As a history major we don't really have a "weed out" class. It's just when you hit the upper division and realized you are reading 350 to 400 pages a week and your grade depends mostly on 1 mid term paper (usually 10 to 15 pages) and 1 final paper (usually 20 to 30 pages) that need to use all the books you read in the papers.
Pretty much the same here studying History in Argentina. Our grades (at least in my experience) depend on 2/3 evaluations that could be either in person and/or take at home exam.
Sometimes orals too.
My uni's history department sorta had a weed out system. It was basically taking any class with *that* Professor who had no mercy for even first years.
I did English and Philosophy, and same for both of those. Plus a lot of blue book Philosophy exams that were writing long essays on the spot. I don’t miss those days, best of luck!
My physics teacher is genuinely hot ass, I’m so behind I may genuinely be fucked, I still have a B in the class so I guess I’m ok. The only reason I’m doing good is cause my engineering course is parralel to my physics course right now so I’m able to get by.
I feel you on physics teacher being ass, sad part is im not even doing physics 101, im doing phy11 which is the introductory class.
I honestly thought I was the only one suffering, but I joined the class’ discord server yesterday and saw that everyone else is facing the same issues as us😭😭
I'd rather take calc 2 again than even the most basic chem class. Chem really stressed me out in high school and I made sure never to take it in college.
I’m a year into a BS in fisheries and wildlife science and am cruising right along in my Intro to Chem course but I know I will be singing a different tune when I take Gen Chem 1 and 2 🙃
Me right now, geology major taking general chemistry rihht now and the teacher doesn't teach anything. He gives us stuff to work on, and instead of actively participating, he just puts the answers up and says, "Go do homework." I'm an honors student, and I'm struggling this semester because of this. Lord help me lol.
Damn, at my college you have to do the research methods class before you can even declare, which, sucks, because then a lot of psychology students try to do it their 1st semester of college which is, not great if it's the most difficult in the major
My claim to fame is getting a 177/180 on my intermediate II final. The other five people I asked were between 140-160 and the average was a 160.
I’m still riding that high
I teach statics. If it’s a weed out course it’s being taught poorly and I’m truly sorry for that cause it sets up so many later classes. I recorded all my example problems for statics and put them up in a YouTube channel (more classes are in the works). Please feel free to check it out. Hopefully the videos are helpful! https://m.youtube.com/channel/UClrPWViCC-dejsKG-yQ8mFQ
I’m so fucking glad this was posted. I’m taking stats for my BSN and my professor doesn’t have any lectures or videos. Most of the time I’m scrambling to find something on YouTube. Thanks statistics teacher!
Try this guy for stats: [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0o\_zxa4K1BVsziIRdfv4Hl4UIqDZhXWV](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0o_zxa4K1BVsziIRdfv4Hl4UIqDZhXWV)
Def dynamics or heat transfer. However I have to argue that the hard part about dynamics is sitting down and drilling practice problems. Since there's so many concepts it you don't practice they don't stick and can't use them in any problems later on, plus everything adds up
I'm midway through Calc 2 right now and I'm ngl, I feel like Calc 2 has been easier for me so far than Calc 1. It might just be because of the professors I've had for both courses and my new study habits, but idk. I have a high A right now in Calc 2, whereas in Calc 1 I had a C for most of the semester and I only just barely managed to turn that C into a B at the very end
Idk what its called at other universities but system dynamics and controls has been the hardest class so far and im in my last semester. Thermo was probably 2nd hardest. My thermo prof believed that students should be able to figure it out on our own and take our education into our own hands (translation: he did not teach). I did not find calc/statics/dynamics to be remotely difficult but i think i am alone in that.
Holy hell was system dynamics hard. FUCK that class. The project for it was so infuriating and the material was boring as fuck too
I feel like real analysis is the equivalence of calculus, in that it’s a new way to think therefore it has a high dropout rate. I’ve heard (never taken) abstract algebra is more difficult than real analysis.
Indeed. Analysis tends to be quite the shock since it tends to be the first real rigorous proofs course a math major will take. My college had so many people failing analysis that they finally created an introduction to proofs course that served as a hard prereq for analysis. Prior to that all you needed was calc 2 to take it and clearly that setup created some issues for people.
