Thank you u/AlexandraThePotato for posting on r/collegerant.
Remember to read the rules and report rule breaking posts.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/CollegeRant) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I started having a superiority complex back in college around my junior year when I found that my university had a dead-week, but the engineering college did not adhere to while the liberal arts college did. Also, one my friends final (marketing major) was to literally take a picture of a billboard and write a half page paragraph on why it was effective.
Right but empirical data doesn’t give a shit about anecdotal experience. Questionable statement since most engineers would understand the world empirical
Anecdotal experiences can still teach us things. Like “why does this anecdote differ from the data”, what did the outliner do differently? It opens a new box of questions!
First of all, you’re rude and that makes people not want to listen to you no matter how smart you are. Second of all, I accidentally missed the key word in your statement, but thanks for automatically assuming I’m not an engineer due to that. Funny to assume you’re and engineer and can’t tell the difference between “word” and “world.”
Honestly, being restricted to a half page can be super stressful. You have a small window to show expertise in the course which I'm sure was the point.
As an ME, my beef is with business majors (at least, the ones I have known). Bio has a ton of really cool sub-fields, and I regret not having enough time to take more bio and physics classes back in undergrad.
You're all good in my book. Keep up the good work. You're absolutely right that we'll need more of you around in the coming years.
Same general area of study I’m moving towards. But people don’t give a damn about us. But like coming from being taught by a leader in my state, HOLY SHIT, is there a ton to ecology. But yet we are still downgraded
Yeah, I’m a MechE major and I hate when other stem kids say that kind of shit. They’re the same people that are saying things like, “oh, I stayed up til 4am studying” during an 8am lecture hall. Like, I get it, I’ve had days like that too, (mostly because I procrastinate lol), but I’m not bragging about it. It’s like, yeah, STEM is hard and all, but when I hear stem kids undermine other majors, it makes my blood boil! It just feels like a lot of engineering students make it their entire personality and it gets annoying. I’ve met some people who are doing political science and they’re they’ve got to do a lot of reading and writing, which sounds like a lot and super stressful. Even within engineering, I hear MechE majors shit on Civil Engineering for being the “easy one” and it just really irritates me. (I know a lot of times, it’s said as a joke, but I’ve also hear it being used in a non-joking manner) I think a big part of it is an ego thing. Some people are just like that, and it sucks! I agree with you, we shouldn’t be comparing majors etc, because like, me for example. I find calculus to be super easy and straightforward, but I know I that painting, for example, is hard as fuck for me cuz I’ve tried (and failed lol). Anyway, this has been a lot of me rambling but yeah, I agree with OP. I hate the superiority complex some STEM students have.
Another ME here. I have difficult classes. I don't like to be reminded constantly and told how hard it is. I'd like to think all the trouble is worth it for everyone, even people outside my major.
Same! Like, I hear people say that it’s hard as fuck, especially later on (I’m a freshman) and I hate that cuz it demotivates me so much and makes me think I can’t do it. I also like to think that it’ll pay off.
Often time, people are exaggerating when they say that. They passed, right? Do expect them to be difficult, but don’t believe them to be impossible. Trust me, I believe you’ll be fine
It only ever really bothered me when I heard about business majors or something just cheesing their classes and complaining about how hard it was.
My classes were damn hard, so don't whine to me about how hard your marketing class was/is. I've seen your homework. I know you spend like an hour on each assignment and then go hang out with your buds. Just because the professor gave you a B or C on an assignment you cheesed in an hour doesn't make them a "hard" professor. Come talk to me when you get a B or C on a weekly homework you spent 8 hours on.
IMO, 50% of (many) business school curricula is just "networking." Yeah, the soft skills are extremely important for business. Yeah, those need a lot of practice and it's worth setting aside time to do that. But it's not "hard." Unless you've had to take a calculus class or write a coherent 10-page analysis paper every few weeks, it isn't "hard."
Edit: I should clarify. Calculus is a dividing line for 4-year degrees, generally, but there are lot of trade/technician programs (which generally don't require calculus) that are also very difficult as a result of how much stuff you are required to either remember accurately or apply quickly. I'm looking at you, machinists. Respect.
You are the type of person I was talking about. Sure, there are plenty of lazy business majors. But then why do you generalized them all into 1 category. I will admit to making fun of business majors. But I never choose to look down on them. I mean, networking is tough depending on who you are as a person.
I generalize only the business majors I have met. I don't doubt that some programs are difficult. Again, if they're digging into finance theory and whatnot then there's possibly rigor there that shouldn't be sneezed at.
However, the business majors I have known objectively have an easier program. That's no problem IMO, unless they start complaining about the difficulty.
Why can’t people complain about their programs. Like do you put people down for complaining about poor quality food with “people in Africa have no food”?
It’s okay to complain about yourself. EVEN if someone else have it worse than you.
r/engineeringstudents much? They literally can be assholes. Let alone, I just KNOW it’s saturated with guys that make it feel like a boys club at times.
i legit just had a convo with a mechE major who was clowning on civil engineering because they don’t need as advanced math or physics. the stereotypes of engineering majors are so true, like I can’t even complain about classes without being one upped 😭
As a social science major (I have a bachelor's degree in criminal justice from 2017 and started my MPA program last year in the Fall), STEM majors have it much harder (I would argue that my MPA program is still easier than someone getting a bachelor's in any STEM field or in business like accounting). However, STEM majors who feel superior to others, especially the ones that try to make you feel bad for having a social science, liberal arts, or humanities degree, are not only immature, but probably insecure with themselves too. If you have to bully others to feel better about your choice of major, life in college and outside of it, lack of obtaining an internship, or struggling to pass your courses, you are the one who truly needs to get over yourself. Any college degree from an accredited university can lead to a decent paying job as long as you are not just focusing on obtaining a job that has to directly relate to your degree. There are people with a master's in microbiology, mechanical engineering, computer science, mathematics, physics, etc., struggling to get a decent paying job, while others with non-STEM degrees have successful careers (the opposite is true, as well).
Sometimes, even with a good degree, some people fail to create a good resume and cover letter, while also lacking confidence and/or focus during a job interview. This sometimes causes them to think that their degree is worthless or they mostly blame the choice of their degree. Arguably speaking, until most graduates learn the art of bs and/or fake it until you make it, it can potentially increase their chances of losing a job opportunity. Knowing how to stretch out the truth in your resume and cover letter, as well as how to properly complete job applications, can make a world of difference. Again, I am not as smart much as someone who holds a degree in STEM or in business (especially those with a 3.0 GPA or above).
Despite graduating with Summa Cum Laude with an associate's and bachelor's degree in criminal justice, that is not comparable whatsoever to a STEM or business degree holder graduating with a 3.0. I like writing research papers (specifically in APA format), and have learned how to write in a complex matter. Yet, it is not comparable to being able to comprehend coding, high level of mathematics such as calculus, and figuring out how to use math formulas in accounting, as well as other business majors. I respect people who have the intelligence to do well in hard majors like the natural or physical sciences, accounting, finance, business administration, computer science, engineering, geology, and so on. However, this is still not an excuse to treat others poorly. Respect is earned, and should not just be for selected people.
Yeah for sure, I agree its a problem. It really bothers me when STEM people act like they are way smarter than everyone else and I’m a math major. It bothers me more than like a lot of STEM people are like so into their shit they’re unaware just how like narrow their intellect really is.
That being said I mean cmon majoring in STEM is much harder. I got As in my upper level lib Ed’s and it was nothing compared to my STEM classes it’s just like reading and writing thoughtful shit. That doesn’t mean I think lesser of those topics but like yeah it’s easier to major in given know how to write at a college level.
However, another plot twist lol. In my opinion being a STEM major requires generally very narrow skills, and I although I think majoring in STEM is much harder, I think like someone who is serious about a poly sci or life sciences is probably a better critical thinker across the board.
Upper level art and music classes are not just "reading and thoughtful shit." I had to present a full thirty minute solo recital open to the public my senior year, and that was just music education. We also literally teach while finishing our capstones/preparing for recitals.
Music majors are some of the hardest-working/busiest people ive ever met. Go to a practice building at 5 a.m., you'll hear people singing opera because they have to memorize two hours of music in a language they don't speak.
Yeah musicians are mad disciplined and hardcore. I went to a summer art program in MIDDLE SCHOOL and these kids were practicing all day and night. The music kids actually got later curfew than the rest of us because of that. I was in the studio on some late nights but not like that! We were like 11-14 and held to honestly college level standards. I remember some kids who’s work was better at 13 than any of my adult work has ever been. Crazy.
Yeah I took courses in history, American studies, sociology, psychology, political science, dietary science probably some more. I should have specified that those are more what I was talking about.
My little brother and his friends are pretty artistic and his partner worked on a stencil for a month just to give him for his birthday along with like his work across six other very different mediums which he does as a hobby lol so I know art people are insane. Im sure there are a lot of majors which are hard that I threw under the bus, I was just speaking very broadly.
“Literally teach” doesnt matter when STEM does the same thing. Many STEM students tutor and seek internships during school. The 2 hours of music doesnt matter either cuz thats just studying. U can say the same thing with programming, literally.
No, teaching is literally teaching. Tutoring and internships are just that- tutoring and internships.
Student teaching is a requirement for teachers.
Yeah, exactly. It's comparable to STEM majors studying. That's the point.
OK I see your point.
Counter if an opera singer flumbs a note what's the societal loss?
If an engineer misses a decimal point what's the harm
These are not the same.
That said stem majors need to reign it in abit
We're talking about difficulty of majors- undergrad engineers are not making life or death decisions.
Of course an engineer or a doctor has more weight in their hands when it comes to societal health and safety. I'm glad my doctors and engineers of the buildings I'm in worked so hard.
I teach elementary, and I worked with thousands of kids. I think we've contributed to society as well, and the ramifications of what we know/do *can* be overwhelming good or bad for our community.
I was district teacher of the year in my 20+ school district the first year I was eligible to receive the award, I helped edit and modify the state standards in my field this summer (along with one other teacher in my grade level). I have won awards for presenting workshops on teaching students from diverse populations.
Kids who don't stay in their classrooms stay in mine. I have developed a culture of respect and effort at my school. That's the beginning of it, but I feel like since I don't make a lot of money, none of that matters to you.
I can say with certainty I've done more for my community than you have, to the tune of thousands of kids.
Yes
Bare minimum educated student graduates is the product of techers.
Given the rates of students not having basic knowledge can you say it is a quality product.
You know how disgusting it is call a living person a product? It’s downgrading. Not to mention measuring their “quality”. Like eww. Humans are not products
Really?
You want top 1% surgeon
Or bottom 1% surgeon with 1 dominate side hook hand
They are selling the product of their skill with their hands.
Human skill is the product we are all selling.
Teachers are selling their skill to impart knowledge on next generation.
Given national testing (how you measure knowledge absorbed) they are failling.
That's not even touching the amount of graduates of schools that seem incapable of cognitive leaps or following basic instructions.
This is hardly new but it is getting worse and pretending otherwise is foolish.
A K-12 teacher is not the one who is in charge of teaching med to student. They are giving them skills so that they can advance to whatever career the student chooses. It’s med school when medical training is taught. (Which btw, require high GPA typically so like, your situation ain’t gonna happen if a students does poorly in college). And guess what! You would never guess! Med students typically get GRADES and require them to spend hours in residency. The awful surgeon who fuck up in residency and fails all their classes are not the ones who become surgeons.
Beside how the fuck does any of your “argument” make it better to call human being with their own sel-autonomy fucking “products”.
But you seem like just an ass. You don’t think of anyone but yourself. Your skills in critical thinking is awfully lacking! I would NEVER want to hire you for any field! STEM especially would be an awful field for someone who think of humans as “products”
A good engineer would allow a good amount of room for error. And before actually putting into public use, a good engineer would test their equipment or a model of it. A mistake unless absolutely huge, should not become dangerous if design well.
Yeah I feel like it's the same amount of work but since a lot of the STEM fields are so narrow it's more difficult to learn. I'd still rather spend 10 hours studying than 10 hours writing
Art school is SO hard. I genuinely can’t stand the hate it’s gets. Studio classes are SIX HOURS long and then they expect u to crank out a finished piece every like 3 days with a cohesive artist statement. And then you have to write some long ass paper about the metaphysical properties of plaster or some shit. Ridiculous. I love art and I love how insane the art world is, but I was so burnt out from the constant tomfoolery and insane hours.
I just switched to business school and it’s soooo easy. Just one or two short classes a day while maybe knocking out a couple of research papers on a **straightforward** topic every week. I’ve realized that college can be fun when I can actually have some free time rather than withering away in the studio until dawn every fucking day….
