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This blog is inspired by:
On May 01 2009 06:23 L wrote:
why do poli sci majors even get an equivalent level degree if they'll complain about going to take biochem classes, but biochem majors have no problems taking poli sci classes?
And is also something I've been randomly thinking about from time to time, so I figured instead of study for my midterm I'll spend a bit of time discussing this and see if anyone else has some interesting thoughts/ideas about it.
*(Disclaimer: the following shit is my personal opinion*
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Alright so I know anybody in college has dealt with this once at least; people referring to certain majors as "hard" and certain majors as "easy". I think this is true to an extent, but in large part I think it is false. Why? Because I think people equate the ease or difficulty of a class with the ability to get a good grade. Sure, grades have something to do with it, but I don't think that tells the entire story. I'll start with something like bio vs poli sci (since that's the quote that motivated me to write this blog).
I also have some personal experience with this, since I met this girl who's a bio major recently and I told her I was a poli sci major and she said "oh isn't that an easy major?". Obviously as the quote says, I think people think Poli Sci is an "easy" major because you can see people who are Bio (or any non poli sci major) majors take Poli Sci classes and do well in them. Does that make it easier? I would argue no. I WOULD say that it is easier to get a good grade in a Poli Sci class purely because of the bullshit factor. I can guarantee everybody has randomly bullshitted a paper at one point in their lives and gotten an A on it and said to themselves "man that shit was easy I didn't even study for that A." That doesn't necessarily mean the material was easy, but I've found that it is a lot easier to get by bullshitting papers where you at least have some sort of idea what you are talking about.
With Science that isn't the case. If you have an exam (like I had in ochem last quarter) and one of the questions asks you to draw Adenine; you can't bullshit that. You HAVE to know exactly how to draw it. So there is a certain degree of difficulty here because it requires quite a bit of memorization to be successful in science oriented classes. The reason (imo) non science majors struggle in science classes is not because they are harder per se, but because memorization is involved.
I have a very good memory, and I can study if I want to - but if there is something I am absolutely not interested in, I have a lot of trouble forcing myself to study, and it becomes ineffective and I end up not remembering as much as if I were studying something I was interested in. As a result, I'm not able to memorize science stuff, not because it is hard, but because I just can't force myself to do it. In my opinion, anyone reasonably smart will be in a similar position.
There are some crazy-smart people who are just good at everything and can look at something once and retain it no matter what it is, but I'm talking about maybe a slightly above-average/average college student. Again, it's not necessarily because bio, or any other science is HARDER, it's just that because there is primarily a different skillset involved in being able to do well in a class, the grades are harder to get in science classes.
Poli Sci classes don't require memorization, all you have to do is read stuff, follow lectures, and write a paper or two. Even if you don't understand everything, if you have a general idea of what's going on you can possibly write a decent paper. So it is easier to get good grades comparatively.
If you get really deep into political science and you are engaging in serious researching/writing, you can't just bullshit. Anyone who takes poli sci really seriously would know that serious work goes into hammering out a finely polished finished product. Similarly with science, a lot of work and preparation goes into experiments and whatnot. They're equally difficult in their own right.
I just think people only think about grades when referring to a major as "hard" or "easy", which is a mistake IMO. Random example:
Let's say you have a poli sci major named Joe. He's pretty average, but it's Poli Sci, so he'll probably graduate with a 3.3 or something (that's even an above average GPA). The similarly-intelligent bio-major-counterpart of Joe would probably have a lower GPA, 2.8-3.0 or something. I can guarantee you though that in terms of grad school and/or finding a job after graduation, the difference between the two will be fairly negligible. So ya, sure it is probably a bit easier to get better grades as a poli sci major, but ultimately that will have no bearing on the rest of your life. An average poli sci major will become a non-notable political scientist, once you get into grad school and a work environment, you won't be able to bullshit your way through stuff, and so if you've relied on bs'ing your way through classes, you'll suffer. The only difference is that Bio majors need to be on top of their game from the start, since you can't bullshit science - it doesn't make biology inherently harder than political science.
Discuss: Final Note (read spoiler)
+ Show Spoiler + I'm just using bio and poli sci as examples, this pretty much can go for anything... although I would argue there are some exceptions to this rule, SOME THINGS are "easy" and "hard" inherently... but exceptions are few
 
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I encounter this problem quite often with my friend.
I think what is important to realize about "easy" majors is that while they are probably easier to get an A in, it is still just as competitive to get into some sort of graduate program for lots of majors.
For instance, there are tons of psych majors at my university, but the admissions rate for Psychology grad schools is an extremely low percent. Since so many people will have amazing grades in the "easy" psych classes, it can be that much harder to stand out in your application.
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What about Art vs Computer Science?
I'm a CS major and currently taking an art class in which I literally don't study at all/take notes. I just sit there listening to the guy writing on the board, showing pictures, bringing stuff, and just memorize all of it, and always get A's for his papers, projects, and exams.
But in my Programming Languages Concepts class I'm struggling like I'm carrying satan through hell; I'm barely passing it. And I love CS a million times better than I do art.
=S
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at my university people who are public policy/poly sci majors are just dummies that couldn't handle econ classes
i go to u of chicago
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I do agree that there is no such thing as an easy or hard "major" in the context of a major being a particular subject of study. In almost any subject, there is a great amount of depth, such that intelligent people can continue to learn more, and the concept of difficulty does not really apply.
In the context of a major being a baseline amount of effort required to adequately understand the subject, I would say there's certainly a difference in difficulty levels. Some subjects are just easier to grasp. But once again, that doesn't mean the subject isn't deep.
There is often the implication that if you're in an easy major, you must be dumb or lazy, etc. However, intelligence is intelligence no matter what field you're in.
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On May 01 2009 07:41 EsX_Raptor wrote:
What about Art vs Computer Science?
I'm a CS major and currently taking an art class in which I literally don't study at all/take notes. I just sit there listening to the guy writing on the board, showing pictures, bringing stuff, and just memorize all of it, and always get A's for his papers, projects, and exams.
But in my Programming Languages Concepts class I'm struggling like I'm carrying satan through hell; I'm barely passing it. And I love CS a million times better than I do art.
=S
my major in waterloo (supposedly strong/hard cs) is in 2 faculties: faculty of math (i'm taking computer science) and faculty of arts (i'm taking accounting/finance)
my cs classes are a freaking joke compared to the finance ones i have to take even though they're in the "arts" faculty. count your blessings
i introduce myself as an arts major just to see the reaction i get (since normally the audience happens to be like engineers and stuff). i can tell they don't respect it, and it doesn't bother me. i *do* tell them they would fail my, say, corporate finance class, just because if they're having troubles with some stupid C++ course (that i also took, and aced) where even a monkey can get a 90+, then there's no way they'd live through finance
a lot of pre-conceived notions about the easiness/difficulty of majors turn out to be wrong when you actually try it.
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I think this "easy" "hard" distinction comes from the fact that some people get a liberal arts degree and flaunt it like, "I graduated to college, I'm better than you high school graduates and equal to a physics major." Given that I find physics difficult and liberal arts easy some people may not and may feel the same with the two majors reversed, these two people are not equal. Sure the difficulty has made the physics person the "better" person, but he wants to be acknowledged for it too.
Personally, I feel a major isn't the key here, but its what you do with it. Mark Twain was smarter than your average physicist and he concentrated most of his efforts to writing(liberal arts)
/begin rant
90% of Americans are utterly stupid and this doesn't bother me. It is the ones who put no effort into learning and then want to talk to me about things that I actually know something about or better yet, treat me as if they know MORE that me about something they know nothing about.(I do realize the hypocrisy in my argument and I KNOW i do this.)
Perfect example, i was playing counter strike source(ughhh) and someone was talking about starcraft and got the reply "Starcraft is easy, just learn unit spamming and imba combos." This is where my logic goes away and i become an idiot. I said, "No Starcraft is the most balanced game ever made"*Bashes head against wall* He then proceeds to tell me I don't know what I'm talking about and his roomates does LAN RTS tours professionally. I then told him his roommate is bad on a professional starcraft level because anyone can beat him in Korean pro gaming. He then tells me that a Quebec dude used to dominate starcraft and now a Chinese dude does. My rational came back and i just shut up here, but this guy genuinely pissed me off for a few seconds.
People like this should just stfu and stop fooling other idiots.
/end rant
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chemistry and biology majors are chemical engineers who couldn't hack it
^_^
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United States24639 Posts
When my physics major was difficult, it wasn't because of memorization lol...
