newer discipline where there is not much of a knowledge base and quantitative methods and models aren't yet well-developed faces a different challenge, both in classes and in research, from someone in a discipline where a student has to learn how to apply to problems huge piles of formulas and models that have been discovered and developed over a long period of time, before having even basic competence. Someone in a flexible major can end up with just as difficult of classes as someone in a major where a very difficult class sequence is required. A humanities/social sciences student working on a term paper faces a different challenge from an engineering student working on a final project, but both can be challenging.</p>
<p>ThisSideUp left out one of the undergrad math programs - there's also 18C, Mathematics with Computer Science.</p>
<p>When I was at MIT the hardest major was considered to be Avionics (which basically required you to do an Aero/Astro major while doing most of a EE major at the same time). Any major that has a huge number of requirements is considered tough. As a result, Mathematics is a comparably "easy" major.</p>