The simple act of drawing a free body diagram is not something which can be “memorized”. The concept of drawing a mass acceleration diagram is not “memorized” either. An infinite amount of physical systems can be created with forces and accelerations in any orientation acting on an object of any geometry with other secondary things going on. The analysis of physical systems is something which occurs quite early in most engineering programs and physics programs (to an extent). Virtually nothing other than the rules can be memorized because problem types can be modified exceedingly easily by professors.</p>
<p>I consider my memorization skills to be pretty damn good. Memorizing didn’t help. If you don’t get it - you don’t get it.</p>
<p>It is difficult enough to even define what “difficult” means. </p>
<p>In terms of mission, perhaps some of the humanities may be more ambitious in what they drive toward, and this can be interpreted as difficult. The physical sciences may be more complex, in that there are more classes to take that build off each other. </p>
<p>In terms of reasoning skills, perhaps physics may be more difficult. Problems that require deductive reasoning leave little leeway and memorization won’t get you very far, but strong reasoning skills may even be of greater focus in philosophy. </p>
<p>What about articulation, analysis, and persuasion… aren’t these skills difficult to develop too? Maybe, instead, difficult is defined as the major that sees the most drop out.</p>
<p>In the end it doesn’t really matter because what good is “difficult” knowledge, anyways, without the ability to apply or communicate it?</p>
The reason people can take these courses is because there isn’t a technical barrier to the content, even if there are certain benefits to having previously dealt with similar coursework. I’m okay at math, I’m good at logic. I know I would have more trouble with a difficult philosophy class than I would with a difficult computer science course. The length is something you and I both brought up, but in junior and senior level courses there’s more than enough work in literature and philosophy.
There are plenty of people who have gotten through science degrees that didn’t get it, and did well because they memorized formulas. Believe me, I’ve worked with plenty of computer science students who never got it. I once sat in on an interview with an NYU CS grad who couldn’t tell me the difference between sentinel, definite, indefinite and interactive loops. We both know that the first few years of a science major rely heavily on previously established axioms and theorems. A comparative literature major is going to start writing papers requiring their analysis of a subject before a math major will.</p>
<p>In my experience as a semi-slacker in college, I’ve found that I can still pull As in humanities courses by merely skimming material or not reading at all and instead merely studying lectures. In non-humanities courses if I didn’t grasp the material completely (aka I had to read the textbook), I’d get below the median on exams. Another thing to consider is that non-humanities courses are curved while humanities courses are not. GSIs/Readers do not normally give out anything lower than a B-, but non-humanities courses are curved to a B-. The C range in non-humanities courses is quite large. I’d say that I’ve had classes where 40% of the class gets lower than a B-. “Assigned” work is not interchangeable with “necessary” work.</p>
I would hope in your experience with the sciences you spent some time studying probability and statistics, and would be familiar with what a selection bias is.
… You do realize that this is completely wrong? This is the problem with any argument like this, because anyone that makes concrete claims is generally divorced from the reality of the middle 50% in one way or another. Your few experiences != the way everything works. Whether or not a course is graded on a curve is entirely the decision of an academic department or a course professor. Curves in the humanities are less common than curves in the sciences, but curves and the way curves are weighted are also entirely at the discretion of the department or the professor and change often.</p>
<p>I believe that most of the academic texts on the subjects in engineering and general sciences are more difficult than texts in the humanities and social sciences. They’re slightly easier to compare, because they’re national standards, although it’s still not like the SATs. But there is too much variance beyond that, it makes any probability work incredibly difficult–and claims of “knowing” dubious at best. Each professor is different, each department is different, each school is different. While we generally think our high schools are poorly “standardized,” at the collegiate level there’s even more variation. You cannot draw any meaningful conclusions from any of this, other than ******** conjecture like “hurr business is easy” or “the English department more like the Working-at-Starbucks Department lulz :rolleyes:.”</p>