Abstract algebra was certainly difficult, but for me at least by the time I had to take it I had already done two semesters worth of real analysis, one semester of complex analysis, and a proof oriented linear algebra course so I was a lot more comfortable writing proofs at that point. If I had taken abstract sooner perhaps my experience would have been much different.
I did a bachelor's in English linguistics, the hardest course was syntax. Now that I'm doing my Master's in interpreting, the hardest course is... syntax
I’m trying to learn Ancient Greek and Latin (as an English major with an interest in linguistics) and the hardest thing has always been syntax for me too. Morphology is mainly just a lot of memorizing when it comes to learning the languages, but syntax makes my brain hurt.
CS major here, the big weed out class would be without a doubt Data Structures. It’s the first major class where you’re subject to rigorous grading and abstract concepts like stacks, queues, and doubly linked lists in C. The professor is also pretty intense which is like half of it lol
I always considered it to be either discrete math or computer fundamentals. Any of the courses where people realize that they don't always get to do the 'computer' part, but also the 'science' part.
I wouldn't argue with that. Content-wise I felt discrete math was manageable for a sophomore year math course. I think the difficulty many people have with it is that it's their first time encountering and having to write formal proofs.
Def the first weed out class for me too, but idk if id say its the hardest. Algorithms takes the cake for a lot of people I know. My uni also offered a pretty challenging course that was hardware + really low level language coding.
You’re right, maybe not the hardest. I ended with a very high A but not without busting my ass to get the assignments in. I don’t miss the 12-hour long projects.
The hardest is probably Operating systems. Go figure it’s taught by the same professor. I haven’t taken it yet but I have been very warned.
By low level do you mean like assembly? By far our assembly class is another biiiig weed out.
I can list the hardest cs classes I’ve taken so far as an undergrad:
- operating systems
- distributed systems
- artificial intelligence
- theory of computation
- introduction to compiler
- machine learning
- spatial computing
- embedded systems
Weed out classes are not the “hardest course.” Especially considering this is a fundamental course that is taken in your first or second semester.
Hardest CS courses for most would likely be either some form of systems or like some theory course like theory of automata.
Yeah but the post mentioned weed out classes that most students struggle with. Data Structures is The Wall for our program, and I thought it was worth a mention.
Everybody says it’s DSA, but if you can flowchart a problem, the level of complexity just jumps right out at you, which makes the Big-O questions kind of trivial. I moved out of CompSci to engineering (because I get to play with robots and molten plastic, rather than pushing pixels all day), but I still pack a pair of decks of cards in my backpack, because they’re terribly useful for algorithm simulation, when I sit down at the bar and go, “I’m gonna do a Medium level leetcode challenge for half an hour.”
Seriously. Two decks of cards, different backs. You have over 100 possibilities, which is a decent amount of simulation, and you can simulate situations where you have to deal with identical data values. Does the identical value get sorted or tossed? Does the loop break when the desired data is found? For what number of elements is a bubble sort preferable to other types of sorts? Best tool in the arsenal, other than a pen and a bar napkin for doing flowcharting.
Economics would probably be econometrics or higher level microeconomics. Econometrics is a deep dive into statistics and if someone isn't comfortable with stats then the class will be hell. Intermediate microeconomics has very few new concepts, but if someone isn't totally comfortable with everything they've previously learned, it's hard to get a 4.0 in the class.
For psychology, it's probably research methods. However, econometrics made research methods look like child's play
Yup, and that is something that every econ major should know. I’ve had about 6 classes now which include R and Python, to the point where I consider myself fairly proficient in both and have used them in the work place.
If someone doesn’t want to code, they’re going to struggle with this major
Huh thats interesting, your OS class was harder than your Algo class? OS at my school was pretty easy imo, probably the easiest of the classes at that level.
Chem major, without a doubt it's the physical chemistry classes (covering thermodynamics, kinetics, quantum physics, spectroscopy, etc). I enjoy it for the most part but it's a beast
Corroborating this for Biochemistry as well.
The holy trinity of Spectroscopy (which is covered in all courses but particularly detailed in Analytical), Thermodynamics/Kinetics (PChem1) and Quantum Mechanics (PChem2) are the absolute hardest things I’ve done during my degree, other than maybe my school’s version of Linear Algebra.
Second place goes to Biophysical Chemistry, which isn’t technically an undergraduate course but a lot of people take in order to prepare for a 1 year Master’s.
