<p>What were the easiest and most difficult courses that you've taken. Why, specifically? </p>
<p>Easiest course(s): It's a tie between Introduction to Psychology and Psychology of Human Sexuality. Both courses were (albeit fun) literally a joke in regards to the overall workload and reading, but then again, that tends to be common in many lower division general education courses. </p>
<p>Most difficult course: Political theory. We had extremely tough material to work with. My professor not only challenged and encouraged us, but strengthened our work ethic and discipline. We began with studying Plato's "Republic" in its entirety, which weeded out the students who were not prepared for the course's rigor. Overall, it was an incredible experience; all students truly earned their grades. </p>
<p>Easiest: Statistics 110. It was an introductory course. I took AP Stats in high school. I did extremely well in the class, but only got a 2 on the AP exam. When I took it in college, I showed up to class to get iclicker points. The powerpoints were placed online and I used those to do the homework that was due about once a week. I read over the powerpoints about once before the tests which were all multiple choice. The material was pretty easy and it was all just a review anyways.</p>
<p>Hardest: English 102. Lots of essays. It’s all subjective. 10 page research paper on a topic that I wasn’t at all interested in.</p>
<p>Easiest: Comparative Poltics. I think there was only one exam for the whole year that I did not get an 100 on, I got a 95:( It did help that I took AP comparative gov and AP US gov in high school although the college class was much easier. As long as you did all of the readings and took good notes the class was a piece of cake. Also the final was option(I think the TAs just didnt want to have to read all of the essays lol).</p>
<p>Hardest:Econ(combination of micro and macro). I did not find the class or the concepts to be very difficult but oo boy the exams were tricky. The class average was about a 60 on all of the exams so the professor curved the class by the total amount of points. I read that 400 page econ book again and again and again but what was on the test was nothing like it. The class average ended up being around a 73, I managed a B which was dissapointing but also a relief.</p>
<p>Easiest: Animal Science 1. My professor was a really upbeat guy and always made lectures really exciting to go to, and his tests were super easy–just come to lectures, read the handouts, and you’re good to go. </p>
<p>Easiest: Calc I. I had just come out of HS AB Calc and already knew everything (didn’t take the AP test, don’t remember why) and I had an adjunct professor who gave us multiple choice tests that were identical to the practice tests he gave us. he also gave us answer keys to these practice tests. It was a little ridiculous. </p>
<p>Hardest: Calc II. I had a crazy professor who didn’t speak very good english and yelled a lot, instead of teaching or answering questions. I ended up dropping the class and later retaking for a B.</p>
<p>Easiest: Intro to Public Speaking. The speech requirements were very easy. So many people are terrible at it, so if you’ve ever halfway decent you end up looking amazing. I don’t mind talking in front of crowds, so it was pretty simple for me.</p>
<p>Hardest: Oceanography. A very interesting class, but it was 100% lecture and the tests were impossible. At least 25 questions, all multi-part with labeling and your answer had to be exactly right. And it had to be finished in the 50 minute class period. Got a D. Still loved the class.</p>
<p>Easiest: Either stats or microbiology. Stats I took second semester senior year, had a class that was 3/4 athletes (which was really just fun anyways) , a group project with all other seniors, and a class party at the end. Micro I was just interested in and he put the powerpoints up online and then lectured verbatim off of them</p>
<p>Hardest: Organic II. Started with 300 people, half dropped after the first exam = 150 people. Of that, half the people failed the class. Worst GPA class at my school other than accounting. Scraped by with a C and never looked back</p>
<p>Easiest: Fundamentals of Presentational Speaking - I did debate for 4 years in high school. It was a fun yet easy class. </p>
<p>Hardest: Calc II - I couldn’t understand my professor’s accent or read his writing. And it didn’t seem to have much connection with Calc I, which I did well in. </p>
<p>I’m sure I’ll have a new hardest class after this year though.</p>
<p>I’ve only finished freshman year but I still have some answers.</p>
<p>Easiest: Statistics 1. I took AP Stats in high school and I only got a 3 on the AP exam, but this course was pretty much high school stats without all the AP difficulty. Professor was very straightforward and it was just a matter of knowing how to run all the hypothesis tests. That’s the easy thing about stats - if you learn how to do the tests, then the exam questions aren’t really hard.</p>
<p>Hardest: Chem 105a - This is the first half of general chem which shouldn’t have been too hard but our professor wrote tricky exams. Averages were routinely in the 60s and I never topped an 81 on any exam. The final was brutal, I think the average was something like 52%. Got a B- and I’ll forever hold a mini grudge against this professor for writing such hard exams for first semester freshmen.</p>
<p>I bet organic chemistry will make my list next year though.</p>
<p>I’ve also only just finished my freshman year but I still have some answers. :)</p>
<p>Easiest: French and Francophone Literature and Culture. The class was a 200-level French class, but our professor was so absent-minded and sweet that we never did anything and could convince her never to give us any homework or tests/quizzes. It was the easiest class I think I might have ever taken, including high school (except maybe AP Human Geo). </p>
