Karma & Easy Majors: Is College Worth It?

[Phyisab****]

Yep. The thing with these humanities courses-- like English, philosophy and so on-- is that there is a lot of work, at least at my university. In the one Latin course they expect you to read a book from cover to cover in the first week (a pretty thick book). At my university the degree people think is the hardest is not a science degree, but that's perception, no one can really be certain coz no ones done all the degrees of course.

Biology, chemistry are not difficult, there's just a huge course load, and those are hard sciences.

Actually, there are very few "easy" majors.

I can easily say that reading a book cover to cover is a complete cakewalk compared to some of the hellish weeks I have seen.

 

[Phyisab****]

Accept the fact that you have a genetic predisposition to make life difficult for yourself.

Truth right there.

 

[JaWiB]

Are you suggesting that the only work required in an English course is reading a book? Reading is always the easy part.

I don't know about everyone else, but I'd take 10 hours of physics homework to 2 hours of writing an essay on Virgil. Having taken honors courses in liberal arts subjects, I can say I found them much more difficult than physics. Had I spent as much time on those classes, however, I think I could have done just as well, but I dislike the subject matter so much that it would have been torture.

 

[Phyisab****]

I guess your post is proof that there is just a huge variation in people's natural abilities. But when you say 10 hours of physics homework, I don't even know what that means. Whereas I will quickly write an essay and know that I will get an A. I can invest infinite time into my physics homework, so it's just a question of when to call it a night and preserve your sanity. I guess there are plenty of people who feel the opposite way, I guess liberal arts was really my strong suite, which is why I think it's so easy. This thread may cause me to completely revise the way I view my life.

 

[Phyisab****]

Just to be completely clear, you would rather spend 10 hours trying and failing to solve single problem in electrodynamics, under great duress and the threat of harming your grades, vs spending two hours writing an essay on Virgil? Really? I mean, Really?

 

[JaWiB]

Just to be completely clear, you would rather spend 10 hours trying to solve single problem in electrodynamics, under great duress and the threat of harming your grades, vs spending two hours writing an essay on Virgil? Really? I mean, Really?

If I had a single problem in electrodynamics that was going to have that kind of impact on my grade, then no. But I have spent hours on homework problems in physics and not felt too worn out, whereas essays have a much heavier weight on my final grade, in general. In reality, I'd probably spend many more hours on my essay over the course of a couple weeks and feel stressed the entire time.

 

[Huckleberry]

I've taken math and science classes that are required for liberal arts majors. They are very simple. No studying required. However, I have also had some achitectural engineering courses that I found very difficult and a bottomless time sink. Many minimum requirement arts classes I could sleep through and get an A. I've also had some creative writing classes that wracked my brain for months on end without ever once having the decency to supply me with a correct answer for all my effort.

There may be some perception bias perhaps?

 

[Phyisab****]

I've taken math and science classes that are required for liberal arts majors. They are very simple. No studying required.

It must be perception bias, or it is almost a law of nature that you major in what you think is most difficult. Given the opinions on this thread.

 

[Ronnin]

The bottom line here is that you get what you put into whatever given course of study you take. Once upon a time before I changed my major to finance and accounting I was a computer science major. I can say haven taken the calculus, physics, and programming before I changed the "difficulty" in those courses seemed to all stem from the math and problem solving skills. Did these courses help in my business classes? Yes, I didn't feel treatened by any of the math I encountered or problem solving I faced. In that respect I will definately give it up to the sciences for those "hard science" skills. I thought it was all cake compared to my earlier courses until I hit the upper level accounting and finance courses. I had to study just as hard to make A's in those classes as I did the physics courses because of the volume and depth of the material. Comparing a Calculus class a physics major would take to one a liberal arts major would take is just silly. Most people wouldn't expect a LA major to need the same grasp of calculus as someone who does engineering. I think this is one reason sci-majors tend to look down on everything else because of these kind of short sighted comparisons. I use to think anyone with a music degree was a complete joke too until I actually took a music class and took up an instument myself. Anyone who is REALLY GOOD at anything has had to put the time into get there. RESPECT THAT, no matter what the craft.
If all of these other "easy" majors were so easy you would have a backlog of physicists and engineers easily bumping musicians, CPAs, and lawyers out of their jobs the minute they couldn't find something that payed enough in the science industry. University should be about learning how to work, learn, and deal with time tables, no matter what major you choose to study. There are plenty of people in every given field who found a way to just get by. I know, I come across them all the time. Get out into the real world and you'll find it's much easier to find someone with whatever sheepskin the job calls for than it is to find someone who will actually work, work well with others, and produce something of value.