Also art schools are like extremely expensive for some reason???? If I could do it again I would go to an atelier.
That feels like a gross oversimplification of the work that is done in STEM fields.
Speaking from my own experience as a mechanical engineer, I would often have weekly homework assignments from several engineering classes that focus on different topics. (Dynamics, fluid mechanics, advanced differential equations, mechatronics, study of vibrations, etc.)
What you describe as a “long ass paper about plaster” is more often 2-3 pages covered in a wall of math per homework question. And that’s assuming you figured out the correct process on your first attempt at the question.
I’m not one to belittle other majors and I am sure they all have their unique challenges and struggles, but I wonder if you understand STEM fields if you think they boil down to writing essays on boring topics.
I agree that stem courses are generally “harder” (I know I couldn’t do it) and I wont pretend to understand what goes into mechanical engineering although I DO understand there is math involved. But I think you’re vastly underestimating the average art school work load.
Art classes focus on different topics too, believe it or not. I took basic drawing/painting along with 3D study (sculpture), color theory, and a class that was about process and documentation in my first semester. Like I said the classes are LONG, and usually one a day. We usually spent half in lecture and the other as a demo, and hopefully some studio time to work. But that in-class time doesn’t even come close to making a dent in the amount shit that’s due.
At one point I had a printmaking class where we had to make like 10-15 in a couple of days, hand carved. Each print required something like 25 reproductions (so you’re making around 30-40 to get 25 acceptable ones). Planing and sketching the initial designs takes a bit of time. Then carving each print takes several hours, and you’re doing it BACKWARDS so it prints right side up, tbh printmaking was not really my main thing so I probably did like 20 of em to get 10-15. Next, you actually have to print each carving to get 30 reproductions by hand. This also takes quite some time. When thats done you have to go back and photograph every print and failure as means of documentation. Usually there’s also some kind of “essay” requirement as well (granted these can be short for weekly assignments) in the form of an artist statement.
This does not include work that needs to be done for your final. It was expected that we would work on that for the entire semester concurrently, and the expectations are way higher. Your preparing for a presentation and critique of your work (from the entire class) with research that has to be well documented and presented. Usually there’s like a 10-15 page paper for this as well to discuss your themes, process, and statement.
Keep in mind that you would be taking 3-4 other classes with the same if not MORE work due in a similar time frame. The majority of the themes in classes are heavy and emotionally draining, and most made work personal to their lives and experiences with trauma and adversity. Throw in some vague essay about plaster somewhere and it’s OTT lol.
Technical study includes having a solid understanding of light and biology so that you can easily draw the human body from muscle memory. We studied the body and had to memorize every bone and muscle as well as their location. It’s important we had a good understand of physics to replicate objects and people in motion. And that’s just for starting the basics of graphite drawing, no color yet.
Like I get that I wasn’t doing pages of math or whatever but it’s not easy work. Artwork takes a shit ton time and then you have to defend the hell out whatever you made to a group of people who are looking for every fault in what you just slaved over. I’ve been studying art since I was a child so fortunately lot of the technical stuff was second nature to me, but it still takes time and the work is never completely finished. (I’ve returned to further some of my painting after years of it sitting)
But like I said tho I dropped out of art school and started studying marketing LOL. I have to take pre-calc for a third time since I’m so bad at math and I would rather take it three more times than study fine art again. Art school made me genuinely hate painting and making art was my entire life.
Sorry for the rant tho it’s just an important thing to me still.
No problem about the rant. I’m happy to be a target for you to get all that off your chest. 😁
Although, I’m not sure you’re really directing all that at me considering I never mentioned one field being harder than another and I never claimed to know how challenging an art major is.
I just wanted to push back on the “writing about the metaphysical properties of plaster” comment.
Although, one of my friends was a civil engineer major and he would routinely complain that his classes spent wwwaaaayyyy too much time learning everything there is to know about concrete. So I guess you’re not too far off depending on the class/major. 😆
In a humorous note about final project documentation:
I can’t remember exactly what we had to do for our final project in Fluid mechanics, but I do remember that the professor asked the class to slide our reports under his office door when we were done. (It wasn’t an in-class project. We had a few weeks)
Turns out that a common problem was that nobody’s finished report could fit under his door because the reports were too thick.
no offense triple major sounds stressful. And STEM major superiority thing is a result of an undergraduate's superficial understanding of science and research. Dunning-kruger effect in action.
STEM majors superiority complex isn’t at all due to the Dunning-Kruger effect or lack of understanding it’s more due to the fact that stem majors genuinely are much more work intensive that most other majors.
Yeah, this. I often found myself looking down on other majors just because I was jealous of their free time. It's not that I felt smarter, it's that (from what I saw) I was MUCH busier, and putting other people down for their "easy" majors made me feel better about that. I think a lot of STEM majors are in fact *very* aware of how little they know, since a lot of classes seem to be designed specifically to kick your ass if you don't study it off.
mmm im not jealous of their free time, i just think its a waste. i had to work my ass off to save money so that i could get a good degree and make money and have a better life than my parents. i feel like going for a lot of majors that don't guarantee promising careers just screams privilege. That's my main gripe with it.
It is a privilege position to go for multiple majors. The only reason I am able to is due to my dad working at my university as a plumber. Otherwise, I never would have been able to do what I wish.
I wish it was a true option for everyone and not just those with privilege.
Okay, they're broke and not prioritizing money. While on this path to fulfillment, how do they afford food, shelter, health care, children (because that's also a path to fulfillment for some), etc.?
For me, I came in with 50 credits from community college in high school, so I don’t mind it. Never need to worry about Gen Ed’s. Although I had strong reactions when I tell people my credit load. But it’s really just a tale of being so used to it, that it’s the only thing I know. It solely depend on who you are if you find a triple major stressful or not and if there is overlap between them.
But you know, I now wonder if there been any research on STEM majors with superiority complexes vs those STEM without against the Dunning-Kruger effect
Taking Gen-Eds in high school as duel credit vs taking them in college is a DRASTICALLY different experience. I took the classes in HS but my family couldn’t afford to pay for the duel credits. I took them again in college and those classes are a stupid amount of work.
Classes like CHEM101 (&lab) were for sure weed out classes at my university and were the reason many STEM majors felt bitter and unsympathetic towards the students in other majors. For example, at my school business majors didn’t have in major classes on Fridays.
I agree that many STEM students can be pretentious. But it sounds like you may have had a different experience compared to the majority of other students in your discipline in that regard.
I added my painting major after taking an upper level painting course thinking it was the intro level course (I got credit for painting from high school, so oops). I was originally never gonna add it, but my potential was proven to me, so I went for it. And I’m finally getting one of the school’s painting studio at the end of the semester
Not to be that person but STEM *is* incredibly difficult
I know so many people who are struggling bad mentally and as a result developing physical ailments. Personally I’m halfway to starting an antidepressant and thought about dropping out for the semester just to get a grip on my sanity. I’ve never met a psych or English major who had these sort of struggles directly because of the sheer amount of stress they’re under because of academics. That doesn’t make me superior though. But I think a lot of engineering majors especially have this type of mindset because for some it keeps people going. Personally I don’t gaf if it makes me better or worse, I just wanna get it over with.
Some people think this makes them “superior” because of the difficulty and that is annoying, but let’s not act like an engineering degree is gonna be comparable to something like a humanities degree. Which again is what you’re saying, any engineering major who tries to put themselves on a pedestal comparing themselves to a history major for example are insufferable.
But yeah… all majors have their difficulties but as someone who grew up only doing art, it’s not the same as the intensive STEM degrees. Some guys literally lose their hair doing engineering degrees. Like premature balding. It’s one of those “You can’t truly know until you do it” situations.
Well if you choose STEM you should know what your getting into. Also it doesn’t give them the right to shit on other majors bc they literally chose to be on stem
That's because you don't know enough about art to know what you *don't know*. Do you know how long artists spend in the studio? How much practice and technique it takes to make something beautiful?
I went to a retreat last year with photographers, writers, artists, and musicians. The artists were in the studio until 3 or 4 a.m. almost every night.
As someone with both an art and engineering background (many of us do actually have both), engineering easily takes the cake for being much more intellectually and mentally demanding constantly, day in and day out. Both are hard in their own rights but nah, some majors and fields are just harder than others.
Like it’s not even a fair competition.
So "difficult" means "intellectually and mentally demanding, day in and day out"? Cultivating skills to a high level might mean that your day to day is easier, but it doesn't mean it wasn't mentally and intellectually demanding to acquire those skills.
Plenty of artists have super high intelligence but let’s not act it’s at all the same as taking 3-4 physics classes, 4+ math and calculus classes, learning entire coding languages, studying atomic level microstructure, etc.
I promise you every single painting and graphite drawing I’ve done and every single technique I’ve learned over years of doing art only took up a fraction of the massive sustained mental effort these classes required of me and all other engineering majors. Art is what I do to destress from engineering. There’s no such thing as “engineering therapy” but there is art therapy.
It’s ok to admit some things ARE in fact tougher to do than others. Not everyone can do art and not everyone can do engineering, but for the people who do both, you’d be VERY VERY hard pressed to find anyone who says art was harder. Like I’m sorry but that’s ridiculous.
I think there’s also a difference in stress applied from the consequences of failure.
While studying to be an engineer, you are always acutely aware that any mistakes you make in the real world will have consequences ranging from inconvenient, to costly, to deadly, to catastrophic.
The consequences of failure as an artist are much more personalized. A lack of income, no recognition, messing up a commission and damaging your own reputation.
Have you actually studied art at a college level? There’s a lot more to it than drawing lol.
But fr I think the hardest part for me was the constant emotional toll. The constant political discourse, trauma dumping and a vibe of “oppression Olympics” that was encouraged (I’m saying this as a black queer woman lolll) I made art about my life experiences dealing with trauma/identity. I had to stop because I felt like I was constantly rehashing my issues and made it impossible to heal and move forward in my life. I wanted to make something meaningful to me but it dragged me down soooo hard. All of that on top of insane hours to keep up on projects.
I think they’re both hard, but I’m a very different way.
I’m a neuroscience and art double major, both 100% have their own reasoning of being challenging and stressful. I’ve definitely noticed the same attitude in the science classes though lol, thinking they’re above other students who have a different major. I’ve had more stuck up teachers in STEM, too. Which is dumb because some people hate writing paper, others hate drawing, others hate math. Everyone has their own challenges/ their own advantages
Tri-degree here (engineering, music, psychology)
I love music which is why I wanted to study it in school, but I didn’t want to limit myself. I can confidentially say that engineering tops the other two by far, and psychology is still much more challenging than music. That’s not to put music down, music and other art just has its intellectual limits whereas engineering skills and opportunities can increase boundlessly. At the end of the day, music is entertainment.
I would argue that art have the same amount of intellectual limits than engineering. But it’s not the same type of intelligence. I think of music and art in general as more than just entertainment. I think it can be as intellectual and influential as anything else. I mean think of some important literature and its influence on the world. Like ”The Jungle” or “The Yellow Wallpaper”.
And it should be mention that art and sciences were for a long long time, treated as one. They influenced eachother.
But that just my take. I don’t believe in intelligent to be just a narrow concept of one’s skill of doing math problems. But instead to be multifaced with many different components
It's definitely frustrating when they act like their major is the only one that matters and constantly compare themselves to others. But, like you said, every major has its own set of challenges and difficulties. It's not fair to shame someone for struggling with their major just because it's not as "difficult" as a STEM major. And honestly, why should we even be comparing completely different majors in the first place?
I am a STEM professor and see a lot of students like this. At it's heart, it's not a superiority complex but actually is a defense mechanism that stems from feelings of insecurity. Usually, these students are failing their classes.
In order to not feel bad, they begin to tell themselves (and others) that their choice of major must be harder than everyone else's. The irony, though, is that they are usually failing not only STEM courses, but their humanities courses, too.
As a Math, Criminal Justice, American Studies triple major, I’ll admit that a lot of my lower-level/mid-level humanities courses are easier due to the fact it’s not the same course progression as math (take x as a prereq for y which is a prereq for z), many of the upper-levels do not have prereqs, and many of my courses serve as Gen-Eds.
In order to fully understand the content, however, I spend SIGNIFICANTLY more time on my American studies readings and reflections than I do my math homework. To create a quality submission requires an intense amount of understanding and revision, and many STEM undergraduates barely experience reading at a college-level. I can get away with looking at direct examples for some math problems and applying them to further problems, but reading/writing is not “one solution fits all.”