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You're in denial. Your degree is easy.
What L said doesn't make sense though. Bio degrees are praised a lot higher than any arts degree, so essentially they are higher levels.
I mean, you can get any degree and it'll put you slightly ahead... but Arts degrees are generally really hard to put to any use unless you just want to teach.
It's not just that you can sometimes bullshit in arts degrees... They're easier all around. There's less material, less work, and it doesn't require a huge commitment.
In the end though, it's a personal choice. There's no reason to purposely take a harder path if it doesn't lead to where you want to go. You're better off taking the path of least resistance to get where you wanna go. All you need to tell people who make fun of your degree is what you wanna do with your life, and they'll understand that.
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Awful lot of words there! Trying to convince yourself or the reader?!
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woah woah woah
if you're doing it right science classes aren't that much memorization. It's learning of a bunch of concepts and putting those concepts with a few specific words (such as certain enzymes, etc.). To learn science correctly (as opposed to just memorizing) takes a lot of thought, probably as much as or more than most humanities classes.
Anyway, if it's harder to get a good grade in ______ class, doesn't that mean it's harder to pass the requisite courses, and hence to major in something?
Right now I'm taking a Chem class, a Bio class, a History class, and a few music classes (but let's pretend I'm not taking music classes because that's a whole other can of worms). By far I spend the least time on my History class, it's mostly memorizing dates and names and learning what those names did, but in my chem class I have to learn laws, why those laws make sense, how those laws fit with other laws, and how to apply the laws. To me it's a lot more effort.
Now, I'm a Bio/Biochem major so I'm going to put more effort into my science classes than I am my non-major classes, but I think that since so much of science build off on understanding of other parts of science (Eg, you can't do Biochemistry without a good understanding of cell biology), science majors tend to be harder.
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Yeah I think it's inaccurate to say that 'hard' science majors are more difficult for many people because of memorization .
There may be memorization involved in some sciences (such as certain types of biology, organic chemistry), but for the most part I think the difference is the quantitative precision with which you have to predict the behavior of systems.
In 'soft' sciences (things like psychology, political science etc) to the best of my knowledge you are not making precise predictions, you are just gaining a general idea of the characteristics of systems and trying to create a conceptual explanation of how they might behave. This, in my opinion, is often a considerably easier task, making such majors easier at the undegraduate level for those with decent communication skills.
This is not to say it's easy to really 'know' political science (or anything for that matter) or really contribute anything to the field - it obviously is not - but as others have said the classification of a major as "easy" generally only has to do with the average ability of a student to succeed in terms of GPA relative to effort.
Political science researchers are probably working just as hard as 'hard' science researchers, but because quantitative analytical techniques have not been universally agreed upon (or all that well developed), it's difficult to create an undergraduate curriculum that is rigorous and challenging for the average undergraduate student.
Edit: Sorry to those I essentially repeated - I finished and submitted my post before checking for new ones.
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Also, don't get me started on Music majors. Obviously, there's a huge difference in difficulty depending where you go (for example, a music major at a state school is EZPZLMNSQEZ (Like what Fontong is doing)). BUT I don't go to a state school, I go to Oberlin, and the level of expectation is insanely higher.
Basically if you have too many bad lessons in a row, your teacher has every right to kick you out of his studio, and if no other studios pick you up you're out of a major. Also, we have juries at the end of the first two years in order to make sure that people are doing well enough to continue to the next year (kind of like weeding-out examinations). For each of the last two years, students are expected to prepare a 50 or so minute solo concert, which is looked at similar to juries. All of this is in addition to the fact that we had to audition to get admission in the first place (something like an 8% acceptance rate). But holy crap the people here are good. Like some of the freshmen here are better than juniors and seniors I've heard from other schools, especially in our strings department.
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Baa?21242 Posts
On May 01 2009 08:02 Chef wrote:
You're in denial. Your degree is easy.
On May 01 2009 08:02 Hawk wrote:
Awful lot of words there! Trying to convince yourself or the reader?!
Pretty much sums it up.
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memorizing isn't what's hard about science classes...
what..? maybe biology, but you can't say that for all sciences.
The reason (imo) non science majors struggle in science classes is not because they are harder per se, but because memorization is involved.
i mean please correct me if im wrong, i'm just a high school senior taking college freshman classes
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Arguably, it's like StarCraft races. At the pro level, in which every facet of the field is studied to great depths, they may be equal, but that doesn't exclude the possibility that all fields don't have the same learning curves.
Edit: Added "don't".
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haha starcraft race analogy, clever
actually this could turn out ugly
-looks at xeris unit icon-
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On May 01 2009 07:52 KOFgokuon wrote:
chemistry and biology majors are chemical engineers who couldn't hack it
^_^
chemie ftw! ^_^
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^Well, I'm not trying to incite him, I'm just suggesting a possibility. And I'm not suggesting which I think are more difficult among majors, or even which races I think have harder learning curves. Merely something to consider.
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Contrary to the saying, rocket science is actually really easy.
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United States47024 Posts
Honestly, a debate about easy/hard majors is fairly pointless, IMO. Even from reading this thread, one can tell that different schools have different difficulties across majors. With the wide range of specialties at different schools, its nigh-impossible to say that a major is universally hard or easy at all schools.
Coupled with this is the fact that everyone only has one major (sometimes 2), so its impossible to speak in a fair manner about different ones. Even if you have 2 majors, its impossible to talk about them fairly, because you might be better at one than the other, but your ego will just say the one you're worse at is "harder" even though it might not be to other people.
On May 01 2009 07:41 EsX_Raptor wrote:
What about Art vs Computer Science?
I'm a CS major and currently taking an art class in which I literally don't study at all/take notes. I just sit there listening to the guy writing on the board, showing pictures, bringing stuff, and just memorize all of it, and always get A's for his papers, projects, and exams.
But in my Programming Languages Concepts class I'm struggling like I'm carrying satan through hell; I'm barely passing it. And I love CS a million times better than I do art.
=S
That's an easy question to answer. Your art class is probably a lower-level class than your computer science class. Obviously, an intro class in ANY field is going to be easy, relative to the higher level classes. I'm sure there are art students that took an intro-level programming class and had your exact same thoughts.
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Being a film major is pretty fucking easy in my experience (at least compared to what I hear from my friends regarding their majors).
Although I guess the trade off would be that after we graduate it's pretty fucking hard getting a decent paying job unless we have an outstanding demo reel.
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United States24639 Posts
On May 01 2009 08:35 vAltyR wrote:
Contrary to the saying, rocket science is actually really easy.
How did you arrive at the conclusion that rocket science is really easy? I'm intrigued.
@thread: My technical courses were easier for me when you factor in motivation.
If I was a major in a much different field, I'd be unable to dedicate myself. Given this, I can't, in good conscious, claim that my major was more difficult than someone in one of those other fields since those students apparently can do it.
But... it still was frustrating when people in certain majors/schools at my university would be joking around night after night while I constantly had a lot of shit to do -_-
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On May 01 2009 07:52 KOFgokuon wrote:
chemistry and biology majors are chemical engineers who couldn't hack it
^_^
QFT ChE major requries the most units out of all BS majors.
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I think its fairly obvious that there are different levels of difficulty in different degrees. Nearly everyone I've ever talked to has seen a roughly equivalent hierarchy across a number of very competitive universities.
The reverse distinction, that ALL majors are the SAME is ridiculous. They teach different material. The presupposition is that they would be different in difficulty, not the same. Even certain graduate programs are vastly easier than others, or easier or harder than their undergraduate equivalent. What's the next ego boosting pretend statement? That all classes are equally hard? That all sections of the same course are equally hard? That all lectures are equally hard?
That's crazy? I thought so.
So yes, poli sci is a joke of a major. Don't take offense to it, it doesn't mean you personally are dumb, it just means your degree is far easier to obtain than at the bachelor's level than others.
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On May 01 2009 09:37 L wrote:
I think its fairly obvious that there are different levels of difficulty in different degrees. Nearly everyone I've ever talked to has seen a roughly equivalent hierarchy across a number of very competitive universities.
The reverse distinction, that ALL majors are the SAME is ridiculous. They teach different material. The presupposition is that they would be different in difficulty, not the same. Even certain graduate programs are vastly easier than others, or easier or harder than their undergraduate equivalent. What's the next ego boosting pretend statement? That all classes are equally hard? That all sections of the same course are equally hard? That all lectures are equally hard?
That's crazy? I thought so.
