Absolutely true story: One female social studies teacher that I had in sixth grade told the class that as you climb higher up a mountain, the HOTTER it gets because the closer you are to the sun.
Most difficult university major?
- Thread starter stinkynuts
- Start date
stinkynuts said:
as long as she wasn't your grade 6 science teacher, her ignorance is tolerable
I remember I had to teach my grade 6 teacher how to do grade 6 math. Let's just say math was not her strong suit, but she had big 'cans' and at that time, that's all that mattered.
When I studied engineering at UofT, I recalled a professor saying that the most difficult undergraguate program was Engineering Science.
As I recall, and this is from the 80's, if an ordinary engineering student failed first year, that student can continue in the Arts&Science program. If an EngSci student failed 1st year, he/she can continue in the other engineering disciplines. Other engineering programs meaning: Civil, Mechanical, Electrical, Industrial, Geological , and Metallurgical.
Some of the EngSci disciplines include: Aeronautical, Geophysics, BioMedical etc. These students were the cream of the crop of Engineering students.
Pharmacy was also another program he mentioned (lots of chemistry).
times might have changed though.
As I recall, and this is from the 80's, if an ordinary engineering student failed first year, that student can continue in the Arts&Science program. If an EngSci student failed 1st year, he/she can continue in the other engineering disciplines. Other engineering programs meaning: Civil, Mechanical, Electrical, Industrial, Geological , and Metallurgical.
Some of the EngSci disciplines include: Aeronautical, Geophysics, BioMedical etc. These students were the cream of the crop of Engineering students.
Pharmacy was also another program he mentioned (lots of chemistry).
times might have changed though.
I think the same applies to the lesser known Survey Engineering. A buddy of mine went to UofNB, the only university in Canada that offers it. From what he told me, it too is all pretty high end math.
Better at what? Better at science? Perhaps, but that's why they're art students. But if I had a nickel for every socially inept science major I'd be a zillionaire. There's more to life than test tubes and equations... much more.someone said:
Hardest undergrad program is Engineerin Science, to get in you need something like a 92% OAC average and even then about half of them drop out or get burnt out after first year. Think of it, guys in HS who always scores near perfect on everything has a 50% probability of failing ENG SCI.
Well since ENG SCI was not in there, I would have to choose Electrical Engineering at U of T, in the years I was there it was consistently ranked 3rd/4th in North America, just behind MIT and Stanford.
Electrical is tough not just because of Math, but because half the time you are in lab trying to get stuff that made sense in textwork to work in real life. Electrical engineering like all things is not rocket science tough if you build an intutive understanding of the underlying phenomenon of what you study, but you get so much stuff thrown at you that you never get the chance to sit back and put everything together.
Anyways "ERTW", if anyone understands.
Well since ENG SCI was not in there, I would have to choose Electrical Engineering at U of T, in the years I was there it was consistently ranked 3rd/4th in North America, just behind MIT and Stanford.
Electrical is tough not just because of Math, but because half the time you are in lab trying to get stuff that made sense in textwork to work in real life. Electrical engineering like all things is not rocket science tough if you build an intutive understanding of the underlying phenomenon of what you study, but you get so much stuff thrown at you that you never get the chance to sit back and put everything together.
Anyways "ERTW", if anyone understands.
One way to measure how hard a program is would be to consider how many students not in that major could pass it if they chose. On that basis, I would say that math is the hardest, because not many people other than a math major could handle it, where math majors could handle engineering, physics, etc. For a lot of the disciplines mentioned here, people say its hard because of the math: as it turns out the math is harder in math than in anything else.
That being said, math is not exactly prestigious or high-paying, it marks you as a freak and only good for being a professor. For prestige I would go with computer engineering - it shows that you are smart, but also destined to be successful.
That being said, math is not exactly prestigious or high-paying, it marks you as a freak and only good for being a professor. For prestige I would go with computer engineering - it shows that you are smart, but also destined to be successful.
Better at most things. A recent research project of mines involved looking at factors that led to students doing well in a couple of courses in my discipline. In the process, I have looked at the records of almost 3000 students. There are certain courses that all but the worse students do well in, regardless of the major they come from. For example, I don’t think I came across a single student that actually failed a Folk Studies course. All but the very worse students managed to get through courses in disciplines like sociology and education. Math students and science students tended to do well in the Arts courses they took (there were exceptions, of course). However, I had Arts and business students repeating Calculus 1 up to 7 times and basic economics courses 4 times and an upper level economics course required of business students up to 8 times. Whether students are taking a course 4 to 8 times because they are lazy or because they have no ability is not clear but either way I would say that they are NOT good students.Keebler Elf said:
In addition when I was at Waterloo, all the engineering students I had told me that they saw Arts courses (they are very limited in how many they can take) as a way to boast their average.