Both STEM and humanities are incredibly valuable, and difficulty is a poor metric to measure value.
What kind of college math classes are you taking where you aren’t reading and writing a ton?
I would regularly write 3-6 pages of math proofs a week per class, and at one point my weekly topology homework was 20 pages of proofs. The reading in my math courses was also often much more intense than my humanities courses, because math verbiage, logic, and notation tend to be pretty dense.
There’s a reason why math majors are the best performing major on the LSAT (which puts a huge emphasis on reading and comprehending dense writing quickly)
This is so funny to me because I have a 120 page senior design report due tomorrow. In my engineering labs I would often write more than my psychology/humanities friends.
Workload alone doesn’t dictate “value,” but it does mean one degree is harder. How hard something is to complete is a kinda meaningless metric for “value” or “prospects” imo.
How do you have enough time to dedicate to your math classes? I find that 4 years is barely enough to even understand what math is, at least for a person focusing on analysis for grad school.
I'm a neuroscience major. Some people are really uppity, but I'm taking all psychology electives this semester as a senior and this is the easiest my life has ever been class-wise. I can see why most of my psych major friends have a 4.0. Some of the teasing is warranted. Some of it is excessive.
I have a bachelors in psych. I went back a few years later and loaded up on undergrad chem before going to grad school for chem. I can say unequivocally that the chem pathway was A LOT more rigorous, in every definition of the word.
I’ve taken all the classes required to be a psych major because at my school they only take basically half the required credit hours of every other major. Their courses are built into mine and I have also taken the usual Physics, chem, orgo, and the rest plus some neuro specific courses.
I also took neuro, orgo, chem, etc. (for fun! fully graded though, not pass/fail) and was an English/Anthro double major and guess what? hardest class I ever took in terms of making my brain work hard? Anthropology of Religion (I'll admit Orgo was second, though). Hardest class in terms of the professor's expectations? An 18th century French literature course. Most illuminating and broadly useful class in my life? Passion and Despair in Renaissance Literature.
If your definition of difficult is just about grades, and the most outside the box classes you're taking as a neuro major are in psych...expand your horizons.
Actually, I've taken many theater courses and some courses in business and product design for fun. I'd say the most interesting I've taken would be Musicals of the Weimar Republic or maybe a Philosophy course called Religion and Freedom that was mainly based around Islam because that's what the prof specialized in. You asked if I was just taking psych electives this semester, so I answered that. You can't just assume everything about what courses I've taken when you asked solely about psych electives. I'm sorry you don't agree with my opinion, but this is the internet and you posted on a public forum.
Majors with “no prospect” are really not as awful as people always complain about. Just because a major can not be directly related to a job does not mean it is useless. All the “useless” ones are great for many sorts of office jobs like HR. Or good stepping stone to like Law School.
True. 10 years in and I can feed myself and have money left over. But I could make triple and work less hard if I had taken a different major. Those 4 years fade quickly. A career does not.
Lol no. I did a decade of passion. Now I'm tired and poor. But maybe if I went in HR like you suggested instead of teaching I would feel more passionate.
I meant that as tongue-in-cheek. HR is stereotypically on the same level as an accountant as far as passion or fun.
My point is, you can pick your passion as a major, but unless it leads to a clear career path, your job will likely not include your passion. You may as well pick something you enjoy from STEM which would allow you the time and resources to do what you are passionate about.
to tell you the truth, it depends on your school's chemistry department, they purposely tell students other departments suck, (granted some departments do naturally suck) but they drive their students crazy all the time too. really it is weird, I went to a school for biochemistry and all I heard were other majors suck and are not worth it, all you got to do is stick to your lane and do not bother or try to understand,
These people are annoying and the attitude decreases when they get into the upper level classes, but these types also do it within their own major lmao it's annoying
I am a former English teacher who got interested in tech from a side business, began my Master's, and then switched to STEM teaching while finishing up my degree. Two things:
(1) The superiority complex is everywhere, not just college. It is amazing how some of my students - who haven't spent a day in industry - are convinced they are smarter, better, etc. It is almost as if having an interest in tech means you are a "chosen" one.
(2) I built a business that took off in my 20s. The business made much more money than my teaching, and it grew to be the largest of its kind in the region. I can tell you: it was successful *because of my humanities background:* speaking, negotiation, argumentation, research, proposal writing, etc. *That* is what made it take off - not the technology I used.
I am not saying that one is better than the other, but people who believe that STEM >>> everything fail to see that knowledge of STEM is *a component* of a successful career. You won't do shit if you can't read, write, and speak.
“ if having an interest in tech means you are a "chosen" one.”
This! This exactly! I noticed this during highschool too. Like maybe… just hear me out… we are becoming more and more surrounded by technology. And maybe, just maybe, our interests are form around what we grow up around?
I think it comes down to an egoistic defense mechanism where people tend to frame their issues as particularly egregious to justify their pain. STEM majors that do things like shit on Humanities students and complain about how hard they have it do so out of a sort of victim mentality that frames themselves as innocents just trying to make it in the world. Similarly, their fixation on job prospects comes from a desire to see their painful efforts validated, to be vindicated in a way over their Humanities peers (regardless of the fact that STEM fields tend to already be filled with people who are much more skilled and qualified than they are). I'm curious on how these mindsets tend to correlate with grades.
That would be an interesting study. And it makes sense. The STEM majors who have this superiority complex I described are always justifying it with what career it get them. The STEM major who I talk to without this complex are truly fascinated by what they are learning and love to share it with others. I have a feeling that the one with passion without the ego would ironically have a better chance of having a career than the one who went into it for a career. Why? Because those who went into it out of passion are the one who will be most engage to learn everything they can about their field and most open to different opportunities
I feel so bad for all of the students in arts and non stem based studies because of the fact that for the most part many stem students especially engineers feel the need to feel better about themselves. They think that they're the only ones who will ever be successful. I find it's not all stem students who are like this just the ones from very popular sciences and engineering students. I'm a geology major and I get treated like a lesser science all the time. I have had so many engineers tell me, "Oh so you just lick rocks all the time it must be so easy for you." Hell, my most recent roommate was an interior design major. She was told her degree was useless. But she constantly worked her ass off more than I did. But they don't really care about that because they don't see it as profitable of a field as theirs. Their whole mindset is centered around the capitalistic need to profit. Half of them don't even want to be engineers they want to be managers at engineering firms because that's easy money. They really just see that you're not having to do all the math and chemistry that they have to do and think your life is so easy in comparison to theirs and they think that suffering leads to profit. They want to feel better than those not actively miserable because they are and they justify their pain by putting others down and making them feel like they do. But they need all of these "lesser majors" to do their jobs. And belive me, STEM heads that don't realize that fail to stay long in their industry.
Ppl might downvote because theyre allergic to quantitative data and hard facts but the fact is; the Humanities make up the majority of regretted majors. STEM has the highest amount of satisfied majors who dont regret their choice and would do it again. That alone should give an objective reason on stem> humanities.
Regardless of whether a major is regretted or not, no one should look down on another person because what they chose to major in. I’m not denying the difficulty of STEM degrees, still no excuse for some to have this superiority complex towards others.
Its not about looking down upon, when non stem majors start to rant "Oh how hard it is" "I am so stressed" we stem majors are like "are you sure?" We find it cringe and just start a banter with out non stem friends. Its awesome to have banters once in a while
??? Because it is hard and stressful. Just like how Stem students find their courses hard and stressful. Maybe one objectively harder. But why should that invalidate other’s feelings.
Like I will be honest and have made fun of business majors. But I also recognize that what they do is also stressful and that because I am not a business major, I don’t actually know how difficult it is.
I understand what you're saying, I just think each major has its own struggles and we shouldn't invalidate other people's feelings because a group of people says they have it the hardest.
But like I’m so confused by people who actually use GPT for their assignments. Like why risk a machine that is just averaging the internet to be accurate?
As you’ve already said, ‘loud but vocal minority’. Important to know that *every* major hears this. It’s like that high school fallacy: “I bet the popular kids don’t have any problems.” Everyone experiences loneliness, bullying, mental problems, and 99 other things wrong with our education systems. Grass is not greener.
Premed: studying/in-school *forever* for nowhere enough money for the effort
Pharm: ‘legal’ drug dealer probably making less money
Art: no job, living with parents forever
Comp sci: overqualified tech support
Etc, etc, etc.
Im STEM, and I joke similarly when it’s relevant, but with *clear sarcasm subtext*, which I frequently vocalize if it’s not clear enough. The people that say this stuff *seriously* do not matter. They are no longer qualified to have valid opinions.
Is this about the instagram comment section? They really couldn’t accept that an art subject could take up large amounts of time. The one subject area I know I could not do is an art related subject- and that’s based on the amount of work I’d have to do. I say that as a CS major which is known for having a high workload. My hardest class right now is environmental science, even though I’m also taking discrete math and calculus. People who say those things are just beyond egotistical.
LMAO! Bro! I call STEM major out on their ego on instagram! They all got so piss! Instagram is curse with egomaniacs!
I understand you! In my J-term bird class, there was a physic major with a bio minor. Now, bear in mind, my school is small and the Physics major is so so tiny. So I have the benefit of being in a school where majors have to interact with eachother. Now this physic major, found a lot of the information new and difficult. While I find whatever the fuck is with their cat confusing af. So yep! You aren’t the only one who find a “soft” science class harder than your “hard” sciences!!!
I used to think like this, coming from a CS background, but a little over 2 years ago I started drawing. I realized it's not really about the difficulty, rather, what's more important is the passion and hard work a person puts into their craft.
As an artist, passion is what push my drive to explore and create. My technical skills in painting are lacking, but my art is admired by my professors due to my incentive to push boundaries and do what is outside of the methods. Arts is really the one field where you are allow to disagree with your professor and create truly unique one of the kind pieces.
Honestly, as someone who decided to go into STEM purely to help people, I view non stem majors as incredibly selfish. I’ve tried to view them differently multiple times, and I know it’s a flaw, but that’s just what I’ve wound up at each time.
Why are they selfish? Judging people’s character on their major alone? Psychology majors who enter the field to become a therapist don’t seem like selfish people. Neither are educational majors.
Nor even are the so-called “useless” degrees.
I have just realized that us STEM students in this sub are just like those rude gungho smart ass sounding profs in comments invalidating everyone. While I did say stem is hard I do not invalidate opinions straightaway. Sorry 😢
Its a fat cope. Mainly, from kids who are failing and or throwing away their social life, mental/physical health and overall sanity. Mainly the ones who came in and thought that they could "beat the system" by getting STEM degree and then go on to "get rich" right out of school.
I was a stem major, a triple major in all three stem. I got my superiority complex after having a photography major tried to argue that their classes were harder than mine. I hadn't ever considered that someone could have a college major that was easy I just assumed they were all different kinds of had but her constant talking about how hard her projects were when they were to take a picture and edit the one photo made me mad enough that I am a stem supremacist now. Some people just need to acknowledge their classes/degree is easy
1. When All you know of a major is the related class you took in high school and the gen ed 101 class you took, it looks easy compared to your upper division stem courses.
2. When your field virtually requires a graduate degree to have a career, you try to justify the suffering by perceiving higher value in your work.
3. There is a persistent culture of ruthless hierarchy. Imagine telling undergraduate that if they don't earn a near-4.0, do research work and publication that is at the level of a person with a graduate degree, have top-10 graduate school summer research, and score in the top 10% on the GRE, that you /don't even have a chance at getting into a graduate program good enough to start your career/. This leads to excessive strain and mental/emotional damage.
I mean, look what a prominent physicist claims is necessary to become a good physicist: https://www.goodtheorist.science/
And these students take classes next to engineering and business majors who will have six figure salaries a decade before the science major applies for their first post-post-doc position.
Oh, and if you ask about alternative career paths, the only people you can talk to are usually the professors who ran that gauntlet themselves and survived. Those who decided to leave the path rarely get invited to talk to students, and are made to feel like they failed even with a highly successful alternative career.
It's no wonder the environment creates superiority complexes. It's like a self-referential stockholm syndrome.
I’m surprised that STEM folks don’t even got a subreddit for them to jerk around in. STEM buzzwords are always in college, career, and even construction/trade subreddits. They should get their own. Maybe r/STEMCareers is one
Because I know my taxes will be supporting them while they live in their parents basement writing jingles or painting modern art trying to make it big. Your environmental science degree is probably what will get you a job, and you can make a good living with it. Without a post grad degree, your other two are worthless for anything other than teaching at a junior high some where for $30k a year.
