<p>I’m someone who walked a line between studying sciences and humanities.</p>
<p>I can say that the hard sciences were very hard for me because it was just learning names and facts and regurgitating them. My mind is a creative mind and not designed for memorizing and regurgitating formulas and factoids that thousands of other people have regurgitated for years and that I couldn’t tell you anything about today. The educational system is structured to reward those types.</p>
<p>By senior year I did not take any tests and all of my classes were more philosophical and focused on writing papers. It was incredible - we were faced with major cultural issues that no one in the world had resolved and had to figure out why they weren’t resolved and propose ways to resolve them. </p>
<p>I don’t know if that’s easier or harder than regurgitating cellular structures and formulas, but boy was it infinitesimally more fasciating and, therefore, far easier for me. I truly had to analyze the depths of human motivation in ways that, I would later realize, most people in the hard sciences simply never considered - even though their work had profound impacts on human motivation. I still remember so much from those classes, too.</p>
<p>Something tells me you didn’t get very far into the hard sciences, at least not into physics. You generally don’t have to memorize any but the most simple formulas for physics; oftentimes (even in AP level) they’re provided for you on the test. You have to be creative in manipulating them. I don’t know too much about chemistry or biology as I didn’t get very far past the memorizing and regurgitating factoids stage in them, but I imagine at higher levels it is just the same.</p>
<p>Really, at higher levels of most subjects, you might just be comparing apples and oranges. I think that a lot of beginning level humanities courses are dumbed down to be accessible to the students who just need to fulfill general requirements, but one can dumb down physics or math only so much before they become totally meaningless.</p>
<p>^^^^
No - I didn’t study physics. I got pretty far in biology. I understand the creativity of manipulating to derive answers. I respect it beyond belief because I can’t do it well. I guess I wasn’t clear. I just meant that, no matter what you have to do to get there, someone’s already figured it out before you - maybe the numbers were different, but unless you’re creating a new theorum, it’s been done.</p>
<p>for every major that’s easy for you, I can give you a grad level course of the same major that will wreck your mind and make you work like a horse for the entire semester/quarter.</p>
<p>I could be wrong, but it seems like with math/science majors, once you’ve got the basics done, it’s just about building on what you know. In the humanities, however, it’s always about producing. It’s about coming up with more ideas and better ways of putting them. I don’t know that producing is as much of a problem in the math/sciences than it is in English/History/Sociology/Psych (I know it’s not a humanity)</p>
<p>Honestly, I do think that some majors are harder than other. Look at the GPAs of science majors and compare that to the GPAs of humanities major. There has got to be a reason for the major discrepancy.</p>
<p>“No - I didn’t study physics. I got pretty far in biology. I understand the creativity of manipulating to derive answers. I respect it beyond belief because I can’t do it well. I guess I wasn’t clear. I just meant that, no matter what you have to do to get there, someone’s already figured it out before you - maybe the numbers were different, but unless you’re creating a new theorum, it’s been done.”</p>
<p>That’s because you have to be very intelligent to make that kind of contribution to science and mathematics. Take for example, the discipline of theoretical high energy physics. This field is very selective. If 10,000 freshmen from CC were to sit down in a room, and if they all tried to become successful theoretical high energy physicists, 1 of them would probably make it all the way through. The selectivity varies for the different engineering disciplines, but in general the reason why you can’t create something new instantly is because very very very smart people sat down before you and worked it out systematically in a manner that has been refined to be superior to anything you can come up with. So once you study how they did it, THEN you can improve things. And boy do the results show, because this **** works. I think that’s the real joy you get out of engineering. You see that the theory works in practice; it’s a slamming confirmation of science (it works *****es!).</p>
<p>In terms of GPAs, shouldn’t we also take into consideration the fact that many college professors curve tests? I’m operating on the assumption that if you compare a humanities major, like English or History, to a science major like chem or bio, your comparing a major that is largely essay based to a major that is largely test based (given, there are obviously lab components as well). I’ve never seen or heard of a curve for essays, but for tests, they’re fairly common. Thus, with a science major, there are going to be people with lower GPAs not because they didn’t do well but because they didn’t do as well as some of their fellow class mates. </p>
<p>Whether or not that’s sound is up to you all, but I think we should also take grading scales and other elements into consideration, too.</p>
<p>The average GPA is still lower in science departments. And we can’t assume that the average science major is lazy. Theres a reason for the curve you know.</p>
<p>All majors are difficult. I would consider Humanities and Social Sciences more difficult, it’s not always easy getting a job right after college. For example I am a history major and the history field is very very very competitive; therefore, I must shine while I am in college. Most scientists have more job opportunities.</p>
<p>Also someone who is interested in theoretical physics will have a more difficult time getting a job than someone interested in applied physics.</p>
<p>mfrancis, I find that reasoning pretty contrived. You might want to shine while at college to get a job in your preferred field; do you think that’s not true of scientists? How many tenure-track physics positions do you think there are? Not that many.</p>
<p>The reason many quantitative majors have an easier time with jobs is that their way of thinking (very analytical and well-founded on the scientific problem solving process) is very applicable to lots of fields. The fact that people have realized that and so hire lots of scientific types doesn’t make science majors easier, just better career feeders.</p>
<p>Anyways, as an anecdotal type of thing - I’ve never heard a sciency-type major say that humanities and social sciences were as a group harder; I’ve heard lots of humanities and social sciences types say that about science types. I’ve also essentially never met a humanities/SS major that could switch to, say, electrical engineering and do really well - I’ve met lots of quantitative majors who could do the opposite.</p>
<p>Art and related things is a bit of a different beast, and I’m not sure how to slot it in. In terms of workload and mental requirements, is it the hardest? Certainly not. In terms of how many people can be very good at it? Probably about as bad as math.</p>
<p>Do little kids say to their mommies that they “want to be a historian?”</p>
<p>NO!</p>
<p>Society’s Elites and Meritocrats want to become Investment Bankers, Lawyers, and Physicians. Thus, Math/Finance, Law/Psychology, and Science majors are the hardest.</p>
<p>Picking a major or loving a major because it’s harder than others is lame. We shouldn’t classify majors as “easy” or “hard” because college isn’t about doing programs because they are easier or harder than others. College is about studying what you love.</p>