 

[Chi Meson]

Calculus is a graduate level course for business majors. What a joke. I took that stuff in high school.

Hang on there. A friend of mine working on his MBA was taking a course in some pretty stiff dynamic system, chaos theory mathematics. I took a look at his textbook once and shuddered.

 

[russ_watters]

Actually in the US, we believe that all men are created equal, we don't look down upon others. Where do you live?

Yes, created equal. As in, given the same potential to succeed, at birth. What you do after you are created is how you are defined as a person. And some people learn science/engineering and some learn communications.

Anyway, I went to the Naval Academy and it was refreshing that most people there seemed to understand what majors were hard and what were easy. There was even a saying: "poly sci and fly", which mean that if you wanted to get good grades so you could become a pilot, take poly sci.

 

[russ_watters]

Yep. The thing with these humanities courses-- like English, philosophy and so on-- is that there is a lot of work, at least at my university. In the one Latin course they expect you to read a book from cover to cover in the first week (a pretty thick book).

That is true of some of the humanities courses, but don't confuse a large workload with a hard workload.

 

[turbo]

After some really valuable guidance and advice from my honors advisor, I decided to study something that I loved and not just stuff that would guarantee me a good job. I left Engineering after my freshman year, and pursued a double major in English literature and Philosophy. I didn't mind the work-load because it was all stuff that I enjoyed doing. In the second semester of my Sophomore year, I was carrying 18 credit-hours, and my advisor recommended that I take courses in the theory of education, so that I could qualify for a teaching certificate, if I wanted. I asked when I should take those Education courses, and he said "now". I was aghast, because I had to get the dean's approval to get the 18 credit hours, but my advisor said "he'll approve it". He was right. I used those classes as study-halls, and asked a question every once in a while. Aced all 3 of them. It was then that I realized why my hardest-partying friends were Education majors.

 

[story645]

That is true of some of the humanities courses, but don't confuse a large workload with a hard workload.

Essays are really difficult if you don't know how to do them, read between the lines on the assignments, or are otherwise unskilled at humanities type critical analysis. I've seen so many different liberal arts assignments over the years (including lots of education stuff), and a lot of it is difficult in its own way. I've also seen plenty of engineers flounder dealing with essays that a competent English major would breeze through. It's all about aptitude; some people are better suited for certain tasks then others. Generally though, humanities research papers require far more work than science ones and better integration of sources (which is difficult.) If researchers had paid better attention to their liberal arts courses, maybe more scientific papers would be readable.

I don't know about everyone else, but I'd take 10 hours of physics homework to 2 hours of writing an essay on Virgil.

Same here. I'm a competent writer, but I detest writing papers. I'm also a perfectionist, so I average and hour per page.

you would rather spend 10 hours trying and failing to solve single problem in electrodynamics, under great duress and the threat of harming your grades, vs spending two hours writing an essay on Virgil?

I pretty much chose my majors that way. I wanted a challenge and was always good at liberal arts, so I went for a degree in engineering. My GPA in psychology is significantly better than my GPA in engineering.

 

[Monique]

This is the only place where I hear people saying that Biology would be an easy major, I wonder what they are basing that on. These people either do not know what is involved, or their university has a poor curriculum.

 

[ƒ(x)]

I don't know about you guys, but I like $$$, or rather the things you can do with them

 

[turbo]

I don't know about you guys, but I like $$$, or rather the things you can do with them

If you have some talent and are willing to take risks the money can come to you.

 

[ƒ(x)]

If you have some talent and are willing to take risks the money can come to you.

Yes, some undoubtedly will. No one has ever been payed solely for following their heart.

 

[rootX]

No one has ever been payed solely for following their heart.

Really?

 

[chiurox]

I'm doing computer science engineering and we too have to fulfill some humanities requirements that overlap with what humanities students are taking. What I find is that most of the time for us engineering students, these courses are like "breathers" and "grade bumpers." My university is very strong in both hard sciences and humanities, so it's not a matter of curriculum (in most cases).
They sometimes take as much time as my engineering classes, but at least for me, they don't "inflict" as much mental stress compared to any physics/math/comp sci class I've taken. This doesn't mean that humanities courses are easy though. It just means that for me, it's easier to get a better grade on a humanities course. Another thing to note is that I don't have that literary "flair" when it comes to writing, something that I'm sure people who are serious about "easy" majors (not just there to avoid hard majors) have in abundance.

Particularly in my university, what does annoy me is the fact that humanities courses are worth more units than my math/cs classes, completely disproportional!

I definitely don't look down on any major, in fact, I think there should be a proportional amount of people majoring in both arts/humanities and engineering/science.
When I'm having a hard time with computer science projects, I don't complain to others saying how hard, stressful, painful or whatever it is because I know what I signed up for.