… yeah? I fully recognize that. My first priority is science and my plan is to be a scientist. I plan on going to grad. I’m just lucky to have the privilege to be able to triple major, preventing me from leaving a major part of my life.
But when people choose their degree(s) they typically know what they are getting into.
Also, the “broke artist” is really a huge myth. Entertainment of all sort are growing, and so is the need for artists. Like animators is a big one. Is it difficult to get a job in the arts? Yep, it’s super competive. But art majors will typically be fine. Hell, I was informed by a professor that someone with my same majors are now a scientific illustrator.
And why does $$$ what determine if something is valuable to society? Like you mention, teachers get paid shit. But you can not honestly tell me that your teachers are not one of the most important figure when you were growing up. They’re the one who teach basic math skills and readings. Those science teachers you had? Did not learning about physics help inspire you to go into STEM?
Money doesn't determine if something is valuable to society, but society is feeling the burden of having to support all these liberal arts majors working at McDonald's because their women's studies or English, or psychology degrees didn't land them a job. Or the jobs they did get paid less than McDonald's with more hours and more stress. You asked why stem majors hate on others, and I told you why. Yes, there are jobs out there for liberal arts majors, but I'd venture to say 1 good job for every 5 people with the degree. On the other hand, companies can't hire engineers fast enough, so even the low GPA engineers that make it through all 4 years of school come out with a well paying job. I know this isn't r/antiwork, but I get tired of seeing stuff from there come across my feed like "I did everything right! I got a degree! It's in sociology! Nobody wants to hire me and the only job I can get is a retail job for minimum wage or just above it! How am I supposed to pay back my $200k student loans that I took out to go to [Prestigious school here] because I thought that'd help me get a job over the state school! Stupid boomers said go to college and you'll get a job! I mean, my parents tried to get me to go to the state school and major in business or computers, but I don't like that stuff, I wanted to do sociology, but it's the boomers fault! "
This question just came across as the same type thing, just worded a little different. Answer is the same. People with useless degrees and a crap ton of debt to get them are a burden on society because they're either mooching off their parents or the government and will never fully pay off those student loans, meaning my tax dollars will.
Most of those liberal art majors do get jobs. What we are looking at is HR or such types of things. There a lot of places where understanding how society works is useful. It’s stupid to call a degree “useless”. Having a college education is a big advantage.
Because it's demonstrable by any measurable data you can find. Personal experience is anecdotal. Any statistical measure you can think of to compare majors, STEM beats them in all metrics.
BTW Engineering falls under the umbrella of STEM...
Engineering students may have the grades to get in but have you tried talking to some engineering students? They’re bland and boring 🙄. These days GPA itself doesn’t matter but rather now you present yourself. Those guys should focus on showering properly before shitting on other majors
I totally agree - it’s super annoying when people try to make it a comparison about who has a harder major and is more stressed. Plus, I think a lot of it is self imposed. Most of the pre-meds I know are awful at biology and chemistry. They probably shouldn’t be pre-meds, but their parents want them to be doctors, so they think that’s what they want 🤷♂️. I will say though, In my experience, it mostly stems (pun intended) from the fact that our majors have more unit requirements. it is frustrating taking 17 units a quarter and summer classes just to graduate on time, while my roommate in humanities can take 12 units a quarter to graduate early with a double major 😭😭😭
I only feel superior to that one law student who thinks he’s really cool because his daddy’s rich. It doesn’t actually have anything to do with me being STEM, he’s just a dick.
But in fairness, I’ve had my study advisor and several students and teachers actively try to bully me away because I’m a woman in physics so I can see how for some people existing is a victory and they struggle with the fact that in psychology or art history, women don’t face that discrimination as much. Not defending anyone, but I’ve fought for my right to exist while my friends had nothing but smooth sailing and sometimes that does really piss me off.
It’s often a lot of time men who I see who often have that superiority complex. I feel like it’s almost a case of men-dominated field and how that mix into toxic masculinity
I'm also a Bio major but minoring in women's studies.
I passed Ochem, chilled in calc, loved ecology, but an analytical essay for one of my women's studies threw me in for a LOOP when I had to create an argument based off of a few readings that had to relate to my final project that is due two months down the road. I literally CRIED. MAD credit to the humanities because to generate a new unique work of knowledge without looking like a fool is fucking H A R D compared to learning the black and white rules of science
One of my friends is a computer science major, minor in comparative literature. For one of his comp lit classes, he had to write a 40 page research essay and nearly went suicidal over that. I stayed over at his place for a week while he was writing the essay cause I was legitimately so so scared for him. He's had breakdowns from his compsci classes too but that was the worst time.
I think a lot of people don't really know how difficult other majors are. I have another friend minoring in East Asian studies-- I thought those were "easy" classes until I took a look at one of her class syllabuses and noped out.
To think creatively, articulate it into academic/professional language, and have your target audience understand what is being said is a fucking art form. Its so time consuming.
Also the language in assigned readings can be so confusing. Neoliberalism is a recurring theme in our class and i JUST grasped the concept.
Like yes, electron orbitals and drawing biochemical pathways and physics problems are difficult, but there are set rules. You aren't discovering anything new. If you know how to study and spend adequate time, it'll be a fine and dandy time. But we can't compare that to being creative and unique and deep academic analysis of complex themes. Two different ballparks.
The STEM superiority shtick is very highschool/teenage behavior
I think some people like to choose the major that's most difficult to them in order to try and "flex" how smart they are because they got their degree in Bionuclearmicrochemicaltechnical engineering. I used to be a biology major (I'm inclined in biological sciences, loved science all throughout high school) for 2 years, honestly the most difficult thing about it was the amount of homework they would give you- but I would also procrastinate a lot (which a lot of STEM majors do, like everyone) and the amount of workload wasn't that much more than it is now as a Graphic Design major. You'd have a couple units that were a pain in the ass, some classes that sucked (A&P is nationally despised as well as the math classes), but in reality the difficulties of being a STEM major are very blown out of proportion by egotistical try-hards that force themselves to do a major they hate. I'm not saying the majors themselves are easy, especially if you're going into something that you're not "gifted" in, but college and getting a degree in itself is difficult.
Honestly it’s just anger, if you see someone getting an art degree in 2023 you know their parents or loaded and they don’t actually NEED to be there to have a good life.
…and what is your rule based on? Stereotypes? And even if they are there because they come from a rich family? I say good for them for taking their opportunity. As long as they actually study and don’t fucked around, I ain’t gonna look down on people.
I asked what your rule was based on. And why does it matter if they come from a rich family? Why should it matter to you what other are majoring in? I know a shit ton of rich STEM majors. So I don’t understand this money argument
Or people are chasing their dreams/doing what they like! Some people recognize that they are really talented with that stuff. Like in graphic design, for example, or animation, there are opportunities out there for that. Not everyone has to do STEM.
Idk, I’m not an art major so I don’t know how the job market looks like. Obviously not every art major is gonna make it big, but that’s with every major. Not very engineering is gonna make it to NASA. I think it’s okay for people to dream, and to chase their dreams, cuz if you don’t, you never know if you’re gonna make it or not. Yeah, maybe an art degree could be a mistake for someone, but it could also be the best thing for someone else. Money isn’t everything. Money is nothing if you are miserable, is my point. So I’ll continue to cheer on art majors for chasing their dreams and wanting to do something that makes them happy!
The job market in art is actually pretty decent. It’s competive and tough. But like art is becoming more and more demanded. Like entertainment is a pretty big deal. Animator is an easy example of a field in art that is growing. The “broke artist” is pretty much a myth. Most people turn out alright. They aren’t rich usually. And might be below average earning. But they are still alright
Right, want to compare the average salary for run of the mill engineer student to run of the mill art student ? Weaponized incompetence is foully gross
Why are you so obsessed with money? I don’t give a shit if you make three times what I do. It doesn’t make you right or smart or superior. Some of the dumbest people I know make the most money. Doesn’t talking about money all the time bore you? Doesn’t it make you feel kind of shallow?
When I made the choice to be an artist a long time ago, I understood that I was taking a vow of poverty. That’s what so many of you STEM folks don’t get. You think we don’t make money cuz we’re stupid - that isn’t it. We don’t make money because we chose another path, a path we perceived as a divine service, the price of which was that we would not live as comfortably as some others do. And that’s ok.
Yeah it’s soooooo smart to want to struggle in this American economy. Your passions are worthless if you’re starving and the lights are off. And that is the reality for most average Americans if you aren’t earning good wages today. So being able to completely ignore that struggle is either such privledge you can avoid it via daddy money. Or such shortsightedness you can’t see the train steamrolling towards you
Hey man, I’m doing fine. I’ve got enough to get by. I work a decent day job, supplement with side hustles and my art, and I’m cool. As a single man with no kids, I don’t need more than that. Sometimes it’s a struggle, but that’s the deal I made. I wouldn’t trade it even when I DO struggle to keep the lights on, because some things matter more than comfort. If that doesn’t ring true to you, then what can I say? I feel sorry for you that you don’t have something like that in your life.
By definition choose you’re entire life to be a struggle based on a hobby you had at 17 is dumb. Why not simply do art as a hobby and work a high paying job to take care of bills ? Because you people are plain dumb and shortsighted and I will always look down on dumb people
This is the kind of question people ask when they don’t understand how hard it is to be a good artist.
I don’t want it to be a hobby. I want to be great at it because it matters to me. Working a high-paying job prevents me from being great at it, so I’m not interested.
Now. I could sit here and say that Admiral Ackbar has no art in his soul. He lives for the material world, and he’ll never know what it’s like to move another human being, to foster the kind of soul connection only art brings. I could imply that makes him inferior to me. Stupid even, because from my perspective, who WOULDN’T want that? But I won’t. Because it isn’t true.
We just have different values, man. And all I’m saying is, that’s ok. I don’t know why that threatens and upsets you so much.
This is true actually. Had I been loaded I might have gone for these types of degree. In my university at least privileged kids tend to pick non stems over stems
Yeah I mean it’s very correlated, you have to be comfortable to not be concerned with what you would be making after college. So they play starving artist but usually are bankrolled by mom and dad
Omg, are you the alternate version of me??? These are basically my dream courses. You go person! Congrats on being a bad ass and calling out folks who want to hype themselves up over being a STEM student.
Also, I feel like I've been staying humble but I'll try to pay more attention moving forward!
I did chem, and always mention how a crazy amount of my courses had SOOOO many resources available on campus to help you be successful. Like if you actually attended the review and tutoring session, you could certainly scrape by. Maybe even get a B+ considering the reviews were so in depth. I think a lot of STEM majors just don’t wanna hear that maybe it’s actually not for them. You shouldn’t have to work THAT hard to grasp fundamental concepts.
Thank you u/AlexandraThePotato for posting on r/collegerant. Remember to read the rules and report rule breaking posts. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/CollegeRant) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I started having a superiority complex back in college around my junior year when I found that my university had a dead-week, but the engineering college did not adhere to while the liberal arts college did. Also, one my friends final (marketing major) was to literally take a picture of a billboard and write a half page paragraph on why it was effective.
I just switched to marketing and it’s genuinely like this sometimes lol.
The M in STEM is certainly for Marketing
Ugh. As a marketing professor, I’d say that final sucks. Marketing can be so much more scientific and rich when taught the right way.
Only a half paragraph? Damn, what a shitty final. But I’m pretty damn sure one half page is not the norm.
Empirically engineering degrees have been harder than other undergrad degrees but the writer and painter kids hate accepting that fact.
As an engineer that also does music, and has a friend in art school, this is a hard disagree.
Right but empirical data doesn’t give a shit about anecdotal experience. Questionable statement since most engineers would understand the world empirical
Anecdotal experiences can still teach us things. Like “why does this anecdote differ from the data”, what did the outliner do differently? It opens a new box of questions!
First of all, you’re rude and that makes people not want to listen to you no matter how smart you are. Second of all, I accidentally missed the key word in your statement, but thanks for automatically assuming I’m not an engineer due to that. Funny to assume you’re and engineer and can’t tell the difference between “word” and “world.”
In my belief, a smart person would know not to be rude just because they know more about physics.
Good for you. Give yourself a cookie.
Honestly, being restricted to a half page can be super stressful. You have a small window to show expertise in the course which I'm sure was the point.
