# Why are certain college majors arbitrarily made easier than others?



## PAdude (Mar 18, 2011)

I've really been evolving into a social conspiracy theorist lately and this is one of the main things that, as a psychology major, has been bugging me.

Why is it that students who are involved in majors such as the sciences, business, and engineering are given so much more respect than students involved in other arts programs? I don't think that the reason has to do with the complexity of the subject and the intellectual ability that it takes to master it at its highest levels of study. Rather, it seems as though the courseload in the sciences and a few other majors is consciously beefed up by colleges and universities nationwide while the courseload of other majors (such as psychology) is consciously dumbed down. All I have to do to complete my psych major at the college I'm currently at is take four 'required' courses (two of which are pretty useless) along with six electives and most of those classes are about very basic psychological concepts. I've often heard psychology (and this could apply to a number of majors, not just psych) referred to as a "joke major," which to a degree may be true but it seems to be more because of the doings of the educational system nationwide than the fact that subjects such as psychology take less work and intelligence to understand. It almost seems as though, by the doing of "the system," smart students are intentionally being funnelled into the sciences, business, and engineering while other majors are, for some reason, practically treated as remedial degrees. 


This is something that has been bothering me greatly as of late. Just trying to see if anyone else shares my opinion.
This


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## Shades of Gray (Jan 13, 2012)

I think the reason science/engineering/business majors are more difficult is that they're typically associated with higher salaries so a disproportionate amount of students want to pursue them, the field needs to be thinned.

I'm at a university in the top 5 for Chemical Engineering. Less than half of prospective ChEn majors here actually get into the program.


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## Cygnus (Jan 21, 2011)

that's interesting. at my college, psychology was considered one of the more difficult majors, since advanced stats and advanced research classes were required, not to mention the same anatomy and physiology course as required for the physical therapy students. additionally, a neurobiology class and psychopharmacology class were required for all those who were taking pre-professional psyc (which the vast majority were).

i think that it varies. courses of study tend to be more challenging in the stronger departments of the college/ university. when faculty have a lot of experience in their field, individual classes tend to be more difficult because teachers expect more (which is good, as they are generally more passionate and interested in their students as well), less students succeed, the ones who do get into excellent grad programs, and the cycle continues. weak programs become weaker and attract more people who want to bum their way through college, strong programs get stronger as they attract those who have heard about the program and are determined to succeed.


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## timeless (Mar 20, 2010)

PAdude said:


> All I have to do to complete my psych major at the college I'm currently at is take four 'required' courses (two of which are pretty useless) along with six electives and most of those classes are about very basic psychological concepts.


Srsly? I had to take two anatomy & physiology courses and a neuroscience course + fucking statistics + a ridiculous amount of required courses. Between my two majors I had no room for anything else.


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## Plaxico (Dec 11, 2010)

Because those majors, _as a whole_ generate more revenue. At my school, the business and engineering buildings have easily the largest and most up-to-date facilities because donors, sometimes alums, provide funding for those schools. More funds can mean better everything, even the little things. For example, business students have their scantrons provided while in others you have to buy your own. I'm sure that applies to the curriculum as well, and ability to get better professors in those areas of study.


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## funcoolname (Sep 17, 2011)

At my college Economics was actually considered one of the easier majors. The psychology program at your particular school doesn't sound very rigorous :/


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## bellisaurius (Jan 18, 2012)

Insidehighered.com sometimes talks about the pressure on deans and professors to keep graduation rates up. Also, I tend to think that part of college is just to say "I can focus on something for a couple of years", rather than actually learning a specific topic; more like learning a way of thinking. For many jobs, this is probably good enough.

In the harder topics, well, as an engineer here at a water plant for example, if I screw up on some engineering decision, about three million people will be affected (cf milwaukee and cryptosporidium). My bosses want to know that a person who makes it out with an engineering degree can be intelligent enough to recognize problems, and are mentally prepared to put an uncomfortable issue to them. It's not quite the same problem if art major makes a mistake. Doctors have plenty of "weed out" courses as well for a similar reason.


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## arm0214 (Mar 5, 2011)

A lot of it has to do with money. The more students that flock to a program (a lot of times because it is easier) the more funding the program gets. 