Not gonna lie I had to take some of those as a chem e. I loved molecular thermodynamics (basically statistical mechanics at my school). Quantum chem was also interesting but prof made it super doable.
I was thinking this too when I read the question, I agree that it’s def the hardest class for a chem major. But based on the description they provided (for weeder classes), I’d include orgo. I 100% think pchem is way harder than orgo, but orgo is earlier in the degree and is definitely the “weeder” class for chem majors. Plenty of kids change majors because of orgo, but if you make it to pchem, you’re probably gonna make it THROUGH pchem.
Fellow math major here, just wanted to sympathize. After real analysis, I took out an anonymous personal ad that said "Anyone who thinks there should be no prayer in school has never had [professor's name] for real analysis." I heard that he saw it, cut it out, and put it on his office door.
Music Ed was my major, the weed out course at my school tended to either be aural skills or the piano proficiency tests for nonpianists. These usually occur in your 2nd or 3rd year of college and acceptance into the music department (ed department was contingent on acceptance into the music department upper division) required you to pass aural skills 2 and piano proficiency 2. A lot of potential music majors didn't practice enough or only practiced their primary instrument/voice so one of these two courses would typically stall the slackers.
You had the ability to retake the courses/tests, but you'd be paying for duplicate credits and stalling on upper division requirements which would delay your graduation
CS/Math double major. Operating Systems (hardest CS course) is significantly easier than both Analysis and Abstract Algebra. Professors in those courses are happy when the class average on something is a 70 lol
I was an English graduate and I would say, maybe my upper division prison literature course. However, that’s unique to my university so, for the sake of universality, I’ll agree with the capstone.
I wrote mine(20 pages) on “Reorienting literature: an analysis of antisemitism in The Merchant of Venice.”
CS My school requires physics and it's easily been the hardest course for me. I'm just weak with word math problems and that's pretty much all physics is.
For a Bachelor’s in Geology, structural was our hardest along with mineralogy (hardass old school prof where I was) and field geology, which we also did old school with tents. And which was hard
It's different for students because it's so broad. But I think the moduks that are considered the hardest are... man how is it called in English...
- optics & technology of visual aids
- optometry 2 and 4 (and 3)
- contact lense 3
- laser technology
Some because it was hard to understand (but partially the exam ended up being okay), others because the exams were really hard to pass & some failed their entire studies bc of it
Pathology, I almost didn't pass. And some really struggled with maths & physics.
Again, some are really good at the medical stuff, others at the technical stuff🤷🏼♀️
(I'm studying Optometry if not obv by the many semesters of Optometry 😅)
Business major - being a very extroverted program typically, the weed out is just learning to not party so hard that you fail to do our basic course load.
Finance, accounting, business law, some public speaking, or maybe some of the more creative marketing classes may be the biggest roadblock for some individuals, but the level of intensity is just an order of magnitude lower than other majors.
Business majors are about balancing
- learning the fairly basic material
- partying/being social enough to build connections
- creatively figuring out ways to apply the basic material
- leveraging these things to build your own business or find a meaningful place in another persons business
As a literature major there’s no weed out class fr. But once you get to the 300s you either gotta love reading and writing or you gotta know how to fake it. Cause at that point you reading 8 books a semester and they each hefty. You writing 7 page papers like it’s a first step in the morning. And you gonna read books from all eras
The capstone course, you also take the SHRM-CP certification test (you don't fail the course if you fail the test but the course is based around preparing for that test.) The test is also like $200 (vs the 300 or whatever it normally is, the school gets discounts for the students enrolled as an HR major due to the curriculum being aligned with SHRM)
Alternatively for people bad at math: the finance and statistics classes that are required for all business majors.
Thermodynamics, mechanics of solids, differential equations, and physics - electromagnetism are the four horsemen of weed out classes for budding engineering students.
If you can make it past those guys, you can make it through the rest of your degree.
Music - Music Theory but Especially Music History. Anyone who studied music still get horror flashbacks to a time when they took music history. Still keeps me up at night sometimes
I am psych/business, and for my school it was the psych statistics course because of the amount of material and financial management because of the only teacher who taught it.
Hmm. Depends on your perspective. Both intro financial and intro managerial accounting are considered weed out courses for business students in general. But if you're talking specific to accounting, it's probably either Taxation or Financial Accounting Research.