Einstein viewed mathematics with contempt, and I have to agree.
The great mathematicians were geniuses, like Gauss, Newtwon, Leibniz, etc. So, I have no problem with them.
But how many math majors really understand what the hell they're doing? I mean, I bet 99% of them could not contribute anything useful to the field. All they do is learn how to solve problems by mathematically manipulating numbers in some kind of way.
Let me give you an example. Calculus is extremely hard to understand, Newton was a genius for inventing it. But any chimp could easily differentiate and integrate by memorizing the formulae, but how many people REALLY understand what is going on and what it really means? It's the same with geometry, basically all they do is plug in numbers to formulae to get the answer. Most of math just involves basic addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.
The great mathematicians were geniuses, like Gauss, Newtwon, Leibniz, etc. So, I have no problem with them.
But how many math majors really understand what the hell they're doing? I mean, I bet 99% of them could not contribute anything useful to the field. All they do is learn how to solve problems by mathematically manipulating numbers in some kind of way.
Let me give you an example. Calculus is extremely hard to understand, Newton was a genius for inventing it. But any chimp could easily differentiate and integrate by memorizing the formulae, but how many people REALLY understand what is going on and what it really means? It's the same with geometry, basically all they do is plug in numbers to formulae to get the answer. Most of math just involves basic addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.
Premedicine and Chemistry are generally pretty easy. Note: its pre-med, passing is easy, getting outstanding marks and then getting into med is harder.
The Physics, Math and Comp Sci are a bit harder. There was 2 courses in Comp Sci I found difficult.
The Engineering ones are hard because of the time constraints and large work load. The hardest ones, in general are Eng Sci and Elec. Although I knew some really outstanding Mech Eng people. I don't think that Chem Eng is hard from what could from people I know.
The Physics, Math and Comp Sci are a bit harder. There was 2 courses in Comp Sci I found difficult.
The Engineering ones are hard because of the time constraints and large work load. The hardest ones, in general are Eng Sci and Elec. Although I knew some really outstanding Mech Eng people. I don't think that Chem Eng is hard from what could from people I know.
Some good thoughts on this thread. I have a science degree in a rather esoteric area and have had exposure to a lot of these areas. I also have a lot of engineer friends who I hung out with at university.
My own thoughts are that Aerospace and Nuclear, while obviously difficult are at the same time relatively straightforward. Both of these areas are more or less grounded in classical physics so there's not a lot of theoretical stuff that doesn't intuitively make sense. Electrical is one of those areas that should be straightforward but it never is. The labs can be exquisitely difficult and there's often a lot of time pressure as well. Curveballs are quite normal in EE.
Physics and Chemistry can lead to many challenging research positions. But it can be argued that a lot of the "easy" stuff has already been done in the past 200 years or so. Higher level physics and chemistry often deal with hyper-specialized areas that don't necessarily have practical application.
Mathematics is by far one of the strangest specializations out there. In everyday life, people get by with the 4 standard operations (+,-,/,*) but Mathematics as an area of study goes so far beyond that. Some of it is very practical in areas such as cyrptography and compression algorithms but most of it has little practical application. While most scientists will be able to grasp the generalities of physics, chemistry, engineering etc, a lot of them (like me) fall miserably short on higher mathematics.
Biomedical is an area that I personally think is mostly underfunded and a little too low-key. I find that interesting because we keep hearing about an aging population and increased strain on health care. Biomedical to me provides a lot of infrastructure to the health care system in the form of diagnostic imaging, improved biomaterials, enhanced drug delivery systems and exciting possibilities for adaptive technology (artificial limbs, artificial eyes etc).
My own thoughts are that Aerospace and Nuclear, while obviously difficult are at the same time relatively straightforward. Both of these areas are more or less grounded in classical physics so there's not a lot of theoretical stuff that doesn't intuitively make sense. Electrical is one of those areas that should be straightforward but it never is. The labs can be exquisitely difficult and there's often a lot of time pressure as well. Curveballs are quite normal in EE.
Physics and Chemistry can lead to many challenging research positions. But it can be argued that a lot of the "easy" stuff has already been done in the past 200 years or so. Higher level physics and chemistry often deal with hyper-specialized areas that don't necessarily have practical application.
Mathematics is by far one of the strangest specializations out there. In everyday life, people get by with the 4 standard operations (+,-,/,*) but Mathematics as an area of study goes so far beyond that. Some of it is very practical in areas such as cyrptography and compression algorithms but most of it has little practical application. While most scientists will be able to grasp the generalities of physics, chemistry, engineering etc, a lot of them (like me) fall miserably short on higher mathematics.