But when I hear people complaining anything along the lines of,
"Fuuuu, my 8-page English essay is due tomorrow and I still have 6-pages to write... I hate this class and the professor, he makes us do this and that...FML!" then I have no compassion for them especially when procrastination from their part is involved and when they sound like annoying children.

One thing that happened to me once was when one girl walked into my dorm room while I was doing some electrical engineering homework and when she saw a bunch of complex-looking equations and integrals, she went like "EWWWWW GROSS!"
I wanted to yell, "GTFO!" but I didn't.

Bottom line, it seems like RESPECT has gone out the window...

 

[story645]

when she saw a bunch of complex-looking equations and integrals, she went like "EWWWWW GROSS!" I wanted to yell, "GTFO!" but I didn't.

Bottom line, it seems like RESPECT has gone out the window...

Most of the humanities people are in awe of the kids who do math and a little bit scared of it, not grossed out. I wish math/science/engineering people showed as much respect towards the humanities and liberal arts as I usually seen given to them.

 

[alysdexia]

Hang on there. A friend of mine working on his MBA was taking a course in some pretty stiff dynamic system, chaos theory mathematics. I took a look at his textbook once and shuddered.

Was it any cubic formula?

 

[alysdexia]

That is true of some of the humanities courses, but don't confuse a large workload with a hard workload.

yes:
hard := !soft
tough := !easy
large := broad; -> great
thick ~ metal; -> deep|broad

 

[chiurox]

Most of the humanities people are in awe of the kids who do math and a little bit scared of it, not grossed out. I wish math/science/engineering people showed as much respect towards the humanities and liberal arts as I usually seen given to them.

Yeah, but in her case it was kind of like "Ew... why are you doing this to yourself?" And I also forgot to say it was during one night of the week, where people (mostly non-engineers) go out to party...
But in most cases you're right, when you tell people you're doing some kind of engineering, their response are usually "Wow..."

And about the reverse happening, well, at least I do show awe towards humanities and liberal arts because when I see some stuff they're reading like Hegel and Spinoza, my mind is usually blown away...

 

[Evo]

Yeah, but in her case it was kind of like "Ew... why are you doing this to yourself?" And I also forgot to say it was during one night of the week, where people (mostly non-engineers) go out to party...
But in most cases you're right, when you tell people you're doing some kind of engineering, their response are usually "Wow..."

And about the reverse happening, well, at least I do show awe towards humanities and liberal arts because when I see some stuff they're reading like Hegel and Spinoza, my mind is usually blown away...

Her remark was just too stupid.

 

[Dembadon]

Where do the pretentious attitudes come from? It's like a flippin' sporting event. One "team" against the other "team" in a game to show who is superior. Who cares what program is more rigorous? Does it make people feel better about themselves to say that a given program is more intellectually demanding?

I am majoring in physics and have always loved maths and science, but it would be extremely foolish and pompous of me look down my nose at the arts majors. Explicating a short story by Hemingway isn't highly challenging; so what? Is it not enjoyable?

I'd rather converse with a humble, well spoken, and educated arts major than an arrogant, myopic scientist.

Edit: I see more value in being a well-rounded individual. I desire to become educated in both areas so as to not limit my perspective on the things I'll encounter in my lifetime.

 

[Jack21222]

Explicating a short story by Hemingway isn't highly challenging; so what? Is it not enjoyable?

I suppose it might be enjoyable for lesser minds.

*ducks*

don't ban me, it was a joke

 

[Ben Niehoff]

Dembadon, I suppose then you haven't yet met the philosophy major who claims to understand quantum mechanics better than you do.

 

[Dembadon]

I suppose it might be enjoyable for lesser minds.

*ducks*

don't ban me, it was a joke

I am but a mere mortal on PF. I have no power over you.

Dembadon, I suppose then you haven't yet met the philosophy major who claims to understand quantum mechanics better than you do.

I do have a friend in his senior year as a philosophy major and conversations with him are, at times, a bit frustrating. His default answer when cornered is, "You're just not perceiving it correctly." Grrr.

However, I've never belittled him because of his choice of major. He is an intelligent person regardless.

 

[turbo]

From my Sophomore year on, I carried a double major in English Literature and Philosophy. Because I did not start in Liberal Arts, I had to play catch-up and carry very large course-loads to get on track. It was a lot of work, but I didn't mind because it was a lot more fun than engineering (my first choice). I really enjoyed both qualitative and quantitative analyses (the lab thrusts of engineering chemistry courses), but much of the rest of the curriculum left me cold. I'm not going to turn up my nose at "easy" majors. My double major was "easy" because I loved what I was doing.