So yes, poli sci is a joke of a major. Don't take offense to it, it doesn't mean you personally are dumb, it just means your degree is far easier to obtain than at the bachelor's level than others.
Although you are correct in that some bachelor's degrees will be easier to obtain than others, I don't think that's an appropriate reason to say that a certain major is a joke of a major. Just because some people don't take their major seriously does not mean that the subject that they study is somehow a joke.
In the end, this stuff evens out, because people in each field know the relative worth of a degree. For example, you can come out of Computer Science with a bachelor's and get a decent job immediately. If you want to do any kind of meaningful work in Psychology, you'll need to go to graduate school.
Anyone doing the baseline amount of work in any major won't amount to all that much anyway, regardless of what major they are in. It's just that some majors let more slackers trickle through than others.
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Xeris, you are not the first to consider whether or not there are 'hard' or 'easy' majors. In fact, law school admissions committees run into this problem all the time. Basically law schools recognize that the average GPA in the liberal arts is quite higher then say something like engineering. This was very true at my undergrad where engineers had on average .5 less gpa points than non-engineers, (ironically many engineers who failed out ended up switching to poli sci and history, and did just fine, lol). However, the law school committees are assisted by something called the LSAT a standardized test, which anyone can practice for (it does not require preknowledge or memorization of any kind). Ironically enough most engineers with the lower GPAs do pretty well on this 'poli-sci' esque test called the LSAT. Attaining a poli-sci degree on average takes fewer years then an engineering degree (most engineers take 5 years) and, on average the classes give out better grades (thus less likely to fail out or redo classes). These factors lead me to believe that poli sci as majors is easier than engineering. However, this does not mean the people who choose poli sci majors are dumber or less intelligent than engineers. On the contrary, they are pretty damn smart at least the ones who got into my law school, and I am sure they would have excelled as engineers. They just took an easier path to get to law school, which might make them smarter if you think about it.
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I agree with your term 'bullshit factor'. I had first year Sociology this year and I am guilty of thinking it is an easy major. I barely studied and scored an solid A, and looking back, I can easily attribute my A to bullshitting through plenty of questions and essays. If I wanted to actually learn all the terms, theories, etc. that they offered in that course, it would be pretty damn hard.
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Hey Duran, if you're still reading this here's my comment --
Seems to me it's about how natural the classes are to us. It is natural to have some ability to understand human interactions, like politics, psychology, or languages. Our ancestors needed this to survive in the harsh human climate. In fact, acute sensibilities of many different kinds have had to develop in our brains to generate our social intelligence, which sees lightning-fast distinctions in minor tone changes during a speech, for example.
Our brain is way more naturally geared for the understanding of emotional and social connotation than for abstract thinking like the mathematics of engineering, physics, or systems that are unperceived directly. Our ancestors only needed a minimal knowledge of natural science - enough to make a fire, build a house, hunt, etc. and so our genes don't mesh so well with nanotechnology, biological principles or carbon cycles.
But now, technology has hit a very quick increase compared to 2000, 5000, 10000+ years ago, which was when most of our genes were evolved. So we have an army of people who accept to memorize/understand all these abstract systems, simply because we NEED them now and cannot survive comfortably without them.
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Kentor
United States5784 Posts
On May 01 2009 07:52 KOFgokuon wrote:
chemistry and biology majors are chemical engineers who couldn't hack it
^_^
what do chem Es do afterward anyway? work with oil or in a huge factory thats loud as hell 24/7?
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United States22883 Posts
On May 01 2009 09:37 L wrote:
So yes, poli sci is a joke of a major.
This is where your post goes awry. At most schools, poli sci degrees are easier to obtain than engineering degrees and as you said, this is relative to the schools themselves. There are lots of idiots earning poli sci degrees and not so many idiots earning degrees in physics. But the degree itself is not what earns distinction for a major; physics as a natural science is not inherently more valuable than political science as a social science.
I think you're discounting the work all people in political science do, when you're really only looking to demean those at the bottom of political science, or at the very least, the average person with a political science BA.
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CA10825 Posts
lol good luck trying to go into a test with simply pure memorization on my physiology exams.
you'll most likely end up with a C in the course.
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United States22883 Posts
On May 01 2009 10:21 LosingID8 wrote:
lol good luck trying to go into a test with simply pure memorization on my physiology exams.
you'll most likely end up with a C in the course.
I believe you, and unfortunately at the 100-200 level the same cannot be said for many social sciences. I think this is an indictment against those who teach, rather than the fields themselves.
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can't we all just major in philosophy and get along?
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United States2822 Posts
Some people are good at some things and some aren't.
If you're bad with logic, Comp Sci is going to be harder to you than someone who's good at it.
If you can't think in the abstract, Maths is going to be harder for you than someone who can.
It's all subjective.
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United States2822 Posts
Oh, shitty teachers also skew difficulty in one way or another.
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I don't think that's an appropriate reason to say that a certain major is a joke of a major. I do. When a major is consistently easier across universities, countries, and continents, it points to the core fact that there is simply:
Less material to learn
and
Less complex material to learn.
I think you're discounting the work all people in political science do, when you're really only looking to demean those at the bottom of political science, or at the very least, the average person with a political science BA. Am I? I specifically stated that I was talking about the bachelor level. I know very well that the composition of graduate school and post doctoral work brings out very different people but that doesn't change the fact that a BA in poli sci is a joke.
You admit that poli sci will pass 'idiots' and that the degree is 'easier'. QED.
Your confusion over the value of a degree and the value of a faculty or area of expertise is similarly misled. I never stated that political science as a whole is less useful than physics as a whole. I stated that the accreditation itself is a joke. I think sanitation is massively important, but that doesn't mean I want bachelors given out for tossing garbage into the back of a truck.
Poli Sci shouldn't worry that much, though. There are far worse majors. Physical education comes to mind.
"and today, we're going to have an exam on soccer!"
It's all subjective. No it isn't. It isn't subjectively harder to climb Everest than walk over the hill in your local park. There is are substantial variances in the volume and complexity of work in different fields.
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United States22883 Posts
The disagreement we're having is over the use of 'major.' You're taking it to mean 'BA', others are taking it to mean 'field.'
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From wiki
An academic major, major concentration, concentration, or simply major is mainly a U.S. and Canadian term for a college or university student's main field of specialization during his or her undergraduate studies
And no, I didn't specify BA. I specified bachelors degree, ie BEng BSc BA and so on.
Wasting time on semantics when you already conceded all of the points i needed to make my argument is bad form.
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United States22883 Posts
On May 01 2009 10:36 L wrote:
No it isn't. It isn't subjectively harder to climb Everest than walk over the hill in your local park. There is are substantial variances in the volume and complexity of work in different fields.
Bad analogy. This would be like describing the difference between a 100 level and 600 level course.
A more apt comparison would be whether it's more difficult to play basketball or hockey.
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United States22883 Posts
On May 01 2009 10:43 L wrote:From wiki Show nested quote +An academic major, major concentration, concentration, or simply major is mainly a U.S. and Canadian term for a college or university student's main field of specialization during his or her undergraduate studies And no, I didn't specify BA. I specified bachelors degree, ie BEng BSc BA and so on. Wasting time on semantics when you already conceded all of the points i needed to make my argument is bad form.
No, there was an honest disagreement in terminology but you refuse to acknowledge it because you're a hard headed asshat.
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the bottom line is, any non science/math related major is easier.
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why the fuck do any off you care. are you so absorbed with what society thinks about you to use your own head and think? who the fuck cares what's an easy major or not, you're not doing it and someone else is. who the fuck cares if someone calls your major easy, they aren't doing it you are.
as far as im concerned you're all majors in faggotry
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Bad analogy. This would be like describing the difference between a 100 level and 600 level course.
A more apt comparison would be whether it's more difficult to play basketball or hockey. No, it isn't a bad analogy. If one major presents less material of a related type, or less material of a different type there is still LESS TO LEARN. Engineering pre-newton would have had far less material, and zero calculus. Biochemistry pre 1920s would have been a joke. Math in the time of the greeks would have been trivial by comparison to what we have now.
No, there was an honest disagreement in terminology but you refuse to acknowledge it because you're a hard headed asshat. No, there actually wasn't. A major refers to something. The thing I was referring to. What you're talking about is a field, which is, interestingly enough, not a major. Don't try to play a semantics game when you're cut-and-dry wrong about the usage of the term you're disputing. I specifically mentioned the term bachelor's degree and said that fields have worths independent of the difficulty of accreditation and that the undergraduate level of poli sci is not the same as the graduate and post graduate levels. I really don't understand what else you have to say. None of this changes the fact that political science majors have an easier degree than most.