<p>Conjecture is something I’m well-versed in, and if you want it to devolve to that I’d be thrilled to race you to the bottom. I could point out how most engineers are utter failures in business and in their own personal lives and careers as a result of hubris, how they are more responsible than any other group for logistical failures on massive scales because of their complete lack of leadership abilities and social ineptitude, how the self-imposed seclusion of scientists from the “real world” generally leads to the devolution of their fields and pulls their work further into the meaningless as a result of their inability to recognize societal practicalities, how… Well, honestly if I keep going I’m not sure that I can stop, and I’m not even someone who majors in the humanities and feels like he has to defend something. I just don’t like stupid pronouncements from upon high that come from those who clearly have no more knowledge than I do.</p>
<p>If you cannot account for nuance and cannot recognize that not all is quantifiable you are not a very good scientist, I’d venture to guess.</p>
<p>I don’t know what college you went to, but you’re going to fail any science course in college if you rely on strict memorization. Even the “typical” memorization classes like introductory biology and organic chemistry require MUCH more than memorization. And that’s just the soft sciences…</p>
<p>Physics requires memorization? What a joke…</p>
There’s plenty of gray area in everything related to college. 90% of it is effort, 10% of it is a foundation of knowledge. Assuming someone doesn’t have something out of their control that impedes them (a learning disorder), anyone can get through physics with effort and a solid mathematical background. Some people will find it easier, just like some people will find mechanical engineering easier, but not every student who graduates with a GPA over 3 in physics is some prodigy.</p>
<p>I wasn’t obtaining a sample to conduct hypotheses testing for statistical analysis. Selection bias has nothing to do with this. </p>
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<p>From experiences at my undergrad, and the experiences of my friends at the Ivy Leagues, all non-humanities courses are curved while the humanities are never curved. While the nature of the curve does depend on the professor, the non-humanities are still curved.</p>
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<p>You’re just rambling incessantly and throwing cheap shots at engineers for being social failures and isolating themselves from society. Give me a break. Remember what this thread is about? The difficulty of various courses and subjects in undergrad.</p>
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<p>You are exaggerating what people are saying. I said that the prodigies tend to be Physicists because it requires another level of thinking. This cannot be logically construed as “anyone who graduates with a 3.0+ in Physics is a prodigy.” People can “get through” science majors, duh. It just takes more work “getting through” science than “getting through” humanities. And let’s be honest, some universities are far harder to “get through” than others so you have to take the quality and caliber of the institution into account. In general the humanities are easier at every institution. I have no doubt a person with below average intelligence can get through science at podunk university, but can that same person make it through MIT? And how much harder is science than humanities for that person at podunk university?</p>
You’re drawing an inference from personal experience (in addition to some anecdotal evidence) and painting the entirety of academia with its brush. I’d say selection bias has something to do with it, considering your data is flawed, which compromises the conclusion.
Non-humanities courses are often curved, and humanities courses are often not curved. It’s not a constant, and while not everyone will have the possibility of an A outside of most non-humanities, it doesn’t mean the curve has to be strict. Your “undergrad experience” should have resulted in you seeing curved courses where there was no grade lower than a B-, as I have seen.
There is an assumption that people in the sciences are more capable, and anti-humanities preprofessional sentiment runs rampant on this forum. You’ll have to excuse me for pointing out the failings of a group that are blindly lauded.
In this thread, probably. In this forum? No.
I’m sure it requires a certain level of thinking, everything is benefited by a certain level of thinking depending on what the coursework is. If you’re going off of Gardner, there’s kinesthetic, interpersonal, linguistic, logical, intrapersonal, spatial and musical. I’m sure the logical prodigies do very well in physics, and may often go to it. I’m also sure that most prodigies do not coalesce in one field. If by a certain level you mean a “higher” level (which you do), then I’m not sure what a “higher” level of thinking would entail (moving things with your mind?), but I’m confident you’re wrong.
I was referring to the post I quoted, not yours.
I agree, the technical barrier makes a certain amount of work a prerequisite for performing passably.
I don’t disagree.
I don’t agree.
I doubt it, the assumed standards for prior learning are much higher.