 

[rewebster]

My double major was "easy" because I loved what I was doing.

that's the most important thing too, I believe. If someone likes what they're studying, they're going to spend a lot of time even before they may take a course, reading, doing, etc.

A lot of it is how much of the 'course' you know before you even take the course.

The high schools I went to didn't have any college type credit courses. I didn't even know they existed until I got to college (too late).

I found out about about 'tests' to bypass the course, signed up for the botany one though, and with two weeks or so of studying, passed. I think they were called comp tests, if I remember right.

One regret is I wish I would have bought the Calc book for that course (calc), I probably would have gotten a better grade--they didn't offer calc in the high schools I went to.

 

[turbo]

that's the most important thing too, I believe. If someone likes what they're studying, they're going to spend a lot of time even before they may take a course, reading, doing, etc.

I had already been studying foreign religions since high-school. I had a large library of literature that was left in the house that my parents bought when I was 10. I had Dickens, Twain, Hawthorn, Verne, Melville, etc, etc, etc. None of that was really supported in HS, but in college I found a home.

 

[Smurf]

To everyone hating on the liberal arts majors: I wonder if you've ever taken an upper-level course in any of these disciplines. The first year courses are largely introductory, and if you're already good at memorization I can't see them being too difficult for anyone (although this can vary). It's not until you get to 3rd and 4th year courses when professors start expecting you to write 20 page papers which can take weeks to months to complete.
Furthermore, I'd like to re-iterate pengwino's point that difficulty varies depending on department. If you take a political science course at a university with a crappy political science department, it could be very low quality. However, if you got to my University, which is very well known for its political science department, it is often much more difficult.
Also, courses vary in difficulty. There are ridiculously easy courses, and then there are the ones with the good professors who kick your ***.
Actually, another point. I haven't taken any sciences apart from two math electives, so I don't know what its like there. But I gather from talking to some other students that getting about 50% on an exam can be considered quite good. I also think using the Bell curve is more common than in the social sciences. So consider that in order to get into a decent M.A. program in political science in Canada, you usually have to have all A's, at least in your last 30 credits or so. Maybe that is the same in sciences, maybe not.

Now some comments:

Same here. I'm a competent writer, but I detest writing papers. I'm also a perfectionist, so I average and hour per page.

Holy ****, you can do a page every hour?

But in most cases you're right, when you tell people you're doing some kind of engineering, their response are usually "Wow..."

Heh, when I meet an engineering student, my response is usually "Great... another pretentious jackass who thinks he's smarter than everyone else." (Not that that's universal, but it certainly seems that way at my university)

Dembadon, I suppose then you haven't yet met the philosophy major who claims to understand quantum mechanics better than you do.

Yeah but they have to do that. EVERYONE makes fun of philosophy. They have no allies.

I can easily say that reading a book cover to cover is a complete cakewalk compared to some of the hellish weeks I have seen.

You know we don't actually get marked for just reading, right? We have to actually do something with it afterwards. I know reading a science textbook cover to cover would be a complete cakewalk compared to some of the hellish weeks I've seen.

 

[DanP]

Then you have the pre-meds who just want A's and don't care about being educated, they just want their 4.0 so they can get into some med school and rack up $200k worth of debt so they can become a rich doctor some day. I'm going to be treated/have my kids taught by these people? :( SAD FACE.

Oh well, back to feeling superior to the "others".

First of all, you shouldn't be annoyed with easy majors. Yes some are easier then others. Who cares ? You took a decision to learn a harder curriculum. Stick to it, and do what it takes. If you don't want that anymore, switch to an easy major and enjoy your life. Make your decisions, and stop being annoyed by chimeras.

And about pre-meds. Get off their case. Many of those ppl will go to med-school, which is one of the *hardest* schools ever. When their are finished, they'll go on for a very though residency period. In my country is 5 years. Probably it's duration is similar in US.
Don't make statements about future MDs that they don't want to be educated. Many will end up learning more than in any other profession I know. And besides, have you ever took a physiology class , or an anatomy class ? The sheer volume alone of what you learn only in those classes can be overwhelming for many.

 

[story645]

Holy ****, you can do a page every hour?

? 1 page/hour feels really slow to me.

In my country is 5 years. Probably it's duration is similar in US

Even longer in harder/more specialized fields. Neurosurgery is about 12 years. There's also the whole saving lives aspect, which most other professions just don't have.

. So consider that in order to get into a decent M.A. program in political science in Canada, you usually have to have all A's, at least in your last 30 credits or so. Maybe that is the same in sciences, maybe not.

Sciences are just as bad in their own way, and just as/more competitive because there are less phD spots and most phD spots are paid for by the school.