What is toughest undergraduate major?

[BigJ]

Originally posted by: Jzero
Music. And not because you have to be a whiz to take it. No, it's because you still have to take the same gen-ed requirements, and you are still required to maintain the same number of credits to get full-time status, but your classes are all .5-1.5 credits despite meeting 2-3 times a week.

I could take a CS lab class, a Science lab class and 2 non-lab classes and be full-time with a day off every week.
The music majors had to take 8 classes just to be full-time. It's lunacy. I had a brief stint as a band instructor this summer and I thought how awesome it would be to go back to school for music ed until I remembered the ass-tastic curriculum I'd have to endure to get there.

At UMD, the only classes that are 1-2 credits for music majors are lessons (1cr) and ensembles (2 credits). Then some relatively easy electives they take for 2crs (for piano I think there are only 2-3 electives they have to take for 2 crs). It looks time consuming, but I wouldn't say it is hard as long as you were decently gifted (if not, why would you be a music major in the first place).

PS I am not a music major, but this was just looking up information from my colleges music department website.

 

[GoSharks]

BME is pretty much known as the hardest program here at JHU. To top that off, a BME needs to pick a concentration to take extra classes from and you must pick from: CS, EE, MatSci, CE, and ChemE.

 

[Tom]

Originally posted by: CanOWorms
I'd say that ChemE or EE are found to be the most difficult undergraduate majors by most chemE or EE people

fixed for you.

 

[Ranger X]

Electrical Engineering, hands down. EECS is hard but you tend to go less into EE because of CS. Pure EE majors go further into the abyss.

 

[DT4K]

Originally posted by: simms

Originally posted by: DT4K

Originally posted by: liluqt
It's always great how the average in an organic class is like 60%

Organic chemistry required a lot of studying, but I thought the concepts were very easy to understand. In fact, I really enjoyed o-chem because everything just makes sense. Physical chemistry is another story. P-chem is the reason I don't have a chemistry degree.

Most people I know don't think their major is the hardest. Sure, there are some who just like to brag and think they are smarter than everyone else, but I readily admit that engineering is far more difficult, in terms of workload and complexity, than CS.

The hardest class I took as a CS major was Discrete Structures. The only thing that made it hard was that it was totally different from any other math class I'd taken. I didn't have any problems with calculus, but discrete math was totally different. Not super complex, just a very different way of thinking.

Just FYI, ChemE's take Organic Chemistry too along with P-Chem.

I must be missing your point. I wasn't saying anything about ChemE's. I was just saying that a lot of people absolutely hate o-chem, while I really enjoyed it. I would assume that chemE's take most of what a chem major would take, plus a whole lot more engineering and math.

 

[thereaderrabbit]

Chem. Eng. can be very nasty stuff. I hardly slept my senior year.

From experience: In the world of undergrads: Chem. Eng. > Biochemistry Molecular and Cellular Biology = Physics > Electrical engineering > Chemistry > Math

Right now, I have two degrees in Chem. Eng. and have about a semester to go before I'll have a Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering. During my degrees I've done work in Physics, Chemistry, Math, Electrical Engineering, Comp. Sci. and Math (did I say math twice ; ).

Physics gets to be very nasty stuff on the graduate level, but Chem. Eng. is still the worst. There you combine physics, math, chemistry, and comp. sci. all up into one nasty experience.

-Reader (at Penn State)

 

[purepolly]

Nursing.

It isn't that the material is so difficult. It's the shear volume, pace, and the culture in which it is taught. What other programs have higher minimum requirements for passing a course - my program is 75 min avg, but others are 80 min.

Flunk a class? Not an option - you're gone. A local program has a 40% attrition rate. No taking it over. If you are lucky, the school might let you reapply (along with the 300 other candidates for the next available 30 spots). Transferring isn't always an option either since each program has different class/clinical requirements.

There are endless, time-consuming no credit assignments. Here, learn dosage calculations (a full semester course at some schools) on your own - you need to pass 3 tests and get a 95 or greater - or you are gone.

Hey, so your best friend died and you want to go to the funeral in another state, or you gave birth, or your mother attempted to commit suicide, or you are sick in the hospital (all true scenarios in my classl) - ah well sucks to be you - show up at clinical anyway. Just make sure you are damn compassionate with the patients.

Then there is the beauty of N-Clex style multiple choice questions. Wow, multiple choice - piece of cake you say - nope, 4 answers - 3 of them right - just pick the best. That is what "critical thinking" is all about. Find a question on an exam that is blatantly wrong? Blatantly as in two textbooks confirmed the answer -oh well, it's in the test bank - I won't give you credit for it.

This semester I have had psyche nursing (cool class - no complaints), gerontolgy, community nursing (taught by a lovely woman who outright admitted that her meds for her paranoid schizophrenia hadn't kicked in yet - it took six weeks for that momentous event to occur - imagine doing a clinical rotation with her) and the professor for nursing research who referred to an alpha symbol as a "squiggly" and insisted she knew absolutely everything about a topic she clearly knew nothing about.