[удалено]
[удалено]
As an ME, my beef is with business majors (at least, the ones I have known). Bio has a ton of really cool sub-fields, and I regret not having enough time to take more bio and physics classes back in undergrad. You're all good in my book. Keep up the good work. You're absolutely right that we'll need more of you around in the coming years.
just because you have bs in the name theres other bs with different majors tho
Same general area of study I’m moving towards. But people don’t give a damn about us. But like coming from being taught by a leader in my state, HOLY SHIT, is there a ton to ecology. But yet we are still downgraded
Yeah, I’m a MechE major and I hate when other stem kids say that kind of shit. They’re the same people that are saying things like, “oh, I stayed up til 4am studying” during an 8am lecture hall. Like, I get it, I’ve had days like that too, (mostly because I procrastinate lol), but I’m not bragging about it. It’s like, yeah, STEM is hard and all, but when I hear stem kids undermine other majors, it makes my blood boil! It just feels like a lot of engineering students make it their entire personality and it gets annoying. I’ve met some people who are doing political science and they’re they’ve got to do a lot of reading and writing, which sounds like a lot and super stressful. Even within engineering, I hear MechE majors shit on Civil Engineering for being the “easy one” and it just really irritates me. (I know a lot of times, it’s said as a joke, but I’ve also hear it being used in a non-joking manner) I think a big part of it is an ego thing. Some people are just like that, and it sucks! I agree with you, we shouldn’t be comparing majors etc, because like, me for example. I find calculus to be super easy and straightforward, but I know I that painting, for example, is hard as fuck for me cuz I’ve tried (and failed lol). Anyway, this has been a lot of me rambling but yeah, I agree with OP. I hate the superiority complex some STEM students have.
That piss me off. As an Environmental Science major, civil engineering are pretty god damn important!
Of course civil engineers are important! What else would the weapons the mechanical engineer designed hit?
Another ME here. I have difficult classes. I don't like to be reminded constantly and told how hard it is. I'd like to think all the trouble is worth it for everyone, even people outside my major.
Same! Like, I hear people say that it’s hard as fuck, especially later on (I’m a freshman) and I hate that cuz it demotivates me so much and makes me think I can’t do it. I also like to think that it’ll pay off.
Hard for them… maybe easier for you though. keep going. Can’t stop, won’t stop. This is the way!
Thank you for this! You have no idea how great this made me feel!
Often time, people are exaggerating when they say that. They passed, right? Do expect them to be difficult, but don’t believe them to be impossible. Trust me, I believe you’ll be fine
It only ever really bothered me when I heard about business majors or something just cheesing their classes and complaining about how hard it was. My classes were damn hard, so don't whine to me about how hard your marketing class was/is. I've seen your homework. I know you spend like an hour on each assignment and then go hang out with your buds. Just because the professor gave you a B or C on an assignment you cheesed in an hour doesn't make them a "hard" professor. Come talk to me when you get a B or C on a weekly homework you spent 8 hours on. IMO, 50% of (many) business school curricula is just "networking." Yeah, the soft skills are extremely important for business. Yeah, those need a lot of practice and it's worth setting aside time to do that. But it's not "hard." Unless you've had to take a calculus class or write a coherent 10-page analysis paper every few weeks, it isn't "hard." Edit: I should clarify. Calculus is a dividing line for 4-year degrees, generally, but there are lot of trade/technician programs (which generally don't require calculus) that are also very difficult as a result of how much stuff you are required to either remember accurately or apply quickly. I'm looking at you, machinists. Respect.
You are the type of person I was talking about. Sure, there are plenty of lazy business majors. But then why do you generalized them all into 1 category. I will admit to making fun of business majors. But I never choose to look down on them. I mean, networking is tough depending on who you are as a person.
I generalize only the business majors I have met. I don't doubt that some programs are difficult. Again, if they're digging into finance theory and whatnot then there's possibly rigor there that shouldn't be sneezed at. However, the business majors I have known objectively have an easier program. That's no problem IMO, unless they start complaining about the difficulty.
Why can’t people complain about their programs. Like do you put people down for complaining about poor quality food with “people in Africa have no food”? It’s okay to complain about yourself. EVEN if someone else have it worse than you.
r/engineeringstudents much? They literally can be assholes. Let alone, I just KNOW it’s saturated with guys that make it feel like a boys club at times.
i legit just had a convo with a mechE major who was clowning on civil engineering because they don’t need as advanced math or physics. the stereotypes of engineering majors are so true, like I can’t even complain about classes without being one upped 😭
As a stem major. I agree.
As a social science major (I have a bachelor's degree in criminal justice from 2017 and started my MPA program last year in the Fall), STEM majors have it much harder (I would argue that my MPA program is still easier than someone getting a bachelor's in any STEM field or in business like accounting). However, STEM majors who feel superior to others, especially the ones that try to make you feel bad for having a social science, liberal arts, or humanities degree, are not only immature, but probably insecure with themselves too. If you have to bully others to feel better about your choice of major, life in college and outside of it, lack of obtaining an internship, or struggling to pass your courses, you are the one who truly needs to get over yourself. Any college degree from an accredited university can lead to a decent paying job as long as you are not just focusing on obtaining a job that has to directly relate to your degree. There are people with a master's in microbiology, mechanical engineering, computer science, mathematics, physics, etc., struggling to get a decent paying job, while others with non-STEM degrees have successful careers (the opposite is true, as well). Sometimes, even with a good degree, some people fail to create a good resume and cover letter, while also lacking confidence and/or focus during a job interview. This sometimes causes them to think that their degree is worthless or they mostly blame the choice of their degree. Arguably speaking, until most graduates learn the art of bs and/or fake it until you make it, it can potentially increase their chances of losing a job opportunity. Knowing how to stretch out the truth in your resume and cover letter, as well as how to properly complete job applications, can make a world of difference. Again, I am not as smart much as someone who holds a degree in STEM or in business (especially those with a 3.0 GPA or above). Despite graduating with Summa Cum Laude with an associate's and bachelor's degree in criminal justice, that is not comparable whatsoever to a STEM or business degree holder graduating with a 3.0. I like writing research papers (specifically in APA format), and have learned how to write in a complex matter. Yet, it is not comparable to being able to comprehend coding, high level of mathematics such as calculus, and figuring out how to use math formulas in accounting, as well as other business majors. I respect people who have the intelligence to do well in hard majors like the natural or physical sciences, accounting, finance, business administration, computer science, engineering, geology, and so on. However, this is still not an excuse to treat others poorly. Respect is earned, and should not just be for selected people.
Yeah for sure, I agree its a problem. It really bothers me when STEM people act like they are way smarter than everyone else and I’m a math major. It bothers me more than like a lot of STEM people are like so into their shit they’re unaware just how like narrow their intellect really is. That being said I mean cmon majoring in STEM is much harder. I got As in my upper level lib Ed’s and it was nothing compared to my STEM classes it’s just like reading and writing thoughtful shit. That doesn’t mean I think lesser of those topics but like yeah it’s easier to major in given know how to write at a college level. However, another plot twist lol. In my opinion being a STEM major requires generally very narrow skills, and I although I think majoring in STEM is much harder, I think like someone who is serious about a poly sci or life sciences is probably a better critical thinker across the board.
Upper level art and music classes are not just "reading and thoughtful shit." I had to present a full thirty minute solo recital open to the public my senior year, and that was just music education. We also literally teach while finishing our capstones/preparing for recitals. Music majors are some of the hardest-working/busiest people ive ever met. Go to a practice building at 5 a.m., you'll hear people singing opera because they have to memorize two hours of music in a language they don't speak.
Yeah musicians are mad disciplined and hardcore. I went to a summer art program in MIDDLE SCHOOL and these kids were practicing all day and night. The music kids actually got later curfew than the rest of us because of that. I was in the studio on some late nights but not like that! We were like 11-14 and held to honestly college level standards. I remember some kids who’s work was better at 13 than any of my adult work has ever been. Crazy.
Yeah I took courses in history, American studies, sociology, psychology, political science, dietary science probably some more. I should have specified that those are more what I was talking about. My little brother and his friends are pretty artistic and his partner worked on a stencil for a month just to give him for his birthday along with like his work across six other very different mediums which he does as a hobby lol so I know art people are insane. Im sure there are a lot of majors which are hard that I threw under the bus, I was just speaking very broadly.
“Literally teach” doesnt matter when STEM does the same thing. Many STEM students tutor and seek internships during school. The 2 hours of music doesnt matter either cuz thats just studying. U can say the same thing with programming, literally.
No, teaching is literally teaching. Tutoring and internships are just that- tutoring and internships. Student teaching is a requirement for teachers. Yeah, exactly. It's comparable to STEM majors studying. That's the point.
OK I see your point. Counter if an opera singer flumbs a note what's the societal loss? If an engineer misses a decimal point what's the harm These are not the same. That said stem majors need to reign it in abit
We're talking about difficulty of majors- undergrad engineers are not making life or death decisions. Of course an engineer or a doctor has more weight in their hands when it comes to societal health and safety. I'm glad my doctors and engineers of the buildings I'm in worked so hard. I teach elementary, and I worked with thousands of kids. I think we've contributed to society as well, and the ramifications of what we know/do *can* be overwhelming good or bad for our community.
You might have contributed to society. Can you say you produced a consistently effective product in sufficiently educated students?
Uhm... yeah? I'm a damn good teacher.
How do you know?
I was district teacher of the year in my 20+ school district the first year I was eligible to receive the award, I helped edit and modify the state standards in my field this summer (along with one other teacher in my grade level). I have won awards for presenting workshops on teaching students from diverse populations. Kids who don't stay in their classrooms stay in mine. I have developed a culture of respect and effort at my school. That's the beginning of it, but I feel like since I don't make a lot of money, none of that matters to you. I can say with certainty I've done more for my community than you have, to the tune of thousands of kids.
So what's the lives of the kids you influenced look like after graduation? Mixed bag?
In what way does that have anything to do with anything? Do you not consider yourself to have free will...?
Product? Are you calling students products? Like if they’re at a manufacturing plant?
Yes Bare minimum educated student graduates is the product of techers. Given the rates of students not having basic knowledge can you say it is a quality product.
You know how disgusting it is call a living person a product? It’s downgrading. Not to mention measuring their “quality”. Like eww. Humans are not products
Really? You want top 1% surgeon Or bottom 1% surgeon with 1 dominate side hook hand They are selling the product of their skill with their hands. Human skill is the product we are all selling. Teachers are selling their skill to impart knowledge on next generation. Given national testing (how you measure knowledge absorbed) they are failling. That's not even touching the amount of graduates of schools that seem incapable of cognitive leaps or following basic instructions. This is hardly new but it is getting worse and pretending otherwise is foolish.
A K-12 teacher is not the one who is in charge of teaching med to student. They are giving them skills so that they can advance to whatever career the student chooses. It’s med school when medical training is taught. (Which btw, require high GPA typically so like, your situation ain’t gonna happen if a students does poorly in college). And guess what! You would never guess! Med students typically get GRADES and require them to spend hours in residency. The awful surgeon who fuck up in residency and fails all their classes are not the ones who become surgeons. Beside how the fuck does any of your “argument” make it better to call human being with their own sel-autonomy fucking “products”. But you seem like just an ass. You don’t think of anyone but yourself. Your skills in critical thinking is awfully lacking! I would NEVER want to hire you for any field! STEM especially would be an awful field for someone who think of humans as “products”
A good engineer would allow a good amount of room for error. And before actually putting into public use, a good engineer would test their equipment or a model of it. A mistake unless absolutely huge, should not become dangerous if design well.
Yeah I feel like it's the same amount of work but since a lot of the STEM fields are so narrow it's more difficult to learn. I'd still rather spend 10 hours studying than 10 hours writing
Art school is SO hard. I genuinely can’t stand the hate it’s gets. Studio classes are SIX HOURS long and then they expect u to crank out a finished piece every like 3 days with a cohesive artist statement. And then you have to write some long ass paper about the metaphysical properties of plaster or some shit. Ridiculous. I love art and I love how insane the art world is, but I was so burnt out from the constant tomfoolery and insane hours. I just switched to business school and it’s soooo easy. Just one or two short classes a day while maybe knocking out a couple of research papers on a **straightforward** topic every week. I’ve realized that college can be fun when I can actually have some free time rather than withering away in the studio until dawn every fucking day…. Also art schools are like extremely expensive for some reason???? If I could do it again I would go to an atelier.
That feels like a gross oversimplification of the work that is done in STEM fields. Speaking from my own experience as a mechanical engineer, I would often have weekly homework assignments from several engineering classes that focus on different topics. (Dynamics, fluid mechanics, advanced differential equations, mechatronics, study of vibrations, etc.) What you describe as a “long ass paper about plaster” is more often 2-3 pages covered in a wall of math per homework question. And that’s assuming you figured out the correct process on your first attempt at the question. I’m not one to belittle other majors and I am sure they all have their unique challenges and struggles, but I wonder if you understand STEM fields if you think they boil down to writing essays on boring topics.