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United States22883 Posts
On May 01 2009 10:49 Faronel wrote:
the bottom line is, any non science/math related major is easier.
Poli sci actually uses quite a bit of math these days. And what constitutes a science? Is geology harder than psychology?
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why would you have to draw adenine in organic chemistry?
wouldn't that be more of a biochemistry thing?
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United States22883 Posts
On May 01 2009 10:50 L wrote:Show nested quote +Bad analogy. This would be like describing the difference between a 100 level and 600 level course.
A more apt comparison would be whether it's more difficult to play basketball or hockey. No, it isn't a bad analogy. If one major presents less material of a related type, or less material of a different type there is still LESS TO LEARN. Engineering pre-newton would have had far less material, and zero calculus. Biochemistry pre 1920s would have been a joke. Math in the time of the greeks would have been trivial by comparison to what we have now. The fields you're comparing use completely different methodologies, the action of walking/hiking in your analogy. In your example, you use the same set of actions to accomplish different goals, one happening to me much harder than the other. Different majors do not require the same sets of actions.
No, there actually wasn't. A major refers to something. The thing I was referring to. What you're talking about is a field, which is, interestingly enough, not a major. Don't try to play a semantics game when you're cut-and-dry wrong about the usage of the term you're disputing. I specifically mentioned the term bachelor's degree and said that fields have worths independent of the difficulty of accreditation and that the undergraduate level of poli sci is not the same as the graduate and post graduate levels. I really don't understand what else you have to say. None of this changes the fact that political science majors have an easier degree than most.
You've just defaulted to your definition, without giving any regard to other possible definitions. The fact that it's written on wikipedia doesn't make it a universal definition, and the only reason you chose that as your source is because it fits your version of the word. If I were to cite dictionary.com, the exact opposite would be true in my favor. This is exactly a problem of linguistics, so stop it with your mightier-than-thou bullshit over the english language.
3. Education.
a. a subject or field of study chosen by a student to represent his or her principal interest and upon which a large share of his or her efforts are concentrated: History was my major at college.
b. a student engaged in such study.
Neither definition is more correct than the other.
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When psychology was a nascent science and was largely based upon the largely false ramblings of freud, it was likely geology because geology was a far more mature field with a substantial amount of literature and work put into it. Now? Depends again on the volume of material and the complexity of the material. Has psychology caught up? You could probably check objectively by doing a normalized impact rating for the field accounting for rates of in-siting, but that would probably be one of the most comprehensive statistical measurements of academia ever to be produced.
As to what constitutes a science, again a completely semantic question that has nothing to do with political science. Call it political thought or science of power structures for all i care.
The fields you're comparing use completely different methodologies, the action of walking/hiking in your analogy. In your example, you use the same set of actions to accomplish different goals, one happening to me much harder than the other. Different majors do not require the same sets of actions. Academic learning and material types vary far less than the actions required in different sports. What they do vary in is complexity and volume. Not everyone will approach complex material in the same way, but if there's an overall lack of complexity, a larger amount of people will find the material easier. 1+1=2 as a statement is objectively simpler than a computer program. 1+1=2 is also objectively simpler than literary analysis.
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United States22883 Posts
On May 01 2009 11:00 L wrote:
As to what constitutes a science, again a completely semantic question that has nothing to do with political science. Call it political thought or science of power structures for all i care.
I'm glad you've taken the liberty to redirect my comment towards him as if I were saying it to you.
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On May 01 2009 10:43 Jibba wrote:Show nested quote +On May 01 2009 10:36 L wrote:
No it isn't. It isn't subjectively harder to climb Everest than walk over the hill in your local park. There is are substantial variances in the volume and complexity of work in different fields. Bad analogy. This would be like describing the difference between a 100 level and 600 level course. A more apt comparison would be whether it's more difficult to play basketball or hockey.
Ya, hockey is harder, EZ.
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You've just defaulted to your definition, without giving any regard to other possible definitions. Perhaps because I specifically referred to the bachelors degree explicitly, admitted that the provision didn't work in terms of 'field' and the original context from which the term 'major' was picked was specifically a comment regarding biochemistry and political science classes at an undergraduate level.
It isn't that I haven't given regard to other possible definitions, its that WE WERENT TALKING ABOUT THEM. I could come in here and state quite conclusively that there are no better majors because they all have the same rank in the military, but i'd be making the same hamfisted mistake that you made.
If you wanted to use the dictionary.com definition, you could easily assume that I was talking about the relative difficulty of the students themselves. Clearly not what we're talking about, but that doesn't stop you!
But yeah, again semantic argument. You can't dispute my original point because you'll have to try and assert that all faculties provide equally difficult degrees, which is impossible. If not that, you need to deal with the issue of rigorous standardized testing, like the LSAT, which scores science and engineering students well above the political science average despite despite doing a typically 'political science' form of work.
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Undergraduate classes/degrees are all easy and worthless.
Go for your PhD and then you can whine about it.
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On May 01 2009 11:13 miseiler wrote:Undergraduate classes/degrees are all easy and worthless. Go for your PhD and then you can whine about it.
This isnt always true. Lots of people say calculus II at my school is harder thank calculus III. This isn't because calculus III is easier, but because by the time you get through calculus II you realize O SHIT! Why don't i actually do some homework and go to class everyday and try not to be an idiot in my major. Its just relative to where you were at. Sure PhD is harder difficulty, but I find difficulty is more of the state you receive the information in. To reiterate, I am taking a c++ class. This class is slightly less challenging compared to my previous java class. This isn't because its actually easier, on the contrary it is much more difficult. Now that I have gotten a background in CS and I can step back and say ok i need to do these things and I will be ok in this class instead of doing random things when i feel like it and getting lucky/unlucky when test time rolls around. Having said that Yes PhD is going to be WAYYYY harder,but ill be 10x more prepared than freshman year of college.
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I honestly and truly want to work for the CIA as an analyst when I grow up. Looking over the careers and recommended majors poli sci: International Relations seems like the best major to choose. I'm about to graduate from high school and get started on my pathway, and it is weird seeing people talk badly about the major, saying it is a joke, when it can take me in the direction I want to go.
Without having taken the classes I would say that an science/math major will always be harder, but the difficulty doesn't matter to me, what I learn does. Chef had a lot of wisdom in the first page:
In the end though, it's a personal choice. There's no reason to purposely take a harder path if it doesn't lead to where you want to go. You're better off taking the path of least resistance to get where you wanna go. All you need to tell people who make fun of your degree is what you wanna do with your life, and they'll understand that.
The classes for poli sci look interesting and it is almost comforting that I am not going to kill myself in college with this major (although I'd do any amount of work to get where I want). Even if I never get the job I want at the CIA I figure I will still get myself somewhere in the intelligence community. If anyone is a poli sci major mention it in the thread if you would be obliged to answer some questions from a kid who doesn't know much himself.
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United States22883 Posts
On May 01 2009 11:13 L wrote:Show nested quote +You've just defaulted to your definition, without giving any regard to other possible definitions. Perhaps because I specifically referred to the bachelors degree explicitly, admitted that the provision didn't work in terms of 'field' and the original context from which the term 'major' was picked was specifically a comment regarding biochemistry and political science classes at an undergraduate level. It isn't that I haven't given regard to other possible definitions, its that WE WERENT TALKING ABOUT THEM. I could come in here and state quite conclusively that there are no better majors because they all have the same rank in the military, but i'd be making the same hamfisted mistake that you made. If you wanted to use the dictionary.com definition, you could easily assume that I was talking about the relative difficulty of the students themselves. Clearly not what we're talking about, but that doesn't stop you! I was going by your original post in this thread. I didn't check Xeris' first thread, but I see what you mean now.
But yeah, again semantic argument. You can't dispute my original point because you'll have to try and assert that all faculties provide equally difficult degrees, which is impossible. If not that, you need to deal with the issue of rigorous standardized testing, like the LSAT, which scores science and engineering students well above the political science average despite despite doing a typically 'political science' form of work.
LSAT has nothing to do with 'political science' form of work. Are you actually implying that the LSAT provides an indication of anything besides how well you take the LSAT?