<p>Hardest: Evolutionary and Ecological Biology or Introduction to Economics. Economics was only hard for me because I just couldn’t grasp the concepts. I’m terrible at economics. Biology was only hard because we had two different professors for the semester; the first professor was terrible and couldn’t explain himself very well while the second professor was amazing and brought everyone’s grade up. None of my classes have been terribly difficult though; nothing like organic chemistry for example.</p>
<p>Easiest - Prevention and Intervention of Child Maltreatment; Class was surprisingly interesting and purposeful. Professor had no idea what was going on in regards to assignments and grades and I felt the grading was more lenient than most college classes because of this.</p>
<p>Hardest - Individual Differential Psychology; Failed the class. First and foremost, boring part of Psychology that I’m not interested in. Taught by a cocky grad student who spend more time representing everything mathmatically to show off his intellegence. 200+ pages of ** difficult, research-based ** reading weekly, homework assignments that were graded over-strictly (I got 0’s even though I completed all the questions and turned them in because they weren’t “good enough”), tests were unfair and referred to specific figures and graphs in the readings that no one remembered, basically just too theoretical and research-based. There were 7 students in the course at the end of the semester compared to about 60 at the beginning. Reasonably sure atleast 4/7 of us flunked.</p>
<p>Easiest: International Relations. A 3 weeks class, 3hrs and Mon-Fri. Took it freshman year as a summer class, so the difficulty level is not as high as a semester-class. We had 11 people in it (all guys, no girls for some reason), including 7 football players. I’m the only freshman there, and there’s 9 Jr/Sr. There’s one guy who only attended 2 lectures total, but he came to class for both of the exams and the final. Since most of the football guys took it for easy grades (and no other reason), it was very laid-back. I was nervous about being the only “fishy” there, but it was chill. Finished my 3wks with a perfect 4.0 GPA to start my college life.</p>
<p>Hardest: Human Sexuality and Sex Pleasure. The name said it all. We learned the “how” and “why” of the human brain in relations to sex. We had to watch videos of short sex scenes and porn, and write an essay on how the brains functioned during the period from both male and female. We also looked into why humans feel so strongly about sex in general, and why/how pleasures from doing it came from and the evolution of sex intercourse. It sounds easy, but I took it as a 14-days online course freshman year. It was a part of my major’s “related course” and had to pick this or Woman Evolution and Sex (which I’ve heard had a 2.4 GPA classroom avg last yr during the fall). Why is it hard, my mother kept getting angry about me watching porns and sex scenes in the house. She was like “don’t watch in house, go outside and watch” or “this is noway a class homework”…sigh…</p>
<p>Easiest— Philosophy. It was the easiest AND the most boring class I’ve ever taken. A class of 200+ students, which within the last week of class had dwindled down to 8 that continuously showed up. There was no homework. The only thing we were graded on were tests that we had to do on our own time online anyway. They were open book tests. We could get extra credit by showing up to class where randomly she’d decided to give it. Couldn’t understand the professor either.
Hardest—Precalc, but only because of the professor. I found my Calc 1 class later on easier than that. The professor didn’t care about us, didn’t explain things well, muttered when he talked to us, expected not only the correct answer but the correct work to get to the answer, didn’t tell us if we didn’t have class… ugh, it was an annoyance. But if I ignored that, most of my classes have been okay. The hardest may have been Hydrology, but it was still a fun course and made me decide to minor in it.</p>
<p>Easiest - Creativity, Invention, and Innovation; the best, most chill class ever. We just did activities learning how to think outside of the box and at the end of the semester we developed a product and pitched it the entrepreneurs in the area.</p>
<p>Hardest - Calc/Religion; Calc is understandable but RELIGION! We learned about I think five or six different religions and we had to know EVERYTHING about them - when/where/why they developed, what they believe, what’s different between the rest, specific passages in each of the readings as well as what they mean and the context in which they were written. It was way too much work for a required intro class.</p>
<p>Easiest - Race and Ethnicity in the US. It wasn’t easy in the sense that we didn’t have to do anything challenging - the work was really challenging but everyone I think got As. </p>
<p>Hardest - Spanish I and II. 5 days a week at 8:30 am and full immersion from day 1. Learned more in 2 semesters than kids in my high school learn in 4 years. Struggled for a B-.</p>
<p>Easiest - Definitely my International Relations class. The professor was so smart and experienced in all things politics. I loved it. He started off the first class by saying that everything we learned in school up to that point was bs. He would lecture and it was always interesting. As long as you showed up and he knew your face, you were golden. We only had one paper due and the final. He gave us the essay questions for our final and it was open book. Easiest class ever.</p>
<p>Hardest - I haven’t really had classes that were overly difficult. Properly between physics and Macroeconomics. Physics was hard because I was lazy, lol. I made it too hard and complicated because I slacked off. I had to really study for the final, where I realized that it wasn’t hard at all. I just made it harder than it had to be. Macro, I finished two weeks ago. It met 2x/wk for four hours and the professor NEVER let us off early. We had three exams, each 100 different questions and the final was 200 questions. They were hard. 0_o He had to curve each exam about 12-20 points to get an average of 75. He was really nice, just dull and I ended up getting a B+ even though I feel like I didn’t learn anything. Homework and a term assignment helped. He curved a lot.</p>