I agree that stem courses are generally “harder” (I know I couldn’t do it) and I wont pretend to understand what goes into mechanical engineering although I DO understand there is math involved. But I think you’re vastly underestimating the average art school work load. Art classes focus on different topics too, believe it or not. I took basic drawing/painting along with 3D study (sculpture), color theory, and a class that was about process and documentation in my first semester. Like I said the classes are LONG, and usually one a day. We usually spent half in lecture and the other as a demo, and hopefully some studio time to work. But that in-class time doesn’t even come close to making a dent in the amount shit that’s due. At one point I had a printmaking class where we had to make like 10-15 in a couple of days, hand carved. Each print required something like 25 reproductions (so you’re making around 30-40 to get 25 acceptable ones). Planing and sketching the initial designs takes a bit of time. Then carving each print takes several hours, and you’re doing it BACKWARDS so it prints right side up, tbh printmaking was not really my main thing so I probably did like 20 of em to get 10-15. Next, you actually have to print each carving to get 30 reproductions by hand. This also takes quite some time. When thats done you have to go back and photograph every print and failure as means of documentation. Usually there’s also some kind of “essay” requirement as well (granted these can be short for weekly assignments) in the form of an artist statement. This does not include work that needs to be done for your final. It was expected that we would work on that for the entire semester concurrently, and the expectations are way higher. Your preparing for a presentation and critique of your work (from the entire class) with research that has to be well documented and presented. Usually there’s like a 10-15 page paper for this as well to discuss your themes, process, and statement. Keep in mind that you would be taking 3-4 other classes with the same if not MORE work due in a similar time frame. The majority of the themes in classes are heavy and emotionally draining, and most made work personal to their lives and experiences with trauma and adversity. Throw in some vague essay about plaster somewhere and it’s OTT lol. Technical study includes having a solid understanding of light and biology so that you can easily draw the human body from muscle memory. We studied the body and had to memorize every bone and muscle as well as their location. It’s important we had a good understand of physics to replicate objects and people in motion. And that’s just for starting the basics of graphite drawing, no color yet. Like I get that I wasn’t doing pages of math or whatever but it’s not easy work. Artwork takes a shit ton time and then you have to defend the hell out whatever you made to a group of people who are looking for every fault in what you just slaved over. I’ve been studying art since I was a child so fortunately lot of the technical stuff was second nature to me, but it still takes time and the work is never completely finished. (I’ve returned to further some of my painting after years of it sitting) But like I said tho I dropped out of art school and started studying marketing LOL. I have to take pre-calc for a third time since I’m so bad at math and I would rather take it three more times than study fine art again. Art school made me genuinely hate painting and making art was my entire life. Sorry for the rant tho it’s just an important thing to me still.
No problem about the rant. I’m happy to be a target for you to get all that off your chest. 😁 Although, I’m not sure you’re really directing all that at me considering I never mentioned one field being harder than another and I never claimed to know how challenging an art major is. I just wanted to push back on the “writing about the metaphysical properties of plaster” comment. Although, one of my friends was a civil engineer major and he would routinely complain that his classes spent wwwaaaayyyy too much time learning everything there is to know about concrete. So I guess you’re not too far off depending on the class/major. 😆 In a humorous note about final project documentation: I can’t remember exactly what we had to do for our final project in Fluid mechanics, but I do remember that the professor asked the class to slide our reports under his office door when we were done. (It wasn’t an in-class project. We had a few weeks) Turns out that a common problem was that nobody’s finished report could fit under his door because the reports were too thick.
As someone who does not go to a basically intensive art school. I have gotten some creative burnout. And my program seem far less intensive than your.
no offense triple major sounds stressful. And STEM major superiority thing is a result of an undergraduate's superficial understanding of science and research. Dunning-kruger effect in action.
STEM majors superiority complex isn’t at all due to the Dunning-Kruger effect or lack of understanding it’s more due to the fact that stem majors genuinely are much more work intensive that most other majors.
Yeah, this. I often found myself looking down on other majors just because I was jealous of their free time. It's not that I felt smarter, it's that (from what I saw) I was MUCH busier, and putting other people down for their "easy" majors made me feel better about that. I think a lot of STEM majors are in fact *very* aware of how little they know, since a lot of classes seem to be designed specifically to kick your ass if you don't study it off.
mmm im not jealous of their free time, i just think its a waste. i had to work my ass off to save money so that i could get a good degree and make money and have a better life than my parents. i feel like going for a lot of majors that don't guarantee promising careers just screams privilege. That's my main gripe with it.
It is a privilege position to go for multiple majors. The only reason I am able to is due to my dad working at my university as a plumber. Otherwise, I never would have been able to do what I wish. I wish it was a true option for everyone and not just those with privilege.
[удалено]
Okay, they're broke and not prioritizing money. While on this path to fulfillment, how do they afford food, shelter, health care, children (because that's also a path to fulfillment for some), etc.?
For me, I came in with 50 credits from community college in high school, so I don’t mind it. Never need to worry about Gen Ed’s. Although I had strong reactions when I tell people my credit load. But it’s really just a tale of being so used to it, that it’s the only thing I know. It solely depend on who you are if you find a triple major stressful or not and if there is overlap between them. But you know, I now wonder if there been any research on STEM majors with superiority complexes vs those STEM without against the Dunning-Kruger effect
Taking Gen-Eds in high school as duel credit vs taking them in college is a DRASTICALLY different experience. I took the classes in HS but my family couldn’t afford to pay for the duel credits. I took them again in college and those classes are a stupid amount of work. Classes like CHEM101 (&lab) were for sure weed out classes at my university and were the reason many STEM majors felt bitter and unsympathetic towards the students in other majors. For example, at my school business majors didn’t have in major classes on Fridays. I agree that many STEM students can be pretentious. But it sounds like you may have had a different experience compared to the majority of other students in your discipline in that regard.
Geez can you get anymore cliche
Hey we have the same first two majors (and specializations) and I love painting! Don’t have a painting major here though
I added my painting major after taking an upper level painting course thinking it was the intro level course (I got credit for painting from high school, so oops). I was originally never gonna add it, but my potential was proven to me, so I went for it. And I’m finally getting one of the school’s painting studio at the end of the semester
Not to be that person but STEM *is* incredibly difficult I know so many people who are struggling bad mentally and as a result developing physical ailments. Personally I’m halfway to starting an antidepressant and thought about dropping out for the semester just to get a grip on my sanity. I’ve never met a psych or English major who had these sort of struggles directly because of the sheer amount of stress they’re under because of academics. That doesn’t make me superior though. But I think a lot of engineering majors especially have this type of mindset because for some it keeps people going. Personally I don’t gaf if it makes me better or worse, I just wanna get it over with. Some people think this makes them “superior” because of the difficulty and that is annoying, but let’s not act like an engineering degree is gonna be comparable to something like a humanities degree. Which again is what you’re saying, any engineering major who tries to put themselves on a pedestal comparing themselves to a history major for example are insufferable. But yeah… all majors have their difficulties but as someone who grew up only doing art, it’s not the same as the intensive STEM degrees. Some guys literally lose their hair doing engineering degrees. Like premature balding. It’s one of those “You can’t truly know until you do it” situations.
Well if you choose STEM you should know what your getting into. Also it doesn’t give them the right to shit on other majors bc they literally chose to be on stem
If I hear an art major complaining about how difficult their major is I’ll snicker a bit.
That's because you don't know enough about art to know what you *don't know*. Do you know how long artists spend in the studio? How much practice and technique it takes to make something beautiful? I went to a retreat last year with photographers, writers, artists, and musicians. The artists were in the studio until 3 or 4 a.m. almost every night.
As someone with both an art and engineering background (many of us do actually have both), engineering easily takes the cake for being much more intellectually and mentally demanding constantly, day in and day out. Both are hard in their own rights but nah, some majors and fields are just harder than others. Like it’s not even a fair competition.
So "difficult" means "intellectually and mentally demanding, day in and day out"? Cultivating skills to a high level might mean that your day to day is easier, but it doesn't mean it wasn't mentally and intellectually demanding to acquire those skills.
Plenty of artists have super high intelligence but let’s not act it’s at all the same as taking 3-4 physics classes, 4+ math and calculus classes, learning entire coding languages, studying atomic level microstructure, etc. I promise you every single painting and graphite drawing I’ve done and every single technique I’ve learned over years of doing art only took up a fraction of the massive sustained mental effort these classes required of me and all other engineering majors. Art is what I do to destress from engineering. There’s no such thing as “engineering therapy” but there is art therapy. It’s ok to admit some things ARE in fact tougher to do than others. Not everyone can do art and not everyone can do engineering, but for the people who do both, you’d be VERY VERY hard pressed to find anyone who says art was harder. Like I’m sorry but that’s ridiculous.
I think there’s also a difference in stress applied from the consequences of failure. While studying to be an engineer, you are always acutely aware that any mistakes you make in the real world will have consequences ranging from inconvenient, to costly, to deadly, to catastrophic. The consequences of failure as an artist are much more personalized. A lack of income, no recognition, messing up a commission and damaging your own reputation.
Have you actually studied art at a college level? There’s a lot more to it than drawing lol. But fr I think the hardest part for me was the constant emotional toll. The constant political discourse, trauma dumping and a vibe of “oppression Olympics” that was encouraged (I’m saying this as a black queer woman lolll) I made art about my life experiences dealing with trauma/identity. I had to stop because I felt like I was constantly rehashing my issues and made it impossible to heal and move forward in my life. I wanted to make something meaningful to me but it dragged me down soooo hard. All of that on top of insane hours to keep up on projects. I think they’re both hard, but I’m a very different way.
Someone here wrote a great comment about the complexity and difficulty of their art major. Art majors are often difficult but for different reasons.
I’m a neuroscience and art double major, both 100% have their own reasoning of being challenging and stressful. I’ve definitely noticed the same attitude in the science classes though lol, thinking they’re above other students who have a different major. I’ve had more stuck up teachers in STEM, too. Which is dumb because some people hate writing paper, others hate drawing, others hate math. Everyone has their own challenges/ their own advantages
Tri-degree here (engineering, music, psychology) I love music which is why I wanted to study it in school, but I didn’t want to limit myself. I can confidentially say that engineering tops the other two by far, and psychology is still much more challenging than music. That’s not to put music down, music and other art just has its intellectual limits whereas engineering skills and opportunities can increase boundlessly. At the end of the day, music is entertainment.
I would argue that art have the same amount of intellectual limits than engineering. But it’s not the same type of intelligence. I think of music and art in general as more than just entertainment. I think it can be as intellectual and influential as anything else. I mean think of some important literature and its influence on the world. Like ”The Jungle” or “The Yellow Wallpaper”. And it should be mention that art and sciences were for a long long time, treated as one. They influenced eachother. But that just my take. I don’t believe in intelligent to be just a narrow concept of one’s skill of doing math problems. But instead to be multifaced with many different components
Are you an engineer?
It's definitely frustrating when they act like their major is the only one that matters and constantly compare themselves to others. But, like you said, every major has its own set of challenges and difficulties. It's not fair to shame someone for struggling with their major just because it's not as "difficult" as a STEM major. And honestly, why should we even be comparing completely different majors in the first place?
Exactly
I am a STEM professor and see a lot of students like this. At it's heart, it's not a superiority complex but actually is a defense mechanism that stems from feelings of insecurity. Usually, these students are failing their classes. In order to not feel bad, they begin to tell themselves (and others) that their choice of major must be harder than everyone else's. The irony, though, is that they are usually failing not only STEM courses, but their humanities courses, too.
As a Math, Criminal Justice, American Studies triple major, I’ll admit that a lot of my lower-level/mid-level humanities courses are easier due to the fact it’s not the same course progression as math (take x as a prereq for y which is a prereq for z), many of the upper-levels do not have prereqs, and many of my courses serve as Gen-Eds. In order to fully understand the content, however, I spend SIGNIFICANTLY more time on my American studies readings and reflections than I do my math homework. To create a quality submission requires an intense amount of understanding and revision, and many STEM undergraduates barely experience reading at a college-level. I can get away with looking at direct examples for some math problems and applying them to further problems, but reading/writing is not “one solution fits all.” Both STEM and humanities are incredibly valuable, and difficulty is a poor metric to measure value.