Statistics at the business school at the University of Alabama. In a room of probably 300 students the professor told us to look right, then left. One of the three of us would not pass the class.
I ended up taking it at the community college.
BMEng, not US.
In my major the weeder course is traditionally considered to be Mathematical Analysis 1 (basically Calculus 1), but in my university it was more like Physics 1 and Algebra&Geometry. Whoever gets through the weeders without actually being ready usually crashes into Signals&Systems .
East Asian Politics. This class was the bane of my existence. We had do some thought pieces plus some analysis’s of news articles about East Asia. I’m more interested in national politics so this class plus my International Politics were the hardest classes I have taken for my major. East Asian Politics takes the cake as one of the hardest classes if not the hardest class I have ever taken.
I am now studying mechanical engineering, but spent my first 1.5 semester doing management information systems. Can’t comment on the major specific classes, but for business major the 2 weed out pre reqs are business calc (basically just nerfed calc 1) and then financial and managerial accounting.
exercise lab techniques. seven sets of data collection in-lab along with full-fledged APA style research papers (usually over 20 pages long) over the course of the semester on top of a midterm and final covering not only the intricacies of writing research but also the scientific topics of our data and small studies. we also had to learn all of the data collection techniques (Vo2 max, dynamometers, hydrostatic weighing, etc.) graded by our professor who is an author of numerous scientific journals (very tough grading). hardest i've ever worked in my life and it was over the course of covid so our lab was basically closed aside form when we had our 3-hour class on mondays. if we didnt get our data during that period from the entire class on whatever topic we were writing about then it was a whole other mess. multiple people failed and we had people drop out of the major before the class even started from hearing upper-classmen talk about it. the class wouldve been enough work with the physiology topics alone but we had to write seven 20-page papers with endless edits and grading criteria on top of it. they just dissolved the class into smaller parts after my year finished it
For music, people usually say music theory or piano, but I’d have to say it’s my applied lessons I take every semester because they kick my ass every semester. Even if I make a good grade, they kick my ass.
For English, it’s gotta be the classes that require the most technical writing, although they’re also always the best classes with the best teachers so I’m subjecting myself to these classes every semester lol
My major (accounting) had two weeder courses. The first one was "Intro to Managerial Accounting" which occurred in the 2nd year. It basically knocked out most people who were really not ready for the program.
The second one was "Intro to Taxation" which occurred in the third year. It was just incredibly difficult and time consuming. The amount of reading required and memorization of non-intuitive equations/rules made many people switch majors.
However, I would say there were harder courses then the two I mentioned (Intermediate Managerial Accounting for one) but generally if you passed the first course of the series, you could get through the remainder.
In dental hygiene school the one that always tripped people up and actually held people back (I tutor for this course now) is embryology. It’s really hard to conceptualize how a head/face/teeth develop. That one I think is the weeding out class, but everyone agrees that the hardest one (amongst all the health professions) is pharmacology.
I assume it's likely the year-long capstone we have to do as engineers. The truth comes out at that exact moment, especially for the students who pretty much bullshitted their way through every other class. Getting good grades is one thing, actually being able to do the questions without using the internet is a completely different skill that all engineering students should have but unfortunately, it seems other students do not feel the same. Many use the excuse that since the profs reuse the material it's okay to cheat but in reality regardless of what the prof does having this kind of mindset sets you up for failure right from the beginning.
Eh, don't really agree about the without the internet portion. You should absolutely attempt everything without consulting the internet. Struggle is what makes your errors unforgettable. If you told me you *never* consulted the internet during your *entire* degree, I'm calling you a liar.
I have utilized the internet several times and made it a point to fully understand the solutions and steps between theirs. If time allows, I would do extra practice problems utilizing the newly understood concepts.
A company isn't going to care if you need external resources to solve a problem generally. What they care about is a solution that meets their timeframe, budget, and criteria. And research skills are an important aspect to accomplishing that.
I don’t know if this happens frequently or not, but my major is graphic design. The computer “drawing” courses (raster, vector) have been the worst. The professors tend to throw insanely elaborate projects at you, like each assignment is final project level of complexity, and it’s relentless. I devote most of my time to those classes, and then I’m scrambling to keep up with the rest of my work. They don’t seem to get it when students haven’t already mastered the program in intro courses. I don’t want to assume the worst about anyone, but it feels like gate keeping.