Another thing I've noticed though is that Engineering and Science programs wouldn't be quite as hard if there was someone who knew how to communicate and teach the subject. A lot of times, sciency people who go and get their phd in something like math aren't the best communicators and are one sidedly left brained. Generally speaking, social science teachers tend to be much better at teaching students and a better teacher equates to easier subject. I saw an article once about the average GPAs of different majors and Education had highest and some Engineering degree was the lowest. It would make sense that the professors in an Education program would be knowledgeable about how to effectively teach students where the Engineering professor just gets mad that the students don't understand the subject as intuitively as he/she does. Although this isn't always true, I've had way too many math professors who can barely speak in front of the class in complete sentences to believe that teaching quality isn't at least half-way responsible for sci/eng classes to be unreasonably hard.


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## Peter (Feb 27, 2010)

PAdude said:


> I've really been evolving into a social conspiracy theorist lately and this is one of the main things that, as a psychology major, has been bugging me.
> 
> Why is it that students who are involved in majors such as the sciences, business, and engineering are given so much more respect than students involved in other arts programs?


Strange, I would think that psychology is considered to be part of the medical field which gets the same amount of "respect" as science business and engineering.

Besides that, all the so called "art" fields, those do get less respect but for obvious reasons I would think. Basically if your brain fails to do much with math, money, and all those typical logical kind of things, then what you end up with is something "artsy". So what society (because this is something that is a view of society) sees is that those that can't do anything study those kinds of fields.

Is that fair? To a certain degree yes I think, but there's a reason for that. In science, business and engineering. If you´re just the average, you still can make a decent income and be a useful participant in society. In art however, if you´re just the average, the chances you make enough money to sustain yourself are almost non-existing. If you´re a good deal above the average, then you can make a decent living, but being just the average, doesn't cut it. So the the chances that you'll be able to sustain yourself being an artist, are too low.


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## FillInTheBlank (Dec 24, 2011)

bellisaurius said:


> In the harder topics, well, as an engineer here at a water plant for example, if I screw up on some engineering decision, about three million people will be affected (cf milwaukee and cryptosporidium). My bosses want to know that a person who makes it out with an engineering degree can be intelligent enough to recognize problems, and are mentally prepared to put an uncomfortable issue to them. It's not quite the same problem if art major makes a mistake. Doctors have plenty of "weed out" courses as well for a similar reason.


I've always believed that this was the main reason why engineering and science majors are harder than majors like psychology and humanities. A psychologist making a mistake wouldn't so broadly affect others like this. But then again, what do I know? I'm planning to major in engineering next year and am bracing myself.


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## Where Love Died Laughing (Jan 5, 2012)

Here in Serbia I know that even in middle school there's a really disproportionate amount of social sciences vs. natural sciences classes. Math, biology, physics, and chemistry were all treated with great importance, whereas literature, psychology etc. are sort of "just there to bring your average up"

I've never been good with chem and phys, but my bio and math grades were usually exceptional. I have always excelled in social sciences and am skilled in quite a few languages. Still, when I tell someone about that and when I first told everyone I was going to major in literature they just went, "why? You want to be a high school teacher?"
On the other hand, someone who is good at a natural science is immediately proclaimed a genius and is offered all sorts of scholarships. The natural science majors are considered the most difficult and anyone who finishes them is respected.

Ultimately though, at least here, it takes a different turn. With my knowledge of languages and my "unimportant and useless" major I can find several jobs in different careers. Someone who studied engineering, on the other hand, will always be in that field. And while they might be considered "genius" for finishing a really difficult university, when there are cutbacks, it's usually the engineers/people in IT who are the first to be made redundant.

I think it's just a matter of social norms. People who excel in natural sciences are considered "intelligent" by definition. Everyone else is pushed aside as useless. Everyone wants to be "intelligent" and therefore pursues majors which focus on natural sciences. This results in more funding as well as universities wanting to uphold a "really prestigious and difficult to finish" status. 
PS - No offense engineers. I don't deny that you are intelligent, I'm merely stating that it's not the only thing that defines someone's intelligence.


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## LibertyPrime (Dec 17, 2010)

Where Love Died Laughing said:


> Here in Serbia I know that even in middle school there's a really disproportionate amount of social sciences vs. natural sciences classes. Math, biology, physics, and chemistry were all treated with great importance, whereas literature, psychology etc. are sort of "just there to bring your average up"
> 
> I've never been good with chem and phys, but my bio and math grades were usually exceptional. I have always excelled in social sciences and am skilled in quite a few languages. Still, when I tell someone about that and when I first told everyone I was going to major in literature they just went, "why? You want to be a high school teacher?"
> On the other hand, someone who is good at a natural science is immediately proclaimed a genius and is offered all sorts of scholarships. The natural science majors are considered the most difficult and anyone who finishes them is respected.
> ...