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United States22883 Posts
On May 01 2009 11:24 SingletonWilliam wrote:I honestly and truly want to work for the CIA as an analyst when I grow up. Looking over the careers and recommended majors poli sci: International Relations seems like the best major to choose. I'm about to graduate from high school and get started on my pathway, and it is weird seeing people talk badly about the major, saying it is a joke, when it can take me in the direction I want to go. Without having taken the classes I would say that an science/math major will always be harder, but the difficulty doesn't matter to me, what I learn does. Chef had a lot of wisdom in the first page: Show nested quote +
In the end though, it's a personal choice. There's no reason to purposely take a harder path if it doesn't lead to where you want to go. You're better off taking the path of least resistance to get where you wanna go. All you need to tell people who make fun of your degree is what you wanna do with your life, and they'll understand that.
The classes for poli sci look interesting and it is almost comforting that I am not going to kill myself in college with this major (although I'd do any amount of work to get where I want). Even if I never get the job I want at the CIA I figure I will still get myself somewhere in the intelligence community. If anyone is a poli sci major mention it in the thread if you would be obliged to answer some questions from a kid who doesn't know much himself.
Learn multiple languages, and if you want to get into a good grad school (where the CIA usually recruits from), you're going to have to kill yourself a bit in undergrad.  At least during your last two years.
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On May 01 2009 11:13 miseiler wrote:Undergraduate classes/degrees are all easy and worthless. Go for your PhD and then you can whine about it.
Take organic chem I + Il and other 3000's and 4000's chemistry and biology classes then get back to me. If its really easy, your professor doesn't care.
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It seems to provide an incredibly accurate picture of first year success in law school, so lets drop the 'tests prove how well you take tests and only how well you take tests' tangent you're about to embark on.
Break down the material in a major enough and you'll find the core components of it. This is what the LSAT did for law, and law is considered one of the most highly analogous degrees to political science. The fact that constitutional law and political science classes have a nearly 100% direct overlap in material at points is pretty indicative of this. The material is delivered in a slightly different manner, but I can tell you first hand that the examinations in both are nearly identical when compared with those from physics, engineering, biochemisty, computer science, medicine, physiology or anatomy.
Even without the LSAT, you aren't actually dealing with my original assertion because to do so from this angle requires you to say that there is a complete lack of ability to compare between the different forms of material, which I've already debunked. From the original statement of axioms it follows directly that some majors are harder than others; if that is so, while it might be difficult to accurately measure the level of difficulty , there will be a discrepancy. In cases where the discrepancy between the materials is large, the difficulty above mentioned is alleviated and we can make a fairly accurate statement regarding the relative difficulties.
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Bill307
Canada9103 Posts
Hell, I'll be the first to admit that my major, CS, was far, FAR easier than the Engineering majors at my institution. I don't care if my material was easier or harder than theirs, or what our grad school opportunities were like. In the end, the Engineering students I knew spent a LOT more time busting their asses than I ever did: I would have to lack all common sense to say their major was not harder than mine.
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Bill307
Canada9103 Posts
Seriously, how can you sit there, putting in 40 hours a week or less of your own free time to do your schoolwork, claiming your major is not "easier" than someone else's, while another student is putting in 80+ hours a week outside of class just to pass his or her courses?
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Who the hell put 40 hours/week into school, suckas
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It's important to remember that when you're talking worth of degrees, the best one is the one that gets the highest raised eyebrows. If you say you have a degree in art, you get a pretty insignificant one, almost as if to condescend you, if you say computer science, you get a better result, maybe along with a slightly impressed nod. If you say biochemistry or physics, you're fucking awesome, as the eyebrows will tell you.
Edit: I'm a CS major, it was ez mode, don't let anyone tell you differently, just try to keep it quiet so it doesn't lose its prestige.
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I think some majors are different as the undergrad degree has different goals. For example most engineers are done after undergrad but social science majors IE anthro/psych basically require you to go to grad school to use the major so their classes are more prep type giving the background info you need. Like me, I am an Biological Anthropology major specializing in forensics and human osteology. Undergrad was pretty easy for me, but then again I didn't have problems in sciences classes either. But competition for grad school in my major is nuts! Every program takes like1-3 students into it ever year and hundreds, maybe even thousands apply for them. My prof at my undergrad school even said "10-15 years ago you wouldn't have had a problem going to a top school because it wasn't popular" God damn CSI effect --; Everyone wants to be a forensic scientist now! Im just glad as fuck I got into really good program where I am at now, BUT I was rejected by 5 others =\
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On May 01 2009 12:07 Osmoses wrote:
It's important to remember that when you're talking worth of degrees, the best one is the one that gets the highest raised eyebrows. If you say you have a degree in art, you get a pretty insignificant one, almost as if to condescend you, if you say computer science, you get a better result, maybe along with a slightly impressed nod. If you say biochemistry or physics, you're fucking awesome, as the eyebrows will tell you.
Edit: I'm a CS major, it was ez mode, don't let anyone tell you differently, just try to keep it quiet so it doesn't lose its prestige.
I guess my major is awesome then, people seem to be impressed that im in forensic science XD
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So basically the value of your degree is how hard it was?
How about if there was a degree in "learning by heart one billion decimals of pi"? That'd be hard ass shit, I'd admire you if you did that!
Seriously though, how hard you work is overrated compared to how happy you are. I'd rather have happy friends than hard-working ones anyday. Sure, it makes you impressive, I guess. But if you did the degree mostly because it's impressive, that's not impressive, it's pathetic and insecure.
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On May 01 2009 07:56 micronesia wrote:
When my physics major was difficult, it wasn't because of memorization lol...
Physics is hard because it encompasses so many different things, its like its own language and they words are interchangable!
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If you love your major it won't be any work at all!
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On May 01 2009 12:35 Pseudo_Utopia wrote:
So basically the value of your degree is how hard it was?
How about if there was a degree in "learning by heart one billion decimals of pi"? That'd be hard ass shit, I'd admire you if you did that!
Seriously though, how hard you work is overrated compared to how happy you are. I'd rather have happy friends than hard-working ones anyday. Sure, it makes you impressive, I guess. But if you did the degree mostly because it's impressive, that's not impressive, it's pathetic and insecure.
absolutely no one is arguing this
taking personal offense, and trying to lash back?
because THAT would be pathetic and insecure.
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They just took an easier path to get to law school, which might make them smarter if you think about it.
QFT, i think.
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On May 01 2009 14:43 HeavOnEarth wrote:Show nested quote +On May 01 2009 12:35 Pseudo_Utopia wrote:
So basically the value of your degree is how hard it was?
How about if there was a degree in "learning by heart one billion decimals of pi"? That'd be hard ass shit, I'd admire you if you did that!
Seriously though, how hard you work is overrated compared to how happy you are. I'd rather have happy friends than hard-working ones anyday. Sure, it makes you impressive, I guess. But if you did the degree mostly because it's impressive, that's not impressive, it's pathetic and insecure. absolutely no one is arguing this taking personal offense, and trying to lash back? because THAT would be pathetic and insecure.
Heh, read the whole thread man. On the other hand, I should have quoted Osmoses, as I was responding to him. I figured I was close enough below him. Here's what I was answering:
On May 01 2009 12:07 Osmoses wrote:
It's important to remember that when you're talking worth of degrees, the best one is the one that gets the highest raised eyebrows. If you say you have a degree in art, you get a pretty insignificant one, almost as if to condescend you, if you say computer science, you get a better result, maybe along with a slightly impressed nod. If you say biochemistry or physics, you're fucking awesome, as the eyebrows will tell you.
Edit: I'm a CS major, it was ez mode, don't let anyone tell you differently, just try to keep it quiet so it doesn't lose its prestige.
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I think a lot of engineering/physics/cs majors are just bitter because to do well it consumes their lives. I don't know what it takes to get a political science degree, but I used to sleep in the computer lab at school. There were other people there as well. Some of the capstone EE classes, the digital class in particular, required 60 - 70+ hours a week sometimes. Every f*cking EE class had a lab.
When I walked into the cs computer lab at any time during the last 1/3rd of the quarter there were groups of people working at all hours.
Physics was another area of pain. Just to solve the classical mechanics homework we had to band together and work late....just to get answers might be correct.
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btw, I think these endless debates with no resolution are a good example of why hard science is more difficult than arts. In a debate like this, everyone has an "opinion" and is never really truly right or wrong. However, if a program doesn't compile or your space shuttle explodes, there is clearly an objective "opinion" telling you that you are just flat out wrong. So as far as a Bachelors degree goes (and probably higher degrees as well), one is clearly harder than the other.
In the grand scheme of things however, I think that science fields are actually easier than other fields, for precisely the reason that makes them harder academically. That is, you have no objective source telling you whether you are right or wrong, yet there is only one objective truth.
