I don’t buy this… college grading is based on standard distribution curving most of the time. This means regardless of what class you take, the top 10 percent or so are A, next 20 or so are B’s, etc… This doesn’t differ by majors. Why do people say its easier to get a high GPA in english than it is in engineering? Grades are based on percentiles, so in either major you have to simply be in the top 10 percent or so to get a high GPA. I’m not saying getting high GPAs are hard… I’m just dont see why people say its harder for engineering majors to get high GPA and its easier for Humanities majors.
I don’t think grading is based on a curve like that most of the time. The vast majority of professors at my university don’t grade like that. Usually any curve applied is linear. For example, if the highest score on the test is a 80%, that becomes 100% and everyone gets 20% added. Or one of my professors is fond of curving so the class average on a test is a 75% if the average on the test is lower than that; again a linear curve.
I don’t think the bell curve/standard distribution curve is used that much anymore at all. It’s really not a fair way to do it. If the top 10% of a class has a 98% and you have a 97%, you get a B, and that just isn’t right.
Engineering majors have to take a lot of really hard classes.
Engineering majors do have to take harder classes, and many of the students who pursue engineering excel at math. I think that engineering courses are more competitive for that reason.
Most of my classes do not have a limited number of A’s, i.e. they are not based on percentiles.
I have a kid in each type of major (okay, Physics & not engineering, but similar). Honestly, those classes are MUCH harder than the classes my humanities kid took.
@intparent Maybe for you…I had to drop my introductory history class quarter because it was taking way too much time and I couldn’t allocate enough time for my STEM classes. In my introductory STEM classes, I excel however.
@guineagirl96 All my professors thus far used a std dev curve or used preset grade boundaries. Whether it will change in my future classes, I am not sure.
Also, teachers know what rigour to put in the class. They aren’t gonna rely on the curve to fix the grade scale perfectly. They wouldn’t make a class so easy as to where 10 percent of the class gets 98’s…
Usually teachers make the class hard enough as to where the average grade would expect to be around a 65 or so, and would curve up 10-15 percent using an std dev curve.
@azwu331 huh? history majors excel at history… english majors excel at composition… biology majors excel in science… whats your point on engineering majors excelling at math have anything to do with this?
While your experiences with one particular history course may be to the contrary, the general consensus is that Humanities courses are easier relative to STEM ones. If an Engineering major enrolled in a senior-level English course on Shakespeare or a senior-level History class on the Roman Republic, they’ll probably do okay if they put in the proper time and effort – however, if a History major enrolled in a senior-level Thermodynamics course, it is likely that they’d fail regardless of how much effort and time they put into the class. (This isn’t a value judgment on the Humanities or Engineering, it is just the nature of those subjects.)
Also, many Humanities courses have a degree of subjectivity - i.e. there is no absolute, perfect answer. If asked to write a 10 page essay on Hamlet and the portrayal of clinical depression, there is a near infinite number of ways to approach and execute such an assignment successfully. However, answers to problem sets in Multivariable Calculus are far more objective - so if the answer is 4, you better get “4”, otherwise it’s marked wrong.
@preamble1776 well NO DUH. Upper Div engineering courses have pre requisites where are many humanities classes don’t. Doesn’t necessarily mean one course is harder than the other.
You really just want people to agree with you, don’t you?
Why ask a question that demands an explanation yet argue with everyone that gives you one?
@iamjack - If a class requires that you take an entire series of upper level math classes in order for you to succeed, it is by definition more difficult than a class that doesn’t demand such rigorous prerequisites.
Upper division Humanities courses tend to require an individual to read, write, and think critically/analytically whereas upper division Engineering courses demand comparable analytical skills IN ADDITION to a mastery of various levels of mathematics.
I’m not sure what you’re trying to prove – by and large, it is easier for Humanities majors to earn higher GPAs. This phenomenon is not anomalous. I know far more History and English majors with 3.8+ GPAs than Computer Science or MechE majors.
Across the board, STEM GPAs tend to be lower than Humanities. Whether it is harder material, more quantitative assessments or whatever, the reality is that at schools from Harvard to Podunk U, STEM GPAs trend lower. Princeton tried for a time to apply bell curve grading- and it was so unpopular that they have pulled it.
Both at the same college?
http://www.gradeinflation.com/tcr2010grading.pdf (figure 3) suggests that humanities grades average about 0.3 higher than natural sciences, and 0.1 higher than social studies and engineering (the latter two average about 0.2 higher than natural sciences).
No, at separate colleges. But I still think the physics major is going to be harder at the same college.
I think there is something to be said about the pre-requisites. I was able to jump in to upper level humanities classes at my well known research university, and get good grades (As) in second semester of freshman year of college. Strong reading, analysis, and writing skills were all I needed. A high level math or engineering or physics class requires a lot more pre-req knowledge.
To reiterate @intparent’s point – I took a graduate (600 level) English course last semester (fall of Sophomore year); while it was certainly challenging, I still managed to receive an A. Had I taken the equivalent course in STEM, I would’ve been up the creek without a paddle. (I don’t even think my school would give a Political Science major permission to take a graduate science/math course.)