I was always gr8 at maths, languages and social sciences as well. I think it comes down to preference a lot. I just wasn't motivated to learn the other subjects as much, because a) the teachers were not good at making it interesting b) it wasn't as interesting. Some other things that turned me off from "high profile careers" were the fact that even if I get payed a ton of money :\ I won't have the time to enjoy it ( a lot of people have this problem, not being able to get away from work). What is the point when you can only enjoy life at old age?

I know a lot of these people, who can't put together a decent sentence in another language. Imo people are just gifted in different areas. I can speak a lot of languages and that is what got me my most recent desk job at an international corporation where speaking German is mandatory for every employee. 

Its a nice enough, not exiting paperwork with pay some people can only dream of here, but I'm still after something with *plenty of free time and decent enough pay. In the end I want to learn and experience the world, not get stuck in a job making money for nothing.*

The bottom line is, that money only motivates me to a certain degree and it isn't enough to make me learn something I'm not interested in.


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## YellowAnt (Apr 12, 2011)

@_PAdude_ 

This could be the reason your course load vs. timeless is different:

What Is the Difference between a Bachelor of Arts and a Bachelor of Science in Psychology


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## wearslabcoats (Jan 18, 2012)

Engineering is a demanding field. It takes a lot of time, patience, and effort in order to succeed in any engineering field. A strong backbone in mathematics, physics, and chemistry, coupled with a learned talent for inductive and deductive reasoning are necessary to do well in advanced undergraduate engineering programs. The first two years of any engineering field typically share the same coursework (statics, dynamics, circuits, physics w/calculus, intro biology, calculus I-III + differential equations, general chemistry 1+2 [possibly organic or more depending on the major]). This introduction gives the student a feel as to whether or not they would want to further pursue engineering as well as preparing them for junior and senior level coursework.

Speaking from my own experience, I had very little free time during my junior and senior years. Taking 5-6 advanced engineering courses at once with no general education classes to balance it out meant that I was busy all the time. Time management was an absolute priority, and working efficiently in teams to get assignments done was a must. There were times when I didn't get adequate amounts of sleep for a few weeks during the semester, this tended to get worse as exams crept around the corner.

Each problem in a homework assignment was a heavy commitment. Some problems would take as little as an hour or two to finish. Some took upwards of 6 hours or more including help from TA's in order to get them finished. We learned to work under pressure and under time constraints to get the job done while maintaining the accuracy of our work (do our answers make sense? What assumptions did we use? Order of magnitude check?). In the world of engineering, a single mistake can cost millions of dollars and possibly lives. Being extra prudent is something that is drilled into us in every assignment.

Engineering trains you to _think_ in a certain way, to break down systems into components, to find their equation of state, so to speak. Any and every technology you see today in modern society can be explained by how they operate based on the laws of applied physics, chemistry, biology, etc. New technologies can be designed just by leveraging these laws. An engineer's versatility is all in the rationality of his/her thought processes. A system that is designed to do its job while reliable and over-engineered above specifications is the ultimate end goal for any particular design.

So when an employer tells you to build a giant robot that shoots laser beams out of its eyes, you'll know what to do. :tongue:


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## lolalalah (Aug 1, 2015)

wearslabcoats said:


> Engineering is a demanding field. It takes a lot of time, patience, and effort in order to succeed in any engineering field. A strong backbone in mathematics, physics, and chemistry, coupled with a learned talent for inductive and deductive reasoning are necessary to do well in advanced undergraduate engineering programs. The first two years of any engineering field typically share the same coursework (statics, dynamics, circuits, physics w/calculus, intro biology, calculus I-III + differential equations, general chemistry 1+2 [possibly organic or more depending on the major]). This introduction gives the student a feel as to whether or not they would want to further pursue engineering as well as preparing them for junior and senior level coursework.
> 
> Speaking from my own experience, I had very little free time during my junior and senior years. Taking 5-6 advanced engineering courses at once with no general education classes to balance it out meant that I was busy all the time. Time management was an absolute priority, and working efficiently in teams to get assignments done was a must. There were times when I didn't get adequate amounts of sleep for a few weeks during the semester, this tended to get worse as exams crept around the corner.
> 
> ...