Truth can fall into 4 categories: evident and provable, not evident and provable, evident but not provable, and not evident and not provable. Scientific truths are provable. The arts are not provable. The reason science seems harder is because it forces an individual to come to terms with truth itself through experiments. People are so biased, however, that it can be nearly impossible for them to accept truth, even when it is evident.
What I'm saying is that unless truth is forced upon people there is very very little chance they will actually find and accept it. Thats why theology isn't usually taught at universities, because there is so little that forces people to come to a correct conclusion that it cannot even be discussed. Political science or sociology on the other hand at least has polls and statistics that forces at least some amount of truth on people (numbers are objective and true).
However we know how religion threads turn out, and indeed it is the "hardest" field there is.
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Again I'm referring to something different, for me school is not just about the grades you get and the random degree that comes from it, your major is something that should be guiding your career. MOST people major in something that they want to eventually have a career in.
Majoring in political science, I want to become a political scientist (who woulda thought). What I am arguing is that political science is not 'easier' than something like bio. Look at a top scholar in comparative politics and the amount of research he does writing his books and compare that to the amount of work some great microbiologist does... the amount of work, probable income, and prestige these people get is going to be essentially the same. So sure, maybe the poli sci guy had to work less to get his undergrad degree, but it doesn't mean his shit is easier than bio shit.
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Baa?21242 Posts
On May 01 2009 16:08 Xeris wrote:
the amount of work, probable income, and prestige these people get is going to be essentially the same.
It's not gonna be the same.
Also differentiate between "amount of work" and "quality of work." I can "work" for 18 hours a day sitting in front of my computer without actually producing anything. And there's the fact that somet hings are just -easier- to do than others, so despite consuming the same amount of time, less effort is needed to, say, read something than to monitor multiple experiments at once with exact timetables you need to follow.
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On May 01 2009 16:08 Xeris wrote:
Again I'm referring to something different, for me school is not just about the grades you get and the random degree that comes from it, your major is something that should be guiding your career. MOST people major in something that they want to eventually have a career in.
Majoring in political science, I want to become a political scientist (who woulda thought). What I am arguing is that political science is not 'easier' than something like bio. Look at a top scholar in comparative politics and the amount of research he does writing his books and compare that to the amount of work some great microbiologist does... the amount of work, probable income, and prestige these people get is going to be essentially the same. So sure, maybe the poli sci guy had to work less to get his undergrad degree, but it doesn't mean his shit is easier than bio shit.
to be fair you should look at averages, not the top
edit: actually, isn't this thread about majors?
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I think the problem with this thread is that people are way too focused on how high the baseline requirement for a degree is. It's a largely trivial thing to argue over, as it really shouldn't matter to anyone whether their degree was easier to get than someone else's. People know that certain degrees are tougher, and those degrees have greater value as a result.
Also, anyone aiming to do something meaningful with their major will never do just the bare minimum.
On May 01 2009 15:29 fight_or_flight wrote:
I think a lot of engineering/physics/cs majors are just bitter because to do well it consumes their lives.
I agree with this. Bitterness seems to run deep in this thread.
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On May 01 2009 16:08 Xeris wrote:
So sure, maybe the poli sci guy had to work less to get his undergrad degree, but it doesn't mean his shit is easier than bio shit.
It doesn't mean that it isn't easier either.
I bet that most on these boards can't even understand a physics paper, even if you got a physics bachelor, and this is just the abstract, and then the hard sciences is not just about being able to understand and write things like this, it is also about being able to come up with models to why this works like it does based on previous knowledge, figuring out which experiments are actually relevant to do and so.
The bachelor is the basics everyone have to learn. Then when you do your phd you take as much time again to learn what your field is really about. And not even the physics professor next door would be able to understand this paper fully unless he have been working on the exact same subject before.
I know a guy who is just about done with his phd in physics, it took him months to actually understand the paper he was basing his work on. Now I do not say that all of this means that physics is harder, just that in every quantitative way it is.
Field dependent electroluminescence from amorphous Si/SiNx multilayer structure
We report field dependent electroluminescence (EL) from as-deposited amorphous Si/SiNx multilayer structure, where a-Si well layer thickness ranges from 1 to 4 nm, while SiNx barrier layer thickness is fixed at 3 nm. When the sample is applied by a low forward voltage Vbias (<6 V, i.e., 2.5 MV/cm), the dominant peak of EL is located at the lower energy region from 740 nm shifted to 660 nm with reducing the thickness of the a-Si well layer from 4 to 1 nm. However, under a high applied Vbias(>6 V), another EL band at the higher energy region is observed to be peaked at about 530 nm, which is independent of the well layer thickness. Photoluminescence (PL) investigation performed under optically pumped by the 325 nm line and the 488 nm line, respectively, also demonstrates the pump energy dependence of PL peaks. We interpreted these interesting phenomena of electrical and optical pump energy dependence of light emission by using different luminescence mechanisms in the a-Si/SiNx multilayer structure. ©2009 American Institute of Physics
http://scitation.aip.org/getabs/servlet/GetabsServlet?prog=normal&id=APPLAB000094000016161101000001&idtype=cvips&gifs=Yes
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The worst is art majors.
I'm an animation major and when people hear that I do art for my college work they act like it's so easy.
I spend hours upon hours every day working on my projects, and it's wayyyyyy harder than any of the stupid memorization classes i'm forced to take for requirements (science classes, history classes, etc). Memorization is easy shit that a braindead person can do. It doesn't take any thinking, only repetition. Using creativity to make art that takes many hours is way more difficult.
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United States22883 Posts
On May 01 2009 16:03 fight_or_flight wrote:
btw, I think these endless debates with no resolution are a good example of why hard science is more difficult than arts. In a debate like this, everyone has an "opinion" and is never really truly right or wrong. However, if a program doesn't compile or your space shuttle explodes, there is clearly an objective "opinion" telling you that you are just flat out wrong. So as far as a Bachelors degree goes (and probably higher degrees as well), one is clearly harder than the other.
In the grand scheme of things however, I think that science fields are actually easier than other fields, for precisely the reason that makes them harder academically. That is, you have no objective source telling you whether you are right or wrong, yet there is only one objective truth.
Truth can fall into 4 categories: evident and provable, not evident and provable, evident but not provable, and not evident and not provable. Scientific truths are provable. The arts are not provable. The reason science seems harder is because it forces an individual to come to terms with truth itself through experiments. People are so biased, however, that it can be nearly impossible for them to accept truth, even when it is evident.
What I'm saying is that unless truth is forced upon people there is very very little chance they will actually find and accept it. Thats why theology isn't usually taught at universities, because there is so little that forces people to come to a correct conclusion that it cannot even be discussed. Political science or sociology on the other hand at least has polls and statistics that forces at least some amount of truth on people (numbers are objective and true).
However we know how religion threads turn out, and indeed it is the "hardest" field there is.
Start studying epistemology. Upper level math/physics fall out of the realm of experimentation and proving, and "numbers are objective and true" is just a completely false statement. I can take a set of data and run regression analyses until it "proves" anything. Polls are one of the worst forms of quant work in poli sci/economics.
Nothing is value-free. Not even the natural sciences. Strangely, their professional scholars usually do a better job of admitting this than many quants in the social sciences.
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United States22883 Posts
On May 01 2009 15:29 fight_or_flight wrote:
I think a lot of engineering/physics/cs majors are just bitter because to do well it consumes their lives.
It goes both ways. Social science members are often bitter because they're insecure about what they do.
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United States22883 Posts
On May 01 2009 11:43 L wrote:
Break down the material in a major enough and you'll find the core components of it. This is what the LSAT did for law, and law is considered one of the most highly analogous degrees to political science. This is a public misconception. If I were heading to law, public policy or philosophy would be my first choices.
The fact that constitutional law and political science classes have a nearly 100% direct overlap in material at points is pretty indicative of this. It's not indicative of anything, except that you want to look at specific points where they seem most similar. The same could be down for economic theory and calculus, for example. Reading Arendt, studying game theory or examining the House isn't going to help you be a lawyer at all. Now, it may help you be a better politician, which is the eventual goal for many prospective lawyers, but the two don't directly feed into each other.
The material is delivered in a slightly different manner, but I can tell you first hand that the examinations in both are nearly identical when compared with those from physics, engineering, biochemisty, computer science, medicine, physiology or anatomy. Ok, so which part of AR/LR/RC is more suited to people studying political science than people studying physics? The games may actually be more conceivable to many engineers and programmers than to poli sci majors.
