<p>Any opinions?</p>
<p>all the engineering ones and the pure sciences</p>
<p>Can someone please explain to me why Biology is considered such a tough major. I'm going to Columbia and it doesn't seem too bad. Chem, Calc, physics, orgo chem, and bio have to be taken for med school anyway and then it seems that the requirement is just 3-4 more science classes.</p>
<p>I'll be majoring in Biology this year and will be a freshman. Just wanted to know how hard it would be.</p>
<p>Is neuroscience considered a tough major?</p>
<p>Yes.. my friend takes it at Lafayette. Lots of memorization too.It's the brain!! :)</p>
<p>what about business major?</p>
<p>Tough majors are ones that involve subjects where you lack natural aptitude. I think the idea that engineering and pure sciences are automatically tougher than all other majors is inherently flawed. For instance, foreign language comes naturally to me and I have done very well in philosophy, history, and literature classes, but I could never see myself majoring in Physics because I struggle with math and science. On the flip side, I doubt many brilliant physicist types could carry a 4.0 in Music Performance, Political Science, or Journalism (ever meet a student who is a math and science whiz but can't spell to save her life?). How challenging your major is depends on where your talents lie, and so many different majors exist because there is a demand for new talent in so many different fields. Engineering, Chemistry, etc. seem more impressive perhaps because there may be fewer people who are naturally talented in those areas. However, that doesn't mean the people who major in them are necessarily smarter or taking on inherently tougher coursework than people in other majors.</p>
<p>i think "toughness" is best measured by the average number of hours all the students study... and i think engineering majors, especially electrical engineers take this.</p>
<p>I don't know, a good friend of mine got into our extremely competitive Business School last year and ever since then she has spent most of her waking hours either in class, eating or studying...also I know a BME major in a very highly ranked program at a private university that seems to be very popular around here who spends all of his spare time trying to write song lyrics, drinking beer and watching DVDs, yet he still carries a high GPA. I really think that "toughness" is an obscure concept that is in the eye of the beholder.</p>
<p>^ yeah there are a few rare people out there that don't need to study as much. but notice that i said the average number of hours... that means taking the group as a whole and then averaging the number of hours... and not just taking the number of hours the smartest one in the major studies for.</p>
<p>Most students majoring in BIO are gunning for a grad program of some sort and I include in that MD. So.....you have highly prepared/competetive students all taking courses in a sequence and raising the ante. Folks come into the program with differing levels of preparadness and the heat is on from the get go. Known at the outset is that an A is needed for the next application process and folks don't want to be the poor soul sucking up a B....too many kids not enough suckers.</p>
<p>i was a business major, and i'd say it was one of the most time-consuming majors at our school. LOTS of big projects research papers tests and presentations. i spent long hours in the library - we became very good friends this past semester. i would go there for a few hours to meet with one group, then afterwords walk to my bestfriends house to eat dinner because i didn't have enough time to walk back to my apartment before heading back to the library to meet with another group. i probably spent twice as much time on school work as my biology major roommate did.</p>
<p>I see where you're coming from on the study hours idea, but I don't think that's necessarily the most accurate way to deduce which major is "toughest" (for the record, my business major friend is the rule and not the exception at my school). Some people study diligently for hours every night, and some people complete their work in large spurts. Some people never study or attend class and then have to spend many more hours studying for exams than others in their major because they haven't been keeping up with the material properly. I probably have one or two hours of homework for my major a night but on weekends when I have papers due I usually spend two full days doing nothing but writing them, while my friend who's a math major does a lot of homework every night and puts a few hours extra in when an exam is coming up but doesn't have big papers due every so often. </p>
<p>I think it's difficult to derive quality out of a quantity when it comes to studying, because, like you said, some people don't need to study much at all, and some people take hours to learn the simplest concept. Even if a specific major happens to yield the highest average hours spent, it doesn't necessarily mean that the material is inherently harder - it's possible, but it could also be explained by more problem sets being required or longer readings being assigned, or you might have just happened to have sampled a group of slower learners. If you want to conclusively designate the "toughest" major (which I don't believe can be done, but that's my own opinion), I think you'd need to select more standardized criteria that's not so subject to unrelated influences (forget the right term, haven't had statistics in 2 and a half years).</p>
<p>PS: hazmat, I think competition within the major is a good angle to examine - it definitely provides an extra source of stress beyond grades and homework.</p>
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On the flip side, I doubt many brilliant physicist types could carry a 4.0 in Music Performance, Political Science, or Journalism (ever meet a student who is a math and science whiz but can't spell to save her life?).
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<p>You would be surprised.</p>
<p>Yes, I would be surprised if I encountered more than the rare individual who excels in all fields and is just as good at, say, writing poetry as he or she is at chemistry. I'm not saying they don't exist, but they are rare, and research on left and right brained people corroborates the idea that individual humans are inclined toward either the logical or the aesthetic. I'm not talking about people who get good grades all around, because I know plenty of people that get straight As, but they have to work a lot harder in the classes that fall outside the realm of their natural ability.</p>
<p>On the contrary, I am acquainted with many professors of aesthetics (in philosophy) who are familiar and adept with the rigor of logic and analytic thinking, not to mention mathematics and physics. There are plenty of philosophers who are adept at the aforementioned fields. While you may have empirical evidence that demonstrates otherwise, I too have empirical evidence that raises the adumbrated possibility above the level 'rarety'. Indeed, philosophy of science professors at numerous schools attest to this, and I know many who did not major in the arts for undergraduate studies and yet are flourishing in philosophy graduate studies.</p>
<p>These kinds of arguments, due to the subjective and individualized nature of the examples we're bringing up, will never be resolved, and I'm pretty sure I'm only continuing them because I'm extremely bored at work :). My real point is just that it's a major pet peeve of mine that humanities majors are considered "easier" than science majors, because what's easy as pie for one person is the hardest material another student has ever encountered, and the "toughness" of one particular person's major corresponds to how much he or she chooses to challenge him or herself. I guess it's the "collegiate climate" that leads people to have to constantly categorize and pigeonhole in an effort to differentiate themselves from everyone else, but I think it's unfortunate that individuals are disregarded as less intelligent or adept because of their choice of major.</p>
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These kinds of arguments, due to the subjective and individualized nature of the examples we're bringing up, will never be resolved, and I'm pretty sure I'm only continuing them because I'm extremely bored at work
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<p>I agree, they all tend to lead to fallacious reasoning, as we cannot draw anything conclusive from them.</p>
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My real point is just that it's a major pet peeve of mine that humanities majors are considered "easier" than science majors
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<p>I also agree. My annoyance is with the 'pre-professional' distinction in majors; I remember one girl telling me that 'philosophy is the most useless major'. Many students, and individuals in authority, endorse the attitude that college is a mechanism for obtaining a higher-paying job. While it is indubitable that students may be going to college with this intention, I am not pleased with how college administrations actively seek to perpetuate this pre-professional mode of thought.</p>
<p>I guess that is why I tend to favor most higher ranked schools; it is not surprising that the lower you go, the more vocational and remedial the school is.</p>
<p>Edit: This is not to say that Top Tier schools and pre-professionalism are mutually exclusive; however, I tend to prefer the more intellectual institutions that encourage learning as means to fulfillment rather than the six-figure pay-check.</p>
<p>Yeah I'm business and always had group meetings at the library while everyone else on my floor was playing cards or doing a paper...but I love it.</p>