That's what nursing is about.

Engineering is a piece of cake in comparison.

So speaks me, former engineer.

AND on the upside 2 classes to go and I'm done with nursing school!!!!!!!

Yahoo! Yahoo! Yahoo!

 

[nwfsnake]

For me, my B.S. Physics was harder than my B.S. Chem or B.S.E.E. My M.S. E.E. was order of magnitude tougher!

 

[amoeba]

like all things, it depends on where you go.

 

[mitaiwan82]

gee I wonder what kind of people populate these threads...

 

[Anonemous]

Originally posted by: werk
BME

all the engineering majors rolled up into one. EE+Mech+CSE on top of Bio/chem.

 

[Metron]

I took it as a compliment when the professor of my Cultural Anthropology class asked if I wanted to change majors. I had the highest average in the class (103), over many others majoring in anthropology. I took it as a "fun" humanities course, a break from my normal CS classes when I was in college.

Hardest major? I can't really say, without personal experience in several.

 

[bigrod]

I can vouch for that.

I was an EE and took a senior level Introduction to Modern Analysis math course when I was a junior and got my ass kicked.

EE is tough though, and probably the toughest overall.

 

[Chaotic42]

Originally posted by: nwfsnake
For me, my B.S. Physics was harder than my B.S. Chem or B.S.E.E. My M.S. E.E. was order of magnitude tougher!

That's a lot of B.S.

 

[silverpig]

Originally posted by: Chaotic42

Originally posted by: nwfsnake
For me, my B.S. Physics was harder than my B.S. Chem or B.S.E.E. My M.S. E.E. was order of magnitude tougher!

That's a lot of B.S.

I call B.S. too

 

[CPA]

Accounting, no contest.

 

[DT4K]

Originally posted by: CPA
Accounting, no contest.

I have heard that the CPA is a bitch. I have a friend who is an accountant in L.A., making 100k a year, and hasn't taken his CPA yet.

 

[alocurto]

Originally posted by: deftron
Mass Communications !

HA. HA. HA. I got 5 unemployed Comm major friends. Best thing about it all. THEY WERE SURPRISED THEY SUCK.

 

[bobsmith1492]

All undergraduate stuff is easy from what I've seen. Heck, you have to build a mini-segway your first year engineering here; it's a piece of pie..... lil' ProE, lil' milling, throw in a gyro and two motors and a microcontroller and program it up w/C. There's nuttin to engineering. Anyway, I couldn't say what the most difficult undergrad is although I'd prolly go crazy doing just solid math... .nothing is real..... no sign of a use for it... ackkkk

EE junior here

 

[bobsmith1492]

Oh, and physics major too - and spanish minor.

 

[iamskew]

journalism...unless you've done it, you've got no idea how hard it is to use every bit of your spare time trying to put together stories and interview people who don't want to talk to some stupid undergrad journalist....
actually...probably not the hardest...but definitely one of the most time consuming...and definitely a field where your degree means nothing if you suck at it...

 

[dullard]

Originally posted by: Chaotic42
I'd have to guess ChemE or Mathematics.

Now, which is the hardest to get a PhD in?

In many cases, the PhD in any engineering and a PhD in mathematics are basically one and the same. However, a PhD in engineering will require ~4 years and a PhD in math will often require ~8 years.

Originally posted by: Tiamat
BTW, Im a junior in Chemical Engineering and it just heated up 100 fold in work load

In my experience, juniors in chemical engineering have the largest classload of any year of any major (classload is different than workload as music majors have the largest workload). The work is often quite simple, but there is so much of it. I remember phycial chemistry lab physically and mentally drained me that year. Six papers, minimum of 50 pages each in one semester (actually in 2 months as you really only started writing at the end). And no the papers were not large font and not large margins but a detailed analysis of each equation, detailed experiment designs which can accurately test the variables, and detailed mathematical analysis of your results. The history major who says he/she is the only who has to write is very mistaken. That on top of 4-5 other math and science classes made for quite a large work load.

I've said it before, chemical engineering undergraduates have a LOT of work but it is all easy work. A chemical engineer is the Jack of all trades but master of none. Thus in my definition, chemical engineering isn't the hardest. The hardest major is something that you suck at. A shy person in theater. A deaf person in music. A heterosexual person in women's studies. A math-hater in engineering. Etc. Thus it will vary from person to person.

<- Dullard: BS and MS in chemical engineering and PhD in engineering (focus on chemical engineering and math).

 

[tami]

compsci

 

[TheLonelyPhoenix]

I take back my previous vote, this has to be brutal.

 

[simms]

Originally posted by: TheLonelyPhoenix
I take back my previous vote, this has to be brutal.

I call chop.