What is toughest undergraduate major?

[SuperTool]

See my sig.

 

[CanOWorms]

Originally posted by: Tom

As far as the discussion of which major is harder, that's a stupid discussion. Some fields are not just hard, they're impossible, if you don't have the ability.

I think you're supposed to look at it in a general viewpoint.

 

[yllus]

I think we have a little bit of bias being a technology forum. CS/EE/CE is not nearly as tough as what I've seen some physiology or other medical majors go through.

 

[RaynorWolfcastle]

Originally posted by: yllus
I think we have a little bit of bias being a technology forum. CS/EE/CE is not nearly as tough as what I've seen some physiology or other medical majors go through.

I have friends in those majors, they spend their time memorizing useless crap like the name of 84 different bones in your hand. These kind oif majors are vary memoriztion-centric at the undergrad level.

 

[Tom]

Originally posted by: RaynorWolfcastle

Originally posted by: yllus
I think we have a little bit of bias being a technology forum. CS/EE/CE is not nearly as tough as what I've seen some physiology or other medical majors go through.

I have friends in those majors, they spend their time memorizing useless crap like the name of 84 different bones in your hand. These kind oif majors are vary memoriztion-centric at the undergrad level.

so when you stab yourslef with your soldering iron, will you want a doctor who knows where the bones in your hand are ?
:moon:

 

[MadPeriot]

Asian American Study

 

[BigJ]

Originally posted by: Tom

Originally posted by: RaynorWolfcastle

Originally posted by: yllus
I think we have a little bit of bias being a technology forum. CS/EE/CE is not nearly as tough as what I've seen some physiology or other medical majors go through.

I have friends in those majors, they spend their time memorizing useless crap like the name of 84 different bones in your hand. These kind oif majors are vary memoriztion-centric at the undergrad level.

so when you stab yourslef with your soldering iron, will you want a doctor who knows where the bones in your hand are ?
:moon:

I wouldn't want a doctor with only an undergraduate degree to be operating on me. That is what we're talking about here, undergraduate degrees.

 

[Chaotic42]

Originally posted by: MadPeriot
Asian American Study

That would be hard for me. Probably harder than math.

I hate learning about other cultures for the most part, and majoring in it?

:shudder:

I'll take a PhD in Color Appreciation, Alex.

 

[RaynorWolfcastle]

Originally posted by: Tom

Originally posted by: RaynorWolfcastle

Originally posted by: yllus
I think we have a little bit of bias being a technology forum. CS/EE/CE is not nearly as tough as what I've seen some physiology or other medical majors go through.

I have friends in those majors, they spend their time memorizing useless crap like the name of 84 different bones in your hand. These kind oif majors are vary memoriztion-centric at the undergrad level.

so when you stab yourslef with your soldering iron, will you want a doctor who knows where the bones in your hand are ?
:moon:

Regardless of the fact that I will never stab myself with a soldering iron; he can look it up in a book, that's cool with me. And the reason I say its useless btw, is because I bet you that the percentage of doctors that remember the name and location of every single bone in the human body is pretty much 0.

 

[Tom]

Originally posted by: RaynorWolfcastle

Originally posted by: Tom

Originally posted by: RaynorWolfcastle

Originally posted by: yllus
I think we have a little bit of bias being a technology forum. CS/EE/CE is not nearly as tough as what I've seen some physiology or other medical majors go through.

I have friends in those majors, they spend their time memorizing useless crap like the name of 84 different bones in your hand. These kind oif majors are vary memoriztion-centric at the undergrad level.

so when you stab yourslef with your soldering iron, will you want a doctor who knows where the bones in your hand are ?
:moon:

Regardless of the fact that I will never stab myself with a soldering iron; he can look it up in a book, that's cool with me. And the reason I say its useless btw, is because I bet you that the percentage of doctors that remember the name and location of every single bone in the human body is pretty much 0.

You haven't met many good doctors then. It's amazing how many of them are smarter than I am.

 

[slpaulson]

I never did like this topic, because it totally depends on the person...

With that said I'd say math or physics is the hardest material, while the engineering fields have the most coursework. I'm sure I'm leaving some majors out though.

On a side note a friend of mine who is a com arts student was telling me how lucky I am because I don't have any long assignments, like her 30 page paper she is writing. That was one of the silliest things I've heard in a while...