You're making an enormous inference by relating test scores by major to quality of degree program. The % of poli sci students who take the test is extremely high, largely because they think poli sci -> lawyer -> politics, and many are dumb as fuck, whereas only a small % of people in natural sciences transition to law school.
you aren't actually dealing with my original assertion because to do so from this angle requires you to say that there is a complete lack of ability to compare between the different forms of material, which I've already debunked. From the original statement of axioms it follows directly that some majors are harder than others; if that is so, while it might be difficult to accurately measure the level of difficulty , there will be a discrepancy. In cases where the discrepancy between the materials is large, the difficulty above mentioned is alleviated and we can make a fairly accurate statement regarding the relative difficulties. I "dealt" with your original assertion over and over again, by agreeing that it's more difficult to earn a degree in some fields than others. This was in my very first post. You're incredibly argumentative considering I only contended one sentence out of your entire post.
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On May 01 2009 21:04 Jibba wrote:Show nested quote +On May 01 2009 16:03 fight_or_flight wrote:
btw, I think these endless debates with no resolution are a good example of why hard science is more difficult than arts. In a debate like this, everyone has an "opinion" and is never really truly right or wrong. However, if a program doesn't compile or your space shuttle explodes, there is clearly an objective "opinion" telling you that you are just flat out wrong. So as far as a Bachelors degree goes (and probably higher degrees as well), one is clearly harder than the other.
In the grand scheme of things however, I think that science fields are actually easier than other fields, for precisely the reason that makes them harder academically. That is, you have no objective source telling you whether you are right or wrong, yet there is only one objective truth.
Truth can fall into 4 categories: evident and provable, not evident and provable, evident but not provable, and not evident and not provable. Scientific truths are provable. The arts are not provable. The reason science seems harder is because it forces an individual to come to terms with truth itself through experiments. People are so biased, however, that it can be nearly impossible for them to accept truth, even when it is evident.
What I'm saying is that unless truth is forced upon people there is very very little chance they will actually find and accept it. Thats why theology isn't usually taught at universities, because there is so little that forces people to come to a correct conclusion that it cannot even be discussed. Political science or sociology on the other hand at least has polls and statistics that forces at least some amount of truth on people (numbers are objective and true).
However we know how religion threads turn out, and indeed it is the "hardest" field there is. Start studying epistemology. Upper level math/physics fall out of the realm of experimentation and proving, and "numbers are objective and true" is just a completely false statement. I can take a set of data and run regression analyses until it "proves" anything. Polls are one of the worst forms of quant work in poli sci/economics. Nothing is value-free. Not even the natural sciences. Strangely, their professional scholars usually do a better job of admitting this than many quants in the social sciences.
I'm curious as to why you think "upper level physics" falls out of the realm of experimentation. As far as I know string theory (and related fields) is the only area of research that has experienced a real dissociation from experiment, and even in that case the goal is still to ultimately produce experimentally verifiable predictions. String theory will never be considered a significant success until it has accomplished this.
Numbers are never true in the most absolute sense of the word, but they are often useful. One of the goals of science is to acquire data in such a manner that the numbers are as objective as possible. Polls are, as you say, a terrible method of objectively gathering data, but they're also a really poor example of a science experiment, so I'm not sure why you bring them up.
I think the goal of something like political science is similar to the goal of a "hard" science. It's just that as of right now, hard science is much more successful in realizing that goal. Hard science is subjective, but I suspect political science is considerably more subjective with its current methods. Consequently, it's difficult to create a challenging undergraduate curriculum at this point in its evolution.
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Theoretical physics works like this:
1.Create a theory on how something works.(This step doesn't happen that often)
2.Write down all of the conclusions which could be derived from that. (Usually this step is what most do and takes the most time)
3.Try to get someone else to experimentally verify these.
Experimental physicists do just act based on what the theorists have concluded.
It is only applied physicists who do experiments first and then do the theories but that is a lighter kind of physics and the theories are all about why the experiments do not agree with the theoretical basis for them. What they then create is the useful physics since they find the correction terms to make the theories agree with reality even in suboptimal conditions.
And the problem with string theory is that they haven't gotten to any conclusions at all, the theories are so weak that you can neither verify nor dismiss them, kinda like god.
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On May 01 2009 11:46 Bill307 wrote:
Hell, I'll be the first to admit that my major, CS, was far, FAR easier than the Engineering majors at my institution. I don't care if my material was easier or harder than theirs, or what our grad school opportunities were like. In the end, the Engineering students I knew spent a LOT more time busting their asses than I ever did: I would have to lack all common sense to say their major was not harder than mine.
I literally slept for less than seven nights during the last three weeks of my 3B term
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It's not indicative of anything, except that you want to look at specific points where they seem most similar. The same could be down for economic theory and calculus, for example. Reading Arendt, studying game theory or examining the House isn't going to help you be a lawyer at all. Now, it may help you be a better politician, which is the eventual goal for many prospective lawyers, but the two don't directly feed into each other. If you did law, you'd know you're incredibly wrong on all those points. While particular material might not be as relevant, the ability to deal with the type of material is incredibly important. Law and social sciences have an incredible synergy to the point of social science evidence being used in the highest courts as determinative evidence, which points to the fact that their material is structurally related.
Ok, so which part of AR/LR/RC is more suited to people studying political science than people studying physics? The games may actually be more conceivable to many engineers and programmers than to poli sci majors.
You're making an enormous inference by relating test scores by major to quality of degree program. The % of poli sci students who take the test is extremely high, largely because they think poli sci -> lawyer -> politics, and many are dumb as fuck, whereas only a small % of people in natural sciences transition to law school.
What part of of the AR/LR and RC sections are more suited to studying political science? Uh, no part, they ARE the parts. Material in Poli Sci requires basic skills to digest, and these three are fairly big amongst them. I mean, if you want, you can ignore the LSAT and then just pick out any form of predictive testing for academic results. While none of them are determinative, most provide significant correlation and predictive value. If there IS a predictive value, you CAN make an objective reference to the relative difference in the skill requirement for different tasks, including something on the order of complexity as an undergraduate degree.
Seriously does it MATTER that poli sci students taking the LSAT are, as a group, objectively less able than students from natural science? Not really. What DOES matter is the fact that you COULD apply the test to both populations and pull out an objective difference in skill sets. The only issue would be skill sets which aren't tested for, but that's a temporary problem, because all skill sets can be designed for if given enough time.
This is the everest/hill example proven: there CAN be a determination of the difference, but it might be more difficult to find it in this case. This led some people to believe that both majors are 'equal' in difficulty, which as i posited earlier is a ridiculous and counter-intuitive assertion which must be proven, not the other way around.
I "dealt" with your original assertion over and over again, by agreeing that it's more difficult to earn a degree in some fields than others. This was in my very first post. You're incredibly argumentative considering I only contended one sentence out of your entire post.
1) No, you didn't deal with it.
2) Maybe the fact that you called me an asshat due to the fact that you were too fucking lazy to go read where this blog came from made me somewhat combative. Besides, the same could be said for you.
Edit: seriously go look at your first reply and my first post. You had an issue with the concept of field while i had already stated my argument was specifically about the undergraduate degree. You conceded the definitional argument which was your only one in your initial reply too. You AGREE with me on the only point i made. Then you went and got uncivil and you likely can't walk away because you have a wounded ego now.
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science and engineering is on the whole more difficult than anything liberal arts or business. but you can take the smartest math kids and they won't be good at theater, advertising, or communications. so maybe to them it's the other way around.
but in general i think it's pretty clear that science is harder because you either know it or you don't, while in business you can bs and get away with it.
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Engineering is to understand and be able to handle the math and pure science involved in designing real world structures and machines. Learning material and being able to recite it in a courtroom is hard but learning material to use as a basis of ideas is much harder. Creativity in engineering is after they students graduate when they have to become innovative to solve problems.
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United States22883 Posts
On May 02 2009 03:09 L wrote:
Then you went and got uncivil and you likely can't walk away because you have a wounded ego now.
Read your posts; you've been argumentative this entire time. I'm sorry if you thought the term 'asshat' was uncivil. I thought it was ridiculous enough that you'd dismiss it.
Material in Poli Sci requires basic skills to digest, and these three are fairly big amongst them. The point is that it's not unique in requiring these skills. You make it sound as if they score worse against people who are untrained for the same material, when most collegiate fields require rigorous training in reasoning and analytical processes.
