The Hardest College Classes in the Country
Friday, March 23, 2012
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What exactly makes a class difficult?
Is it a professor with indecipherable handwriting who mumbles through lectures and refuses to curve a test with a 47% average score? Is it hours upon hours of complex proofs or twelve-page research papers covering abstract concepts?
There’s no exact science for makes a class tough. It’s all subjective, to a point – what’s a breeze for one student might be painful for another. But what we do know is that fighting through a semester with a truly difficult class is a rite of passage in college. The academics are supposedly why we’re all here, after all, and you can’t earn that diploma without putting in a little blood, sweat and tears. We can all relate to that one class that makes us feel like maybe dropping out and working at the local car wash wouldn’t be the worst idea ever.
With that said, some classes are undoubtedly tougher than others. That’s why Her Campus wanted to know: What are the hardest college classes in the country? We talked to students, viewed grade distributions and scoured college rankings to find some of the absolute toughest classes out there. So the next time you’re up to your eyeballs in homework, cursing the professor who assigned you 60 pages of reading for one night, take a look at this list and thank the heavens your schedule doesn’t look like this:
1. Thermodynamics II--Purdue University
If you’re looking for courses to boost your GPA, signing up for a course in Thermodynamics (the science of heat transfer) is probably not the way to go. “At Purdue, the engineering courses are notorious for being particularly hard,” says Amanda, a sophomore at Purdue. “Because Purdue is known for its engineering program, the standards for getting into the program are extremely difficult and the ‘weed-out’ courses are especially difficult.” But engineering students beware: even if you’ve made it through Thermodynamics I, don’t expect to find any relief in the next level. On MyEdu.com, the workload for Thermodynamics II is ranked as “heavy” and the official grade record shows 50% of the class received a C or lower (4% Fs and only 17% As.)
2. Topics in Metaphysics and Epistemology--New York University
If you’re partial to numbers and concrete answers, this class will send you running in the opposite direction: “the nature of cause and the existence of universals” and “the distinction between appearance and reality” are just a couple of the topics tackled in this advanced philosophy course. “I definitely wouldn’t recommend this class to anyone who isn’t comfortable with basic philosophic thinking and looking for a challenge intellectually,” says Erin, a senior at NYU who took the class last year. With this course, NYU’s top-ranked philosophy department proves that difficult classes are definitely not limited to the fields of math and science.
About the Author
Biography
Laura is a senior (class of 2011) at UNC-Chapel Hill, majoring in Journalism and French. She spent two years writing for her campus newspaper and interned at USA Weekend Magazine in D.C. this summer. She is also a member of Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority and recently spent a semester studying abroad in the south of France. Besides reading and writing, she loves being outdoors (particularly hiking and backpacking, ideally in the N.C. mountains), traveling, coffee, and attempting to play the guitar and/or ukulele. Her major life goals include learning to salsa dance and swimming with manatees. Though the thought of entering the real world still terrifies her a little bit, she plans to pursue a career in the magazine or publishing industries.
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Comments
Physics 230 - Palomar College. Beyond unreasonable. Once everyone failed in the class. Needs to be added. Big time.
I completely disagree that Calculus III at Columbia is difficult. I took it last semester as a first year, and I got an A. It was my easiest class... in fact, I didn't even go to class. I just handed in the homework and took the exams. Done.
You forgot Math209 at UChicago. I got such a bad grade I'm still looking for a job.
I was a Business Major, so nothing I took was terribly difficult. Time consuming, and requiring effort, but not particularly difficult material to comprehend.
My most difficult college course actually came when I was still in community college. I took an African American Studies course that covered emancipation through the civil rights movement up to present day. To this day it remains one of the best courses I've ever taken. The reason this course was so difficult was because of the professor, Mr. Ranford Hopkins. One of the most interesting teachers I've ever had.
He would send us home with important articles and force us to read by administering tests after every assignment. "Nothing too serious, just a little something to make sure you read," is what he would say as he was opening the day. Let me tell you, there was nothing easy about these quizzes. He would ask the most in-depth questions about some of the most boring (but extremely important) political reading you can imagine: manifestos from Marcus Garvey, letters and articles by Frederick Douglass, all the way up to Dr. King's "Letter from a Birmingham Jail." But, as brutal as his pop quizzes were, there was method to his madness.
He facilitated and moderated some of the most interesting political debate I've ever had the pleasure of taking part in. I was one of maybe 3 white kids in the entire class, so to say that at times I was shot looks of doubt or uncertainty would be an understatement. Nevertheless, all of the students were from very different backgrounds and we had some incredible debates. Prof. Hopkins had a way of moderating the meetings in such a wonderful way, we the students were able to unpack and dissect some of the most controversial events in American history and share our innermost thoughts and opinions about their impact on our lives. Often these views (from all of the students) were riddled with bigotry, biases, misconceptions, and propaganda. But Prof. Hopkins had a way of keeping us all on point and never letting the discussion become disrespectful, offensive, or inflammatory.
In close, I just wanted to share the experience of a wonderful teacher, who, although holding the students to an exceptionally high standard managed to convey the material and impact us (or at least me) in an extremely positive way. It should be noted that although Prof. Hopkins was teaching a course at a community college, he had previously been teaching at a very prestigious California university and relocated because he liked the area. As a result, he ran his JC class as though it were a 300- or 400-level university course.
no matter what college you are , physics is killer
It is not one of the hardest courses in the country if the "professor" just cannot or will not teach.
Upper division physics course at UT, 30+ years ago you had to put the homework problems on the board. If you made a mistake and another student caught it, he got credit for the problem, you didn't. I eventually dropped it. Everything was theoretical, just greek letters in the problems. So you had no idea how you were doing going through the equations.
But Organic Chem was a ball breaker at UT, back then it was the make or break class for the pre-med students. Wasn't as much to teach organic chem, was to weed out students. There were other coursed but organic was the killer.
Some disciplines had gut courses you had to pass their junior year. No repeats. Fail it, you're out of the program.
And UT business graded on the curve back then, mandatory groupings of A, B, C , D and F. You could make 80 on an exam and fail.
ME thermo 1 and 2 are not that hard.
I never heard that Thermo wasn't hard for anyone.
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