You are interchanging between a variety of different “sciences” to suit what current (and variable) point that you are trying to make, rather than using the same discipline as a constant reference.</p>
<p>In the sense of a systematic order of knowledge based on experiment and observation, math is not a science (at least in the same category as the physical and natural sciences). It is proof-based and theoretical. The physical and natural sciences do use math, but as a means of communication. The natural sciences, in a way, are the “best fit” lines that run through a series of data points (experimental observation) of which aren’t all located on the “best fit” lines.</p>
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<p>My first college “intro” physics semester class had somewhere around 400 formulas. Even if you memorize all the equations, you’ll still do poorly because a single problem might require 3 of those 400 and 2 that weren’t even included in the bunch because you have to derive them yourself.</p>
<p>Physics is not math. In intro math classes like the first calculus, it’s a different story. Memorizing some key equations before a test can bring success in a plug and chug.</p>
<p>When you say “there’s plenty of gray area in everything related to college,” really this is just a cliche. “90% of it is effort, 10% of it is a foundation of knowledge” is a generalization that doesn’t provide substatiation for how the cliche fits any specific case. The subsequent statement doesn’t clearly define what “getting through physics” means and essentially says nothing in particular. The last sentence of the paragraph misses the recurring point brought up by others, that physics is highly reliant on trains of deductive logic, of which memorization isn’t conducive to. Whether someone is a prodigy or not is irrelevant.</p>
If a constant reference was stated I would stick to it. That has yet to happen.
Mathematics is theoretical? In comparison to what, precisely? Mathematics, seriously? The science of patterns and necessary conclusions, the science that every other field tries (and fails) to emulate in their quest for defining rigorous arguments?</p>
<p>If you think math is theoretical I can’t even begin to imagine what you’d peg physics as.</p>
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Understanding is beneficial (and ultimately leads to good performance), but you recognize that most tests requiring that many formulas are open book, yes?
Theoretically everything that is a science can be considered math, but I agree that it really isn’t in the practical sense. It doesn’t mean people haven’t gotten far in undergraduate physics through memorization.
There is a theory that there are tiers of skill in computer science (both theoretical and applied stuff like programming). Not deviations you’d expect to occur in any profession, but actually “preset” limits to what a person can or cannot learn. We’d generally consider this true for most disciplines, but in computer science the bar is set extremely low, lower than it would be in any other field for what we’d consider someone capable of learning. For some people the logic clicks, for some people it doesn’t. It’s widely-held true, although I suspect most computer science professors wouldn’t openly say that for fear of turning more people away from the subject, and from my experience it is completely false. It’s a sign of an inability for a teacher to adapt to students, mostly. If you are “normal,” which is to say that you do not have any deficiencies that are beyond your control and negatively impact your ability to learn, I believe that you can learn anything. I’ve seen it in people who thought they would never understand computational logic, and there is nothing in physics that will ever make me believe it is different or better.</p>
<p>It’s been made clear we’re not talking about doctorates. If you really think that anyone can’t get through a “middle of the pack” physics department with a 2.5-3 GPA you’re deluding yourself. The idea that it requires some higher brain function is absurd. Anyone can get through any field, perhaps with the exceptions of architecture/structural engineering and electrical engineering, presuming they have some firm foundation in the very, very basics of the field (an understanding of English for many of the humanities, a solid grasp of algebra and trigonometry for the sciences)–precisely because the coursework rarely reaches a high enough “level” in undergraduate education, and if it does it is usually not forced upon the students. This comes back to the whole conceptualizing thing–English students, literature students, philosophy students are analyzing immediately, presenting views in papers immediately. This is because they do not have a technical barrier, and what was said before (that they somehow do not involve conceptualization) is utterly ridiculous.</p>
<p>I knew what you meant…I meant the same. This has been my experience in well-taught English, philosophy, history, and religion courses. If it wasn’t yours, I’m sorry. Your humanities courses must not have been a lot of fun!</p>
<p>I’ve only skimmed the last set of posts, but tetrishead’s #39 rang true.</p>
<p>To be clear, I don’t take issue with the claim that in general, more people will have an easy time passing a humanities course than a hard science/engineering course. That’s in general and in regards to the average student and the average course. I definitely agree that this is true. I take issue with blatantly incorrect characterizations of the humanities (as I have in other threads with people saying that math or science is “just memorization”…all this shows is ignorance, whether we’re talking about physics or philosophy).</p>
<p>For a given IQ and work ethic, I truly believe technical subjects are harder than non-technical subjects. All of my non-technical classes involved far less work than my technical classes; not only that, I generally got a higher grade!</p>