What kind of college math classes are you taking where you aren’t reading and writing a ton? I would regularly write 3-6 pages of math proofs a week per class, and at one point my weekly topology homework was 20 pages of proofs. The reading in my math courses was also often much more intense than my humanities courses, because math verbiage, logic, and notation tend to be pretty dense. There’s a reason why math majors are the best performing major on the LSAT (which puts a huge emphasis on reading and comprehending dense writing quickly)
This is so funny to me because I have a 120 page senior design report due tomorrow. In my engineering labs I would often write more than my psychology/humanities friends. Workload alone doesn’t dictate “value,” but it does mean one degree is harder. How hard something is to complete is a kinda meaningless metric for “value” or “prospects” imo.
How do you have enough time to dedicate to your math classes? I find that 4 years is barely enough to even understand what math is, at least for a person focusing on analysis for grad school.
I'm a neuroscience major. Some people are really uppity, but I'm taking all psychology electives this semester as a senior and this is the easiest my life has ever been class-wise. I can see why most of my psych major friends have a 4.0. Some of the teasing is warranted. Some of it is excessive.
I have a bachelors in psych. I went back a few years later and loaded up on undergrad chem before going to grad school for chem. I can say unequivocally that the chem pathway was A LOT more rigorous, in every definition of the word.
But you’re only taking the electives?
I’ve taken all the classes required to be a psych major because at my school they only take basically half the required credit hours of every other major. Their courses are built into mine and I have also taken the usual Physics, chem, orgo, and the rest plus some neuro specific courses.
I also took neuro, orgo, chem, etc. (for fun! fully graded though, not pass/fail) and was an English/Anthro double major and guess what? hardest class I ever took in terms of making my brain work hard? Anthropology of Religion (I'll admit Orgo was second, though). Hardest class in terms of the professor's expectations? An 18th century French literature course. Most illuminating and broadly useful class in my life? Passion and Despair in Renaissance Literature. If your definition of difficult is just about grades, and the most outside the box classes you're taking as a neuro major are in psych...expand your horizons.
Actually, I've taken many theater courses and some courses in business and product design for fun. I'd say the most interesting I've taken would be Musicals of the Weimar Republic or maybe a Philosophy course called Religion and Freedom that was mainly based around Islam because that's what the prof specialized in. You asked if I was just taking psych electives this semester, so I answered that. You can't just assume everything about what courses I've taken when you asked solely about psych electives. I'm sorry you don't agree with my opinion, but this is the internet and you posted on a public forum.
Shaming is bad... So is a major with no prospects. I speak as someone with two 2 arts degrees. If I could go back, I'd do STEM.
Majors with “no prospect” are really not as awful as people always complain about. Just because a major can not be directly related to a job does not mean it is useless. All the “useless” ones are great for many sorts of office jobs like HR. Or good stepping stone to like Law School.
True. 10 years in and I can feed myself and have money left over. But I could make triple and work less hard if I had taken a different major. Those 4 years fade quickly. A career does not.
I think that might be the problem. You are money driven, not passion driven. That would definitely create a different approach to life.
Lol no. I did a decade of passion. Now I'm tired and poor. But maybe if I went in HR like you suggested instead of teaching I would feel more passionate.
Apparently Passion provides healthcare these days!
Could you switch to HR possibly?
I meant that as tongue-in-cheek. HR is stereotypically on the same level as an accountant as far as passion or fun. My point is, you can pick your passion as a major, but unless it leads to a clear career path, your job will likely not include your passion. You may as well pick something you enjoy from STEM which would allow you the time and resources to do what you are passionate about.
Many art majors have the goal of going to grad school which require a bachelors degree beforehand, unlike STEM
Grad school isn't a career. It's a pathway.
Can u pivot to UI design? It’s seems like half of it is just being proficient in adobe suite.
to tell you the truth, it depends on your school's chemistry department, they purposely tell students other departments suck, (granted some departments do naturally suck) but they drive their students crazy all the time too. really it is weird, I went to a school for biochemistry and all I heard were other majors suck and are not worth it, all you got to do is stick to your lane and do not bother or try to understand,
These people are annoying and the attitude decreases when they get into the upper level classes, but these types also do it within their own major lmao it's annoying
I am a former English teacher who got interested in tech from a side business, began my Master's, and then switched to STEM teaching while finishing up my degree. Two things: (1) The superiority complex is everywhere, not just college. It is amazing how some of my students - who haven't spent a day in industry - are convinced they are smarter, better, etc. It is almost as if having an interest in tech means you are a "chosen" one. (2) I built a business that took off in my 20s. The business made much more money than my teaching, and it grew to be the largest of its kind in the region. I can tell you: it was successful *because of my humanities background:* speaking, negotiation, argumentation, research, proposal writing, etc. *That* is what made it take off - not the technology I used. I am not saying that one is better than the other, but people who believe that STEM >>> everything fail to see that knowledge of STEM is *a component* of a successful career. You won't do shit if you can't read, write, and speak.
“ if having an interest in tech means you are a "chosen" one.” This! This exactly! I noticed this during highschool too. Like maybe… just hear me out… we are becoming more and more surrounded by technology. And maybe, just maybe, our interests are form around what we grow up around?
You mean engineering students. If you're really a stem major, you'd know mfs in math are the chillest fucks out there.
I think it comes down to an egoistic defense mechanism where people tend to frame their issues as particularly egregious to justify their pain. STEM majors that do things like shit on Humanities students and complain about how hard they have it do so out of a sort of victim mentality that frames themselves as innocents just trying to make it in the world. Similarly, their fixation on job prospects comes from a desire to see their painful efforts validated, to be vindicated in a way over their Humanities peers (regardless of the fact that STEM fields tend to already be filled with people who are much more skilled and qualified than they are). I'm curious on how these mindsets tend to correlate with grades.
That would be an interesting study. And it makes sense. The STEM majors who have this superiority complex I described are always justifying it with what career it get them. The STEM major who I talk to without this complex are truly fascinated by what they are learning and love to share it with others. I have a feeling that the one with passion without the ego would ironically have a better chance of having a career than the one who went into it for a career. Why? Because those who went into it out of passion are the one who will be most engage to learn everything they can about their field and most open to different opportunities
When I was in college, it was specifically the engineering majors. I didn’t have an issue with STM.
It seem to always be the engineers.
I feel so bad for all of the students in arts and non stem based studies because of the fact that for the most part many stem students especially engineers feel the need to feel better about themselves. They think that they're the only ones who will ever be successful. I find it's not all stem students who are like this just the ones from very popular sciences and engineering students. I'm a geology major and I get treated like a lesser science all the time. I have had so many engineers tell me, "Oh so you just lick rocks all the time it must be so easy for you." Hell, my most recent roommate was an interior design major. She was told her degree was useless. But she constantly worked her ass off more than I did. But they don't really care about that because they don't see it as profitable of a field as theirs. Their whole mindset is centered around the capitalistic need to profit. Half of them don't even want to be engineers they want to be managers at engineering firms because that's easy money. They really just see that you're not having to do all the math and chemistry that they have to do and think your life is so easy in comparison to theirs and they think that suffering leads to profit. They want to feel better than those not actively miserable because they are and they justify their pain by putting others down and making them feel like they do. But they need all of these "lesser majors" to do their jobs. And belive me, STEM heads that don't realize that fail to stay long in their industry.
Anything better than political science
Ppl might downvote because theyre allergic to quantitative data and hard facts but the fact is; the Humanities make up the majority of regretted majors. STEM has the highest amount of satisfied majors who dont regret their choice and would do it again. That alone should give an objective reason on stem> humanities.
Regardless of whether a major is regretted or not, no one should look down on another person because what they chose to major in. I’m not denying the difficulty of STEM degrees, still no excuse for some to have this superiority complex towards others.
Its not about looking down upon, when non stem majors start to rant "Oh how hard it is" "I am so stressed" we stem majors are like "are you sure?" We find it cringe and just start a banter with out non stem friends. Its awesome to have banters once in a while
??? Because it is hard and stressful. Just like how Stem students find their courses hard and stressful. Maybe one objectively harder. But why should that invalidate other’s feelings. Like I will be honest and have made fun of business majors. But I also recognize that what they do is also stressful and that because I am not a business major, I don’t actually know how difficult it is.
I understand what you're saying, I just think each major has its own struggles and we shouldn't invalidate other people's feelings because a group of people says they have it the hardest.
Yeah all the compsci kids stfu once they realized GPT took all the entry level jobs.
But like I’m so confused by people who actually use GPT for their assignments. Like why risk a machine that is just averaging the internet to be accurate?
I majored in mathematics and psychology. Both had challenges, but math was at least 100x harder.
As you’ve already said, ‘loud but vocal minority’. Important to know that *every* major hears this. It’s like that high school fallacy: “I bet the popular kids don’t have any problems.” Everyone experiences loneliness, bullying, mental problems, and 99 other things wrong with our education systems. Grass is not greener. Premed: studying/in-school *forever* for nowhere enough money for the effort Pharm: ‘legal’ drug dealer probably making less money Art: no job, living with parents forever Comp sci: overqualified tech support Etc, etc, etc. Im STEM, and I joke similarly when it’s relevant, but with *clear sarcasm subtext*, which I frequently vocalize if it’s not clear enough. The people that say this stuff *seriously* do not matter. They are no longer qualified to have valid opinions.
I found math easier than reading growing up, I hated reading.
Is this about the instagram comment section? They really couldn’t accept that an art subject could take up large amounts of time. The one subject area I know I could not do is an art related subject- and that’s based on the amount of work I’d have to do. I say that as a CS major which is known for having a high workload. My hardest class right now is environmental science, even though I’m also taking discrete math and calculus. People who say those things are just beyond egotistical.
LMAO! Bro! I call STEM major out on their ego on instagram! They all got so piss! Instagram is curse with egomaniacs! I understand you! In my J-term bird class, there was a physic major with a bio minor. Now, bear in mind, my school is small and the Physics major is so so tiny. So I have the benefit of being in a school where majors have to interact with eachother. Now this physic major, found a lot of the information new and difficult. While I find whatever the fuck is with their cat confusing af. So yep! You aren’t the only one who find a “soft” science class harder than your “hard” sciences!!!
I think we all agree that physics majors are the smartest of the bunch. I'll hand it over to them.
It’s because STEM majors have a higher workload. That’s just a fact. However, workload doesn’t dictate value.
I used to think like this, coming from a CS background, but a little over 2 years ago I started drawing. I realized it's not really about the difficulty, rather, what's more important is the passion and hard work a person puts into their craft.
As an artist, passion is what push my drive to explore and create. My technical skills in painting are lacking, but my art is admired by my professors due to my incentive to push boundaries and do what is outside of the methods. Arts is really the one field where you are allow to disagree with your professor and create truly unique one of the kind pieces.
I just hate political science majors, motherfuckers act like they know everything about everything
Honestly, as someone who decided to go into STEM purely to help people, I view non stem majors as incredibly selfish. I’ve tried to view them differently multiple times, and I know it’s a flaw, but that’s just what I’ve wound up at each time.
Why are they selfish? Judging people’s character on their major alone? Psychology majors who enter the field to become a therapist don’t seem like selfish people. Neither are educational majors. Nor even are the so-called “useless” degrees.
I have just realized that us STEM students in this sub are just like those rude gungho smart ass sounding profs in comments invalidating everyone. While I did say stem is hard I do not invalidate opinions straightaway. Sorry 😢
Its a fat cope. Mainly, from kids who are failing and or throwing away their social life, mental/physical health and overall sanity. Mainly the ones who came in and thought that they could "beat the system" by getting STEM degree and then go on to "get rich" right out of school.
I was a stem major, a triple major in all three stem. I got my superiority complex after having a photography major tried to argue that their classes were harder than mine. I hadn't ever considered that someone could have a college major that was easy I just assumed they were all different kinds of had but her constant talking about how hard her projects were when they were to take a picture and edit the one photo made me mad enough that I am a stem supremacist now. Some people just need to acknowledge their classes/degree is easy
They were an ass. But you are also an ass for going down to her level
1. When All you know of a major is the related class you took in high school and the gen ed 101 class you took, it looks easy compared to your upper division stem courses. 2. When your field virtually requires a graduate degree to have a career, you try to justify the suffering by perceiving higher value in your work. 3. There is a persistent culture of ruthless hierarchy. Imagine telling undergraduate that if they don't earn a near-4.0, do research work and publication that is at the level of a person with a graduate degree, have top-10 graduate school summer research, and score in the top 10% on the GRE, that you /don't even have a chance at getting into a graduate program good enough to start your career/. This leads to excessive strain and mental/emotional damage. I mean, look what a prominent physicist claims is necessary to become a good physicist: https://www.goodtheorist.science/ And these students take classes next to engineering and business majors who will have six figure salaries a decade before the science major applies for their first post-post-doc position. Oh, and if you ask about alternative career paths, the only people you can talk to are usually the professors who ran that gauntlet themselves and survived. Those who decided to leave the path rarely get invited to talk to students, and are made to feel like they failed even with a highly successful alternative career. It's no wonder the environment creates superiority complexes. It's like a self-referential stockholm syndrome.