 

[RaynorWolfcastle]

Originally posted by: Tom
You haven't met many good doctors then. It's amazing how many of them are smarter than I am.

Oh I am not saying that doctors aren't smart. I'm just saying that most of these health science majors (FWIW, medecine really isn't an undergra major) are difficult to get into but once you're in they try to keep you there. Engineering on the other hand is usually the opposite, they let a bunch of people in and make the program difficult.

 

[yllus]

Originally posted by: RaynorWolfcastle

Originally posted by: yllus
I think we have a little bit of bias being a technology forum. CS/EE/CE is not nearly as tough as what I've seen some physiology or other medical majors go through.

I have friends in those majors, they spend their time memorizing useless crap like the name of 84 different bones in your hand. These kind oif majors are vary memoriztion-centric at the undergrad level.

Disagree.

Physiology majors at the U of Toronto up here end up with roughly the mathematical knowledge gained in Calculus II. Computer science is at its core the application of calculus. At the same time, I have merely a Physics I level of knowledge while they go off the deep end with that crap. I would easily wager that the average physiology student has a higher IQ than the average CS student.

 

[PolarNorth]

Womens studies. It must be hard and stressfull, all the people I have seen in it look like completly beat, and are always pissed. Cant' imagine a harder major that takes that kind of toll on someone






ok but seriously Chem E or anything heavily infested with pre-meds. Those guys are brutal.

 

[ThaChemist]

I got degrees in biochem and cs, although the biochem was virtually a chemistry program. As far as "hurts-my-head" thinking goes, CS was almost a joke (granted - our program was more practical than theoretical). The general order seemed to be biology<biochem<chemistry<physics; that was my impression, as well as that of others in my classes. That said, ChemE is somewhere between chem &amp; physics, or possibly tougher than physics. I remember in my pchem class, our prof would say "if we were chemE's, then we would have to discuss...", and I would always say a little prayer of thanks that we weren't chemE's.

I've taken a reasonable number of biology courses, including senior-level ones. I didn't feel that the journal papers were any harder to read than a chem/biochem paper, provided you know what each experiment is... That said, I think biology blows basket-weaving out of the water.

 

[Mo0o]

EE is always hard since theres so much material but Math and Physics can get so ocnceptual and theoritical that it is just simplly out of the ability of some. I feel that if i put in enough time and i actually tried i can survice as a EE major but i would probably just croak and die as a math major since the harder stuff doesn't come naturally to me.

 

[ed21x]

Originally posted by: SacrosanctFiend

Originally posted by: simms
I'd say EE. I'm a Chem Eng, 2nd year and it's alright, I know some EE's went nuts in first year.

Bio isn't that tough. The Chem courses I'm taking incorporate Organics as well as protein structuring etc.
If you're talking about ADP NADP and kingdom phylum class family genus species.. that's all memorizing. Not that hard, and not really applicable in real life when you can easily read it from a book.

APPLYING that knowledge (eg: engineering) is where you must LEARN different environments and design for them..

Dude, that's general biology, like freshman stuff. Get into stuff like programmed cell death, human genetics, cell and tissue structure and function, cell transformations, etc. That's where it gets hard, especially in lab practicals.

EDIT: Here's a question we had on our second day of class:

- Extension and retraction of filopodia in a growth cone is thought to be determined by assembly and disassembly of underlying actin cytoskeleton. Devise experiments (logical and doable) in which you may determine where new subunits are added to growing actin filaments and how the filaments flow during extension and retraction of filopodia.

That doesn't sound hard at all... for the first part, you can lyse the cells and run a standard RT-PCR/Western blot to determine the gene expression of the cell during that very moment. A quick search on biosis should reveal which genes are responsible for the forming of whatever subunits you are talking about. In a cell culture, you should be able to grow them in a standard agarose assay, while running a smooth media current over it to align the cells. From there on, a stain and fluorescent microscopy should be able to get you a subjective view of th filopodia.

After switching into Biomedical engineering from EE/CS, let me be the first to tell you that the former is MUCH harder, and working with cell culture, genetics, and tissue engineering is MUCH easier in the sense that you aren't quite as logical and more subjectively analytical.

edit: ChemE would have my vote. we're talking about difficulty here, not time spent in lab or how much you have to memorize.