<p>It’s so true it’s generally not even seen as something debatable. Why do I say this? Because I know plenty of people who have done both. If you’ve gone through an Engineering program inevitably you know people who drop out and go into other colleges.</p>
You seem to think relying on previously established axioms/theorems somehow indicates a lack of understanding? Not only that, you seem to think a lack of understanding in a topic by students means the topic is of the same level of difficulty - if anything it seems to indicate a higher level of difficulty. And I never said that people who don’t get it can’t get out of a program. My main point of contention was your misguided thought that the early portion of the program is rote memorization.</p>
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Most engineers are failures in their careers by earning more than the average college graduate? Interesting definition of failure. </p>
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And yet, technical minded people like themselves are the primary source of patents and innovation in our society, raising the standard of living for everyone. Go technical majors.</p>
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Huh? Now you’re just getting outlandish.</p>
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I’ve been the Devil’s Advocate before, it can be enjoyable.</p>
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Some can just recognize reality better than others. :)</p>
<p>Multiple people have told you how you have misapplied a generalization regarding physics. You’ve tried to somehow blanket physics with all the sciences into a common (and misapplied) generalization. You’ve also referred to all college in general with another generalization, then math as a physical science (???).</p>
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<p>theoretical
of, pertaining to, or consisting in theory; not practical (distinguished from applied).
existing only in theory; hypothetical.
given to, forming, or dealing with theories; speculative.</p>
<p>Math is theoretical in comparison to physical sciences that are based on observation of the natural world. Some scientists can be theoretical, which means they aren’t experimental. The physical sciences, in general, are based on observation of natural phenomena. </p>
<p>I don’t understand what’s confusing you so much. One seeks to understand how the natural world works. The other seeks to understand patterns of change and/or space. Math, the latter, isn’t derived from experiment. It’s theoretical.</p>
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<p>There were no open-book tests in that first semester intro physics class I took. Some equations were available on tests. We had the option of: (1) understanding concepts and applying them to never before seen applications on tests (2) trying to memorize all of the equations and take a test from a teacher that did his best to ask questions where memorization would fail. A cumulative final was worth half the course grade. It’s not even an easy task to successfully memorize hundreds of formulas/equations in the first place. Understanding the concepts is more efficient.</p>
<p>This is “baby” “intro” physics, though difficulty may depend on the instructor or school. I took this course at a community college; i can only imagine it’d be more difficult at many universities.</p>
<p>While I agree with your general point that intro science classes may encourage memorization, I think you need to at least come to grips with your apparent lack of intuition on the physical sciences. I’ve come to grips with the fact that I know little of the humanities and am thus unable to judge any type of difficulty on a relative scale.</p>
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<p>I disagree. Math is the letters in the alphabet. Physics (or chemistry, biology, etc.) is a conversation. Math without a purpose has no physical meaning. I can say that 2n + 5 = 7, but what exactly does n mean? Numbers are artificial and intangible constructs. Physics is a purpose for the math, attempting to create a realistic system based on realistic observation (as opposed to a theoretical system based on theoretical assumptions).</p>
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<p>In order for this theory to be true, it would need to prove that the world is deterministic and that free will doesn’t exist. I doubt this theory can do this.</p>
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<p>Right, which is why I discussed a first semester intro physics class.</p>
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I define "getting through" in terms of comprehension rather than GPA. Maybe someone else had the opinion you indicated. I think that the primary goal of a science class... is to learn science.</p>
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I never said this idea. Let me play devil’s advocate though. Could you prove that such an absurd idea was true or false either way? What does higher brain function mean anyways?</p>
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<p>While I’m also of the opinion that analysis may begin early for those hum/lit majors, simply saying that the opposite is “utterly ridiculous” leaves a lack of substantiation. Saying something is wrong or ludicrous isn’t a very convincing proof of anything. It would be like me saying, “God is real and to think otherwise is ridiculous.” Such an opinion lacks substantiation.</p>
<p>All I’m saying is that if you can provide more (definitive) proof to your opinions, maybe you’ll have more success in elucidating that which you find difficult in the humanities.</p>
Your main point of contention was my thought? What? I don’t even know what most of this means, either by itself or in the context of what you were quoting. I can probably parse it, but I don’t want to try and put words in your mouth.