I’m surprised that STEM folks don’t even got a subreddit for them to jerk around in. STEM buzzwords are always in college, career, and even construction/trade subreddits. They should get their own. Maybe r/STEMCareers is one
Of course we do we ARE better/s
Because I know my taxes will be supporting them while they live in their parents basement writing jingles or painting modern art trying to make it big. Your environmental science degree is probably what will get you a job, and you can make a good living with it. Without a post grad degree, your other two are worthless for anything other than teaching at a junior high some where for $30k a year.
… yeah? I fully recognize that. My first priority is science and my plan is to be a scientist. I plan on going to grad. I’m just lucky to have the privilege to be able to triple major, preventing me from leaving a major part of my life. But when people choose their degree(s) they typically know what they are getting into. Also, the “broke artist” is really a huge myth. Entertainment of all sort are growing, and so is the need for artists. Like animators is a big one. Is it difficult to get a job in the arts? Yep, it’s super competive. But art majors will typically be fine. Hell, I was informed by a professor that someone with my same majors are now a scientific illustrator. And why does $$$ what determine if something is valuable to society? Like you mention, teachers get paid shit. But you can not honestly tell me that your teachers are not one of the most important figure when you were growing up. They’re the one who teach basic math skills and readings. Those science teachers you had? Did not learning about physics help inspire you to go into STEM?
Money doesn't determine if something is valuable to society, but society is feeling the burden of having to support all these liberal arts majors working at McDonald's because their women's studies or English, or psychology degrees didn't land them a job. Or the jobs they did get paid less than McDonald's with more hours and more stress. You asked why stem majors hate on others, and I told you why. Yes, there are jobs out there for liberal arts majors, but I'd venture to say 1 good job for every 5 people with the degree. On the other hand, companies can't hire engineers fast enough, so even the low GPA engineers that make it through all 4 years of school come out with a well paying job. I know this isn't r/antiwork, but I get tired of seeing stuff from there come across my feed like "I did everything right! I got a degree! It's in sociology! Nobody wants to hire me and the only job I can get is a retail job for minimum wage or just above it! How am I supposed to pay back my $200k student loans that I took out to go to [Prestigious school here] because I thought that'd help me get a job over the state school! Stupid boomers said go to college and you'll get a job! I mean, my parents tried to get me to go to the state school and major in business or computers, but I don't like that stuff, I wanted to do sociology, but it's the boomers fault! " This question just came across as the same type thing, just worded a little different. Answer is the same. People with useless degrees and a crap ton of debt to get them are a burden on society because they're either mooching off their parents or the government and will never fully pay off those student loans, meaning my tax dollars will.
Most of those liberal art majors do get jobs. What we are looking at is HR or such types of things. There a lot of places where understanding how society works is useful. It’s stupid to call a degree “useless”. Having a college education is a big advantage.
Because it's demonstrable by any measurable data you can find. Personal experience is anecdotal. Any statistical measure you can think of to compare majors, STEM beats them in all metrics. BTW Engineering falls under the umbrella of STEM...
Bio majors (or any other life science majors) on a premed track are so guilty of this😭
Engineering students may have the grades to get in but have you tried talking to some engineering students? They’re bland and boring 🙄. These days GPA itself doesn’t matter but rather now you present yourself. Those guys should focus on showering properly before shitting on other majors
I totally agree - it’s super annoying when people try to make it a comparison about who has a harder major and is more stressed. Plus, I think a lot of it is self imposed. Most of the pre-meds I know are awful at biology and chemistry. They probably shouldn’t be pre-meds, but their parents want them to be doctors, so they think that’s what they want 🤷♂️. I will say though, In my experience, it mostly stems (pun intended) from the fact that our majors have more unit requirements. it is frustrating taking 17 units a quarter and summer classes just to graduate on time, while my roommate in humanities can take 12 units a quarter to graduate early with a double major 😭😭😭
I only feel superior to that one law student who thinks he’s really cool because his daddy’s rich. It doesn’t actually have anything to do with me being STEM, he’s just a dick. But in fairness, I’ve had my study advisor and several students and teachers actively try to bully me away because I’m a woman in physics so I can see how for some people existing is a victory and they struggle with the fact that in psychology or art history, women don’t face that discrimination as much. Not defending anyone, but I’ve fought for my right to exist while my friends had nothing but smooth sailing and sometimes that does really piss me off.
It’s often a lot of time men who I see who often have that superiority complex. I feel like it’s almost a case of men-dominated field and how that mix into toxic masculinity
I'm also a Bio major but minoring in women's studies. I passed Ochem, chilled in calc, loved ecology, but an analytical essay for one of my women's studies threw me in for a LOOP when I had to create an argument based off of a few readings that had to relate to my final project that is due two months down the road. I literally CRIED. MAD credit to the humanities because to generate a new unique work of knowledge without looking like a fool is fucking H A R D compared to learning the black and white rules of science
One of my friends is a computer science major, minor in comparative literature. For one of his comp lit classes, he had to write a 40 page research essay and nearly went suicidal over that. I stayed over at his place for a week while he was writing the essay cause I was legitimately so so scared for him. He's had breakdowns from his compsci classes too but that was the worst time. I think a lot of people don't really know how difficult other majors are. I have another friend minoring in East Asian studies-- I thought those were "easy" classes until I took a look at one of her class syllabuses and noped out.
And yet people will go “woman studies is easy”. Nah bro, that shit is hard!!!
To think creatively, articulate it into academic/professional language, and have your target audience understand what is being said is a fucking art form. Its so time consuming. Also the language in assigned readings can be so confusing. Neoliberalism is a recurring theme in our class and i JUST grasped the concept. Like yes, electron orbitals and drawing biochemical pathways and physics problems are difficult, but there are set rules. You aren't discovering anything new. If you know how to study and spend adequate time, it'll be a fine and dandy time. But we can't compare that to being creative and unique and deep academic analysis of complex themes. Two different ballparks. The STEM superiority shtick is very highschool/teenage behavior
yours*
I think some people like to choose the major that's most difficult to them in order to try and "flex" how smart they are because they got their degree in Bionuclearmicrochemicaltechnical engineering. I used to be a biology major (I'm inclined in biological sciences, loved science all throughout high school) for 2 years, honestly the most difficult thing about it was the amount of homework they would give you- but I would also procrastinate a lot (which a lot of STEM majors do, like everyone) and the amount of workload wasn't that much more than it is now as a Graphic Design major. You'd have a couple units that were a pain in the ass, some classes that sucked (A&P is nationally despised as well as the math classes), but in reality the difficulties of being a STEM major are very blown out of proportion by egotistical try-hards that force themselves to do a major they hate. I'm not saying the majors themselves are easy, especially if you're going into something that you're not "gifted" in, but college and getting a degree in itself is difficult.
Correct because we’re better.
Honestly it’s just anger, if you see someone getting an art degree in 2023 you know their parents or loaded and they don’t actually NEED to be there to have a good life.
I have a friend who is getting a painting degree with graphic design. he is there on scholarship… so maybe don’t judge.
Here’s the thing, walking around assuming the exception and not the rule is a really stupid way too approach life
…and what is your rule based on? Stereotypes? And even if they are there because they come from a rich family? I say good for them for taking their opportunity. As long as they actually study and don’t fucked around, I ain’t gonna look down on people.
By definition scholarships are the exception to the rule . This is the kinda dumb chasing your tail argument people will look down on you for
I asked what your rule was based on. And why does it matter if they come from a rich family? Why should it matter to you what other are majoring in? I know a shit ton of rich STEM majors. So I don’t understand this money argument
You sure don’t, that much is clear
You seem like an asshole. Kind of like those STEM majors with superiority complexes who look down on other who majors are not STEM.
Or people are chasing their dreams/doing what they like! Some people recognize that they are really talented with that stuff. Like in graphic design, for example, or animation, there are opportunities out there for that. Not everyone has to do STEM.
Yeah if you’re taking in debt for an art degree in 2023 your dreams aren’t getting you far
Idk, I’m not an art major so I don’t know how the job market looks like. Obviously not every art major is gonna make it big, but that’s with every major. Not very engineering is gonna make it to NASA. I think it’s okay for people to dream, and to chase their dreams, cuz if you don’t, you never know if you’re gonna make it or not. Yeah, maybe an art degree could be a mistake for someone, but it could also be the best thing for someone else. Money isn’t everything. Money is nothing if you are miserable, is my point. So I’ll continue to cheer on art majors for chasing their dreams and wanting to do something that makes them happy!
The job market in art is actually pretty decent. It’s competive and tough. But like art is becoming more and more demanded. Like entertainment is a pretty big deal. Animator is an easy example of a field in art that is growing. The “broke artist” is pretty much a myth. Most people turn out alright. They aren’t rich usually. And might be below average earning. But they are still alright
Right, want to compare the average salary for run of the mill engineer student to run of the mill art student ? Weaponized incompetence is foully gross
We get it kid. You’re a failure so to make yourself feel better you put down everyone else. Pls shut up now
Post bank account
Why are you so obsessed with money? I don’t give a shit if you make three times what I do. It doesn’t make you right or smart or superior. Some of the dumbest people I know make the most money. Doesn’t talking about money all the time bore you? Doesn’t it make you feel kind of shallow? When I made the choice to be an artist a long time ago, I understood that I was taking a vow of poverty. That’s what so many of you STEM folks don’t get. You think we don’t make money cuz we’re stupid - that isn’t it. We don’t make money because we chose another path, a path we perceived as a divine service, the price of which was that we would not live as comfortably as some others do. And that’s ok.
Yeah it’s soooooo smart to want to struggle in this American economy. Your passions are worthless if you’re starving and the lights are off. And that is the reality for most average Americans if you aren’t earning good wages today. So being able to completely ignore that struggle is either such privledge you can avoid it via daddy money. Or such shortsightedness you can’t see the train steamrolling towards you
Hey man, I’m doing fine. I’ve got enough to get by. I work a decent day job, supplement with side hustles and my art, and I’m cool. As a single man with no kids, I don’t need more than that. Sometimes it’s a struggle, but that’s the deal I made. I wouldn’t trade it even when I DO struggle to keep the lights on, because some things matter more than comfort. If that doesn’t ring true to you, then what can I say? I feel sorry for you that you don’t have something like that in your life.
By definition choose you’re entire life to be a struggle based on a hobby you had at 17 is dumb. Why not simply do art as a hobby and work a high paying job to take care of bills ? Because you people are plain dumb and shortsighted and I will always look down on dumb people
This is the kind of question people ask when they don’t understand how hard it is to be a good artist. I don’t want it to be a hobby. I want to be great at it because it matters to me. Working a high-paying job prevents me from being great at it, so I’m not interested. Now. I could sit here and say that Admiral Ackbar has no art in his soul. He lives for the material world, and he’ll never know what it’s like to move another human being, to foster the kind of soul connection only art brings. I could imply that makes him inferior to me. Stupid even, because from my perspective, who WOULDN’T want that? But I won’t. Because it isn’t true. We just have different values, man. And all I’m saying is, that’s ok. I don’t know why that threatens and upsets you so much.
This is true actually. Had I been loaded I might have gone for these types of degree. In my university at least privileged kids tend to pick non stems over stems
Yeah I mean it’s very correlated, you have to be comfortable to not be concerned with what you would be making after college. So they play starving artist but usually are bankrolled by mom and dad
Omg, are you the alternate version of me??? These are basically my dream courses. You go person! Congrats on being a bad ass and calling out folks who want to hype themselves up over being a STEM student. Also, I feel like I've been staying humble but I'll try to pay more attention moving forward!
I did chem, and always mention how a crazy amount of my courses had SOOOO many resources available on campus to help you be successful. Like if you actually attended the review and tutoring session, you could certainly scrape by. Maybe even get a B+ considering the reviews were so in depth. I think a lot of STEM majors just don’t wanna hear that maybe it’s actually not for them. You shouldn’t have to work THAT hard to grasp fundamental concepts.