jonathan06

What are the easiest majors, and the hardest. I am taking biochemistry right now. Where would this rank in the spectrum? I know it depends on your college but assume an average college.

VTjas81

Depends what you mean by hardest or easiest. Do you mean in terms of workload or difficulty in understanding the subject? In terms of subject difficulty(intelligence required not creativity) ,in general, I would say..



Quantitative majors harder than qualitative

Problem solving harder than rote memorization

Objective harder than subjective


My gf was a biochem major. She said it is harder than biology because of the mechanisms she had to learn. Therefore I would place it above biology but below physics, math, and engineering because the lack of problem solving required.

ndcountrygirl

Biochem is pretty high up there, i'd rank it about the same as physics or math but below engineering. You get so in depth in chemistry and biology knowledge plus all the lab classes you have. Many schools require you to take one or two calculus classes as well as the sciences for biochem.

yrey.com

I think that is a very subjective question, however generally math and sciences tend to be a little harder.

klf1120

Depends on what you consider easy. For me, anything that is a social science or humanities is easy and I can excel at. On the other hand, anything math or natural science is difficult.

So, some people would say that my major Political Science is easy. I wouldn't go that far though. It's easy for me because I love Politics, but there are aspects that make it hard such as political theories. For other people, it would be difficult if they hate politics and such.

It's really a personal view in my opinion.

dukeclassof09

Sociology is known as one of the easier ones.

CUlater21

The answer to this question depends entirely on the individual.

For me, math/science is A LOT easier than any humanities class... but I gather that a lot of people are the complete opposite. I'd also probably flunk out of art school because I'm not creative.

oxypunk151

sociology iv herd coined as the mickey mouse major.

luviet

sociology, communications, most majors that end with the word "studies" (i.e liberal studies), and psychology are generally considered easy majors where i'm from

kaitylin

id say communications. Or speech (if you arent afraid of public speaking).

smurfgirl

just out of curiosity, why would psychology be considered an easy major? Is it because there's no hard math involved?

A lot of people think it's something that you can memorize and spit back at the prof, but in reality, it's more conceptual. I've talked to plenty of psych majors and they have to read statistics...

dukeclassof09

I agree with the comment about psychology - even if it's not using calculus and other math, there are still a lot of scientific (and non-scientific) concepts that you need to understand in order to do well. Many people find psychology classes/tests challenging relative to some other majors.

kinglin

Sociology is what all of the football players here take.

jordanjordan

Many people would be surprised to find out that art majors have scads of work. After MIT, RISD is rated as having the second hardest freshman workload. Art majors have to spend hours and hours in the studio, music majors have to practice for hours and hours, etc., etc.
Furthermore, I often see engineers struggling in required liberal arts classes. It depends on what kind of person you are. Quantitative majors may be harder if you're more of a liberal-arts oriented person, but the reverse is often true as well.
You cannot say that one kind of intelligence is superior to another.

Dranakin

VTjas81: I don't agree with your last point. I think majors that require subjective over objective work is harder. In the former, you actually have to come up with your own interpretation, while in the latter, you just have to find the solution out there that you already know exists. Simplified, I know, but you get the point.

I realize some people will argue that if work is subjective, you can basically justify any BS work, but I disagree. Any professor worth their salt will be able to tell the difference.