I couldn't have said this better. By contrast, Psychology courses (for instance) seem so easy and less time consuming to me. I always did well in Psychology class during high school, but I didn't find the subject challenging one bit (intriguing, yes, but challenging, no) - that's why I knew I had to major in something which could demand more from me.


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## PiT (May 6, 2017)

STEM fields must be intensely demanding to really teach anything, but even so it is up to the faculty to maintain standards. The expectation of standards helps. It would be possible for a psychology course to be rigorous, demanding in-depth understanding of complex and nuanced ideas. Such courses are not as common as the same in physics though, in part because there is no will to maintain such high standards.


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## Omg (Apr 3, 2017)

Where Love Died Laughing said:


> Here in Serbia I know that even in middle school there's a really disproportionate amount of social sciences vs. natural sciences classes. Math, biology, physics, and chemistry were all treated with great importance, whereas literature, psychology etc. are sort of "just there to bring your average up"
> 
> I've never been good with chem and phys, but my bio and math grades were usually exceptional. I have always excelled in social sciences and am skilled in quite a few languages. Still, when I tell someone about that and when I first told everyone I was going to major in literature they just went, "why? You want to be a high school teacher?"
> On the other hand, someone who is good at a natural science is immediately proclaimed a genius and is offered all sorts of scholarships. The natural science majors are considered the most difficult and anyone who finishes them is respected.
> ...


In Hong Kong it's a bit different. You won't get a good job if you study maths or science, but subjects like medicine are really popular and medical students will be paid a lot.


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## Omg (Apr 3, 2017)

PAdude said:


> I've really been evolving into a social conspiracy theorist lately and this is one of the main things that, as a psychology major, has been bugging me.
> 
> Why is it that students who are involved in majors such as the sciences, business, and engineering are given so much more respect than students involved in other arts programs? I don't think that the reason has to do with the complexity of the subject and the intellectual ability that it takes to master it at its highest levels of study. Rather, it seems as though the courseload in the sciences and a few other majors is consciously beefed up by colleges and universities nationwide while the courseload of other majors (such as psychology) is consciously dumbed down. All I have to do to complete my psych major at the college I'm currently at is take four 'required' courses (two of which are pretty useless) along with six electives and most of those classes are about very basic psychological concepts. I've often heard psychology (and this could apply to a number of majors, not just psych) referred to as a "joke major," which to a degree may be true but it seems to be more because of the doings of the educational system nationwide than the fact that subjects such as psychology take less work and intelligence to understand. It almost seems as though, by the doing of "the system," smart students are intentionally being funnelled into the sciences, business, and engineering while other majors are, for some reason, practically treated as remedial degrees.
> 
> ...


At least you can be a psychologist or sth like that if you finish a master degree, and the society do need psychologists, more demand than artists, musicians and writers. So I think psychology is useful, it is not a joke major. Not everyone are good at science, and if everyone is into STEM fields the society will collapse too. Everyone have different talents, and no talent is superior, but there is some talent more useful than others.


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## ninjahitsawall (Feb 1, 2013)

Cygnus said:


> that's interesting. at my college, psychology was considered one of the more difficult majors, since advanced stats and advanced research classes were required, not to mention the same anatomy and physiology course as required for the physical therapy students. additionally, a neurobiology class and psychopharmacology class were required for all those who were taking pre-professional psyc (which the vast majority were).
> 
> i think that it varies. courses of study tend to be more challenging in the stronger departments of the college/ university. when faculty have a lot of experience in their field, individual classes tend to be more difficult because teachers expect more (which is good, as they are generally more passionate and interested in their students as well), less students succeed, the ones who do get into excellent grad programs, and the cycle continues. weak programs become weaker and attract more people who want to bum their way through college, strong programs get stronger as they attract those who have heard about the program and are determined to succeed.