 

[DaWhim]

maybe chinese language major? lol

 

[Dr. Detroit]

I was a accounting major and my brother a Mechanical Engineer.

No way in hell I could ever do his Caclulus &amp; Thermodynamics courses. I hated difficult math, Business Calculus harmed my GPA and fortunately I passed ever course.

And of course 95% of bus. majors think accounting is nucking futs in terms of complexity.


Still ME or EE have to be tops in my book!

 

[Sahakiel]

Originally posted by: TuxDave

Originally posted by: RaynorWolfcastle

Originally posted by: Horus
HISTORY. When you EE majors write 30K+ words in 2 months for essays, come back and talk to me.

Stupidest analogy ever, I could probably manage wtiting 30k+ words in 2 months (though I would probably hate it) .
Heck I've written two lab reports in the last 3 weeks that together are 60 pages and 16,000 words.

I just compiled a spice deck that roughly converts into an 8MB text file.. how's that?

And YES... that's MEGABYTES

2k lines of VHDL per week for eight weeks.

 

[DanTMWTMP]

EE

and architecture just because of the sheer workload involved. and bioeng for the same reason.

but for a true mindfvck, it has to be EE


<---- studying for one of his EE finals atm.

AND posting on ATOT.

i'm doomed

 

[LS20]

harder to who?

a 30 page lab report where you disseminate information isnt exactly is the same as a 30 page paper where you have to maintain a well-articulated argument

all of these threads inevitably end up with nerds jockeying how their field of engineering is more difficult than another field of engineering

 

[ed21x]

Originally posted by: LS20
harder to who?

a 30 page lab report where you disseminate information isnt exactly is the same as a 30 page paper where you have to maintain a well-articulated argument

all of these threads inevitably end up with nerds jockeying how their field of engineering is more difficult than another field of engineering

of ourse it's not... most people regardless of major seems to recognize that there are other majors harder than their own- whether it'd be through peers, roommates, etc... I'm a BioEngineer, but I know that EE and ChemE is harder than my major because I have taken their classes.

 

[simms]

Originally posted by: yllus

Physiology majors at the U of Toronto up here end up with roughly the mathematical knowledge gained in Calculus II. Computer science is at its core the application of calculus. At the same time, I have merely a Physics I level of knowledge while they go off the deep end with that crap. I would easily wager that the average physiology student has a higher IQ than the average CS student.

Engineers at U of Toronto have compulsory Calculus I - IV, if you want to based it on Calculus, for example. Physics, well, Civils have more than enough with that. ChemE already has Heat, Mass, Fluid flow, Static Structures, Dynamics.

In Math, Engineering is "tougher" in that respect because things like line integrals, triple integrals, Green's Theorems, will never be taught to them. However math is tough - I'm not saying it's not, but math doesn't have the diversity of applying that knowledge to different fields, plus math majors have no science (which is also pretty tough).

I
Keeping track of all that stuff, rediscovering things that have been forgotten, sorting out the truth from the fiction, these are all things that a history major might be learning how to do.

And it applies to all fields, includng science, technology, medicine. You seem to think history is only about politics and governments, well that's just completely wrong.

Without history, you would have absolutely no science or engineering at all. The same thing as the other field I mentioned, communication. And by communication I mean all of the fields that advance human communication, including languages, the arts, music, political science, etc.

All of these things are at least as important as any other field of study, in some ways more so, because they are the building blocks of the other fields of study, like math, science, medicine, engineering.

In the end all that history requires is just writing information down and reading it again. It's not difficult persay in how to apply the concept nor in terms of memorization.

The thing is you mention all these fields which are the properties of those majors. Science is hard on its own. It doesn't need History. Meds is hard because it's Meds. History seems to be piggybacking on the work of other majors.

I agree that the past has taught us something - but the topic of this thread is "toughest undergrad major", and IMHO in the end History is just reading from books to be enriched about our past, and learning to apply it (I guess, or what use would it have) in our lives.

But still I believe the application of say, Science, Math or Engineering will have a "tougher" time applying their knowledge because it is more esoteric and advanced than, say History.

 

[toekramp]

Word Engineer