Biomedical is an area that I personally think is mostly underfunded and a little too low-key. I find that interesting because we keep hearing about an aging population and increased strain on health care. Biomedical to me provides a lot of infrastructure to the health care system in the form of diagnostic imaging, improved biomaterials, enhanced drug delivery systems and exciting possibilities for adaptive technology (artificial limbs, artificial eyes etc).
Mathematics is tough when you first learn it, once you are in the mode then things seems fairly straight forward. With math there is always an answer and usually the correct answer is the one which is most straight forward. If you use a math program to solve things and things do not work out because of software or hardware problems then you might be able to say "it ain't my fault" and end there. In engineering you have to be able to work through the problem, if someone up the line made an error you need to take that into account and work through it.
Pure math in most cases have an elegant closed form solution, in engineering closed form solutions are the exception.
I have alot of respect for guys who understand theoretical math stuff, I really do admire astrophysics guys. They can based on a mere thought and without any observation develop explainations and predictions. That to me that is the highest form of intellegence, without any clues they can solve problems.
In general Engineering is harder but in extreme cases Theoretical math is much harder.
Pure math in most cases have an elegant closed form solution, in engineering closed form solutions are the exception.
I have alot of respect for guys who understand theoretical math stuff, I really do admire astrophysics guys. They can based on a mere thought and without any observation develop explainations and predictions. That to me that is the highest form of intellegence, without any clues they can solve problems.
In general Engineering is harder but in extreme cases Theoretical math is much harder.
Very true. And that's what I was referring to when I said "higher mathematics". I guess this kind of makes sense. Out of all the sciences, mathematics is very likely the longest lived. People have been counting probably for as long as they've been talking. So I guess it's not too surprising that at the highest levels, mathematics is the most esoteric; the other sciences haven't caught up yet!bishop said:
I'll be damned. Electrical engineering and computer science are always associated with each other, so I thought they would fare about equally. Well, electrical engineering is now perceived as the most difficult major, beating out aerospace engineering, math, physics, and even nuclear engineering, while computer science doesn't have a single vote!
Is electrical engineering that difficult? When I was working at Tim Hortons, I knew one guy who graduated from U of T with a degree in EE who was working there too. I didn't have much respect for the major since then.
Is electrical engineering that difficult? When I was working at Tim Hortons, I knew one guy who graduated from U of T with a degree in EE who was working there too. I didn't have much respect for the major since then.
As with all degrees, there are a few who just get it and make no use of it. There are always people who are able just to squeeze by and get a degree no matter how hard the program. For those people ,they really can't compete against others in a real job, hence tim hortons.
You have to be pretty smart to be a real Electrical Engineer, Electrical engineers are the backbone of companies like Intel,AMD,ATI, these companies use nothing but the brain power of Electrical Engineers to transform a few cents worth of silicon into products they can sell for hundreds and thousands.
If you filled a room with an electrical engineer, a pure math guy, a pure science guy, and a pure arts guy and asked then to learn something totally new I would bet money that the electrical guy would learn it quickest. In undergrad we run a marathon everyday to practice for a real world that moves at a snails pace.
Sadly many electrical engineers shun Electrical engineering and instead choose to chase after stuff like project management and business. I think Electrical Engineers have one of the highest rates of people choosing alternate fields after graduation because undergrad was so tough that they do not want to go through the same stuff in the working world.
You have to be pretty smart to be a real Electrical Engineer, Electrical engineers are the backbone of companies like Intel,AMD,ATI, these companies use nothing but the brain power of Electrical Engineers to transform a few cents worth of silicon into products they can sell for hundreds and thousands.
If you filled a room with an electrical engineer, a pure math guy, a pure science guy, and a pure arts guy and asked then to learn something totally new I would bet money that the electrical guy would learn it quickest. In undergrad we run a marathon everyday to practice for a real world that moves at a snails pace.
Sadly many electrical engineers shun Electrical engineering and instead choose to chase after stuff like project management and business. I think Electrical Engineers have one of the highest rates of people choosing alternate fields after graduation because undergrad was so tough that they do not want to go through the same stuff in the working world.
Arithmetic is what Engineers do - they use math to solve engineering problems. Mathematicians have to advance the field of math, you propose a theory and then prove it. Composing a proof requires creativity, not arithmetic. It is quite different than using a formula you are given to figure something out. Undergraduate math majors generally do not prove anything that has not been proven before, but it is still theorems and proofs, not so much arithmetic.stinkynuts said:
Dude, there is no such thing as "pre-med"Joey Jeremiah said:
In Ontario, you get an undergrad degree, preferably in a science like biology, or bio-chem, or the like, then you apply for med school which is a graduate program. (McMaster has a med program that will take you with a humanities degree though.)
As far as under grad degrees goes, Engineering is by far and away the most difficult discipline.