Yeah, I actually thought the opposite of the OP going through college (after having switched my major from biology unofficially to psychology officially). It seemed like either the difficulty level, workload or both for social sciences, humanities, fine arts etc (those disciplines typically considered less rigorous by broad societal standards) was inflated. For example the courses I took in humanities and fine arts as basic requirements often seemed like more work than my degree-related courses in biology, calculus (took these for the bio major and then they were required for the psych BS anyway, plus I needed a science minor), or psychology. This is because the arts/humanities courses always had loads of paper-writing and presentations to do. I took an intro to music theory course where we had a quiz every other week, a midterm, final, had to write up papers on two of the concerts on campus, had a written assignment for every class... while biology and psych lectures were just, come to lecture (or maybe don't, they don't always take attendence and put the PPTs online sometimes), take two or three exams plus a final, and that's your grade --- your test scores. 

The psych classes were somewhere in between, with again the more challenging "sciencey" courses (like research methods, stats classes, neuroanatomy) being more exam-based as described above.
(But they were also less micro-managey and more about just how well you do, which I liked).

So the challenge in the science courses was just knowing the material well enough to do well on tests, because your grades depended on that. 

Also, in philosophy courses and such we had to write essays, which I hated and never had to do in math or bio or whatever. 

So it kinda balanced out in the end. Even though it's arguably harder to have enough knowledge retained to write an essay rather than being prompted by mult. choice (learned this in my cognitive psych class! lol), the profs were often more lenient with te grading, and of course you get partial credit with essays. But yeah, it was sort of like workload difficulty vs. knowledge retention/raw brain power difficulty. 

Anyway, I think the fields the OP mentioned are considered more "valuable" or whatever because they tend to be highly quantitative, and that is generally considered "harder". Society likes things that are hard that nobody wants to do because it makes their brain hurt to think about, haha. 

I think there is some truth to that, but maybe the scope is too narrow. I took music theory because I learned to play guitar earlier in undergrad, and holy hell, learning guitar was hard! If I got as deep into music theory as the music majors had to do, that very well might've been more difficult for me than math, because the education system I was raised on emphasized math performance so much. Plus that was kind of a natural strength I had. I also new a music major who said everyone thinks it's an easy/fun major, but it's actually really hard. 

So really, the music stuff was more out of my comfort zone and at times more of a brain drain. It's not as "intuitive" to me, which is...counterintuitive, but yeah. I think that is an example of a discipline whose rigor is underrated. 

Or maybe it's just the school I went to. I went to a STEM-heavy school (a lot of people went there for health sciences, pre-med, biology, engineering, physics, CS, etc, plus a disproportionate representation of Asian-Americans and international students... you know, the typical successful STEM demographic). So I wonder if it's just that the STEM mentality the OP alludes to leaked into unrelated disciplines, lol.


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## Squirt (Jun 2, 2017)

arm0214 said:


> Another thing I've noticed though is that Engineering and Science programs wouldn't be quite as hard if there was someone who knew how to communicate and teach the subject.


To take your point further: STEM programs generally do a poor job of teaching "soft" skills and communication, as well as broader, rigorous civic and social topics in general. While there is plenty of work being done to integrate disciplines, the humanities are still not included in those integrations very often. Today's campuses would not encourage a Stephen J. Gould or Noam Chomsky. I find Jarion Lanier to be the youngest, accomplished hold out in having any sort of rounded perspective concerning sciences (Elon Musk stutters like a nervous child when asked to give a sound philosophy for his actions). It is definitely a disservice when humanities are ignored as a valuable part of education.

I believe our drive-thru education system contributes to the lack of time devoted to reflecting or connecting different ideas together. Reflection and contemplation is instrumental to advanced work in the humanities and the sciences, yet I see Neil Degrasse Tyson wrote a book called Astrophysics In A Hurry (or similar), there are series touting superficial 15-minute or 30-second science, and similar indications that contemplation is a waste of time. I wonder how anyone believes that thought-provoking ideas, advanced understanding, and innovations could thrive in conditions where instant(profit)genius is in demand (we celebrate great tinkerers building groundbreaking innovations in their garage, but now only millions of dollars of investment can start up a new technology).

I read a book - a collection of essays - written by scientists offering their opinion on various social implications of science. It is titled "This Idea Must Die." Look no further for an example of how leaving out the humanities has degraded the ability for scientists to think critically in a social context, to communicate ideas, and to provide useful insight to society. 80% of the contributions are trivial garbage that could have been written on a napkin by a drunk college freshman.

I don't think OP is paranoid. I do believe there is a focused effort to devalue humanities, and we are already seeing the cost.


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