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Read your posts I just gave you a brief history of our exchange, yet you believe I haven't read my posts. You brush off the first explicit verbal tirade against a person and then try to pin me for unsportsmanlike conduct despite having no objections with my position (despite the fact that I had to show you as such).
And I'm the argumentative one.
The point is that it's not unique in requiring these skills. You make it sound as if they score worse against people who are untrained for the same material, when most collegiate fields require rigorous training in reasoning and analytical processes. So you admit there are quantitative skill sets which can be compared across majors, and which are common to many majors?
Well done. Case closed.
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On May 02 2009 05:31 tiffany wrote:
science and engineering is on the whole more difficult than anything liberal arts or business. but you can take the smartest math kids and they won't be good at theater, advertising, or communications. so maybe to them it's the other way around.
but in general i think it's pretty clear that science is harder because you either know it or you don't, while in business you can bs and get away with it.
I'm arguing that just because you can bs your way to better grades in non-scientific majors doesn't mean they are inherrently more difficult. I'm not equating grades with the ease of an entire subject matter.
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I think science and engineering courses are more difficult in general because they take much more memorization and knowledge. It's relatively easy to just bs a paper in history or english class, but you can't make up biological knowledge or randomly push arrows in organic chemistry and hope you get a good grade for your answer.
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you need to take into account the school and the class size. i would think a political science major at a small liberal arts school with small class sizes would be harder than one at a large university because the teacher would be able to spend more personal time with his students and thus be able to weed out the bsing drones.
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Baa?21242 Posts
On May 02 2009 11:50 TommyG wrote:
thus be able to weed out the bsing drones.
Except the whole subject is built around random bs anyways, so wouldn't those drones just be fulfilling expectations? =P
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I'm a senior in high school planning to study Engineering and it sounds like it's one of the most challenging majors. That should be fun...
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the only annoying thing about science majors is the insane fucking curves in every class. Seriously in ochem last quarter I got a 67% on the midterm and a 55% on the final and I passed the class? my letter grade woulda been like a C+... seriously: 0 attendance to lecture, 0 attendance to discussion, never did any HW, just studied for about 2-3 hours per day from the book a week before the final and I pass the class?
SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO FUCKIN EZ! =p Anyone with half a brain can get a 60% on a test which equates to about a B+, so you just need like 3/4 of a brain to get an A in these classes. BOOOOOOOOYAH
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On May 01 2009 21:04 Jibba wrote:Show nested quote +On May 01 2009 16:03 fight_or_flight wrote:
btw, I think these endless debates with no resolution are a good example of why hard science is more difficult than arts. In a debate like this, everyone has an "opinion" and is never really truly right or wrong. However, if a program doesn't compile or your space shuttle explodes, there is clearly an objective "opinion" telling you that you are just flat out wrong. So as far as a Bachelors degree goes (and probably higher degrees as well), one is clearly harder than the other.
In the grand scheme of things however, I think that science fields are actually easier than other fields, for precisely the reason that makes them harder academically. That is, you have no objective source telling you whether you are right or wrong, yet there is only one objective truth.
Truth can fall into 4 categories: evident and provable, not evident and provable, evident but not provable, and not evident and not provable. Scientific truths are provable. The arts are not provable. The reason science seems harder is because it forces an individual to come to terms with truth itself through experiments. People are so biased, however, that it can be nearly impossible for them to accept truth, even when it is evident.
What I'm saying is that unless truth is forced upon people there is very very little chance they will actually find and accept it. Thats why theology isn't usually taught at universities, because there is so little that forces people to come to a correct conclusion that it cannot even be discussed. Political science or sociology on the other hand at least has polls and statistics that forces at least some amount of truth on people (numbers are objective and true).
However we know how religion threads turn out, and indeed it is the "hardest" field there is. Start studying epistemology. Upper level math/physics fall out of the realm of experimentation and proving, and "numbers are objective and true" is just a completely false statement. I can take a set of data and run regression analyses until it "proves" anything. Polls are one of the worst forms of quant work in poli sci/economics. Nothing is value-free. Not even the natural sciences. Strangely, their professional scholars usually do a better job of admitting this than many quants in the social sciences.
Don't get me wrong, I'm probably one of the most critical people on this website when it comes to believing the conclusions of scientists, especially physicists. When polls and statistics are used to draw conclusions, I am just as (sometimes more?) likely to automatically assume it is wrong than to accept it.
However, numbers themselves are indeed always true and objective, by definition. All theorems are proven from first principles. Applying them is a completely different story and doesn't have anything to do with the numbers themselves. Perhaps we kind of view numbers differently, but I can tell you that the math and theory behind statistics is pretty rock solid.
Also, I agree that upper level physics isn't much more objective than anything else. My sole point is that there is a feedback mechanism for the natural sciences which can validate or invalidate your thinking pretty well. You will never know if you are right, but generally you can find out if you are wrong, or at least headed in the wrong direction.
I will look into the subject you mentioned.
edit: actually, I take back what I said...upper level physics is more objective than other things, however, there is still a fair amount of politics in it
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On May 02 2009 13:15 Xeris wrote:
the only annoying thing about science majors is the insane fucking curves in every class. Seriously in ochem last quarter I got a 67% on the midterm and a 55% on the final and I passed the class? my letter grade woulda been like a C+... seriously: 0 attendance to lecture, 0 attendance to discussion, never did any HW, just studied for about 2-3 hours per day from the book a week before the final and I pass the class?
SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO FUCKIN EZ! =p Anyone with half a brain can get a 60% on a test which equates to about a B+, so you just need like 3/4 of a brain to get an A in these classes. BOOOOOOOOYAH
Do you even know how grading by a curve even works? Wow, I lose faith in American education when I read posts like this
example of a normal curve (your teacher will not follow this curve exactly):
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On May 02 2009 14:46 GrayArea wrote:Show nested quote +On May 02 2009 13:15 Xeris wrote:
the only annoying thing about science majors is the insane fucking curves in every class. Seriously in ochem last quarter I got a 67% on the midterm and a 55% on the final and I passed the class? my letter grade woulda been like a C+... seriously: 0 attendance to lecture, 0 attendance to discussion, never did any HW, just studied for about 2-3 hours per day from the book a week before the final and I pass the class?
SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO FUCKIN EZ! =p Anyone with half a brain can get a 60% on a test which equates to about a B+, so you just need like 3/4 of a brain to get an A in these classes. BOOOOOOOOYAH Do you even know how grading by a curve even works? Wow, I lose faith in American education when I read posts like this
Do you even know how different teachers use curves different ways? Wow, I lose faith in idiots on the internet when I read posts like this
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On May 02 2009 15:17 -orb- wrote:Show nested quote +On May 02 2009 14:46 GrayArea wrote:On May 02 2009 13:15 Xeris wrote:
the only annoying thing about science majors is the insane fucking curves in every class. Seriously in ochem last quarter I got a 67% on the midterm and a 55% on the final and I passed the class? my letter grade woulda been like a C+... seriously: 0 attendance to lecture, 0 attendance to discussion, never did any HW, just studied for about 2-3 hours per day from the book a week before the final and I pass the class?
SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO FUCKIN EZ! =p Anyone with half a brain can get a 60% on a test which equates to about a B+, so you just need like 3/4 of a brain to get an A in these classes. BOOOOOOOOYAH Do you even know how grading by a curve even works? Wow, I lose faith in American education when I read posts like this Do you even know how different teachers use curves different ways? Wow, I lose faith in idiots on the internet when I read posts like this
Do you even know how curving works for classes? The normal curve is there as an example, but obviously each professor has their own way of using it. I didn't think I would need to explain the point , but apparently you are displaying idiotic qualities yourself. Anybody who gets 60%+ is not going to get a B+ or above because a curve limits the number of students who can get A's or B's. It forces the majority of students into the C range, which is why his post is not correct. Read it again, you might be able to see why
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I just spent 40 hours over the last six days to get an operating systems project (computer science course) finished. We had 10 days to do it and I have another one due in seven days. I trust you've never taken a polisci class that forced you to work 30+ hours a week to pass on top of your other courses.
I'm not saying my degree is worth more than yours, but damn dude, I can almost guarantee you that I've worked harder than you to get my degree. Some majors are harder than others. Some people like to brag about this fact. Get over it. In the end what matters the most is what you personally got out of your degree, not whether it's an "easy" or "hard" major.
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EPT
![[image loading]](http://www.comfsm.fm/%7Edleeling/statistics/normal_curve.gif)