Most engineers have absolutely no idea of their own worth, and how underpaid they generally are. Their applied knowledge, and the fact that they made it through a collegiate education that will most likely be more difficult than anything they will ever do as a professional, is something they constantly undervalue. Their social ineptitude and the fact that they’re taken advantage of by “management” for it is a cliche at this point. Since anecdotal evidence is popular, I have plenty of it and plenty personal experience on this issue.
Yes, and what I stated is the opposite of that coin. I can also make the argument that without the application of their innovations by people who actually understand business their innovations would often be purely theoretical (which is discussed below! yay!) and never have the funding or structure to make it to market.
I am? Is that why scientists in almost every discipline are doing everything they can to make science more palpable now to the American public, to reanalyze their curriculum, to try and increase our dwindling prevalence in science and technology? Yes, really, I’m an outlier in my thought that science and American students don’t mix, and that part of the reason for it are science teachers who are more concerned for their research than their students. I’m glad you could catch that totally wacky and crazy viewpoint I have that NAEP, NSTA and AAAS would absolutely never agree with.</p>
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There has been discussion of everything from chemistry and biology to mathematics and physics to computer engineering. If you want to just talk about physics, that’s fine, but if I’m making a “generalization” it’s because we are apparently talking about like eight different fields of study at any given time in this thread.
Data gained from observing the natural world is almost always revised because data gained from observation is constantly compromised and flawed. Mathematics largely invented the idea of a rigorous proof, and most mathematical theorems can be proven easily.</p>
<p>I prefer to think of the academic definition of not being technical or vocational, because theoretical implies… Well, that it is all conjecture, as opposed to something that is logically provable. Almost everything in mathematics can be proven, whereas biology and physics especially are constantly awash in theories and speculation.</p>
<p>And if we really want to return to the “practical,” what do you think commerce is a result of? Mathematics comes first to problems that involve space, structure and change–before all others. Theoretical physics is mathematics with axioms that are meant to apply to the physical world.
Much of physics is a result of mathematical thought applied to abstraction (time)–you realize this, yes? There are plenty of purposes for mathematics, they are commonly referred to as one entity named “science.”
As compared to the assumption that humanities requires regurgitation, posted in this thread? There are plenty of people who do not go to all class to learn, but to not fail.
Insofar that it is impossible to define to the satisfaction of all parties involved is the reason why I call it absurd.
This thread is awash in anecdotal evidence, and going through curricula for almost any humanities program will show that early on in the process students are expected to present what is essentially conjecture. If there is an easily observable and definable difference between the humanities and the sciences it is that students in the humanities often learn through the analyzation of incomplete evidence, and students in the sciences present analyzation only when they are aware of the entirety of the foundation of the field they are studying. Obviously, it takes longer to get to one. To imply that the humanities is a field of regurgitation when humanities requires original thought often in the first week, and the very foundation of early science courses actually is the memorization of axioms, theorems and formulas is ridiculous, and I don’t really have an intention of calling it anything else. It would be discourteous to the idea to call it anything other than what it is, which is stupidity.</p>
<p>Original thought in the first week? Humanities students go to lectures every week to listen what a professor has to say. Then they often regurgitate what the professors says on exams. As for writing essays, I wouldn’t call it “original” thought when you are pretty much given a topic to write on and a certain direction to take the composition.</p>
<p>As for the foundation of early science courses, you were the one who said it was memorization. So yes, I agree it is ridiculous. </p>
<p>For most people the sciences take a lot more effort to absorb and comprehend than the humanities. The length and difficulty of absorption make science “harder.”</p>
The tinge of bitterness in this comment aside, it is entirely up to the student to regurgitate and up to the professor to accept it. They’re prompted for views early on–you cannot say the same for the beginning stages of science curricula, maybe with the exception of computer science and problem solving.
Thank you for speaking for the entirety of humanity and for encapsulating and analyzing the multiple facets of the sum of all human knowledge in two sentences on an internet forum. In the future, I’ll be sure to tell Phi Betta Kappa philosophy students at Chicago and Columbia that the length and difficulty of their programs and complete the ease of comprehending Kant is absolutely nothing compared to cell theory or computer architecture.</p>