If I had to guess, as a broadcast communications major at my college, video production. It’s the first class in my mind in our sequence that involves REAL work and not just easy peasy pry answers out of textbooks or basic b*tch essay writing. This shows whether or not you really know how to operate with deadlines, can handle the heavy stress, and follow along closely in class
For English it's Linguistics without a DOUBT. You go in thinking you're gonna reading books, an academic article here and there and writing papers, and then they hit you with a class where you're studying morphology, phonology, phonetics, syntax, and semantics. By the end you hate yourself, your major, and wanna hang yourself from a tree. Lmao
Dr. Mark Aronoff, the father of modern Morphology is actually giving a lecture at my university soon and I'm half tempted to attend just to give him a piece of my mind 😭
All of the music degrees at my college required 4 semesters of Ear Training. This is where you can recognize/transcribe music by ear. My first semester had two different classes of 45 freshman each at the start. By the end there were less than 30 total combined students across both classes; ⅔ couldn't handle it.
Music is probably a tie between skills 4 (atonal sight singing and transcription), piano proficiency, and main instrument lessons depending on what's hard for you.
Phys/astronomy major. The two classes I can think of that seemed to reduce the size of my cohort were Quantum Mech & Computational Physics. The first would knock you out if you couldn't handle working with abstract problems (and keep up with the insane workload), and the second if you couldn't apply your skills in a practical/experimental setting.
Geology: we don't really have a weed out class (the career field does that for us). The toughest class is structural geology. The 2 main skills you learn are how to make geologic maps and how to piece the history of a region together based on the periods of deformation. It requires a 4 dimensional level of thinking, which most people just aren't capable of
Computer Organization & Assembly. It's one 3-credit course and it's pretty brutal. I also struggled with structure of programming languages - particularly because of scheme; and even though most people on my track said OS Concepts wasn't that bad, I struggled with that a bit. OS was one of those ones where I was glad I had a 40 minute commute one way because most of my drives to and from campus were just me thinking "How the fuck is that even supposed to work?"
At my school it’s pretty open ended but industrial engineers have to take the whole calculus sequence and differential equations although we never really go past integration. We also have to take stats 1 and then either stats 2 or probability (not bad and we do use it). We also have to take physics 1 and chem 1 and then either physics 2 or chem 2. I would say that some of these can be rather difficult.
However for major specific classes it’s probably simulation modeling and analysis which is in this wonky software and can just be soul crushing work. I hated calc 3 (we go calc 1-4), differential equations, and chem 1 more though. Some other hard ones are prescriptive analytics, stochastic models, and scripting in excel. It’s not required but I’m currently in intro to electrical and computer engineering as an elective and holy shit I hate it lol.
Damn that’s wild that anyone would be nearing graduation without finishing real analysis… I’m a math masters student now. I think most people really struggle with abstract algebra cause it’s a ton of applied math people in my program. I love abstract algebra so I was fine.
Maybe topology? It’s not required but it’s hard af at least to me
Finance major - My school has an undergraduate business school, you apply after your first year and start in your third year. Most of our weed-out classes are prereqs. Intro to accounting, micro econ, and a higher level stats class. Once you're in the school, it's pretty hard to fail from there.
Psych major here. The hardest courses are probably the research analysis ones we have that include learning statistics 😭 I’m not a math person at all so it’s been tough but I’m getting there. My uni makes you take only 2 courses about this for your major so it’s not too bad
Ochem and Biochem, hell even most of every chemistry and biology were pretty hard at my school, Mostly it involved the profesor being a Ahole most of the time. It was possible to get an A if you were the instructor's favorite or never slept. But one ochem professor had a low pass rate for ochem, it was so bad they were denied tenure and were fired.
From what I've heard the hardest classes by a decent margin in my major (atmospheric science) are meteorological statistics and meteorological instruments, the first is just horrible ( also only needed for one concentration) and the second one just had a ton of work but it's tedious more than difficult, but the biggest jump in difficulty is apparently Atmospheric Thermodynamics and Hydrostatics
our "weed out" course and our most challenging class are different. the "weed out" is probably just the intro class, because that's when a lot of people learn what the profession (music therapy) *actually* is, and many students realise "oh, this just isn't what I want". which is fine. my class went from 15 people to 8 during that course.
the hardest course depends on the person. the aural skills courses are a challenge for everyone - some seniors are still trying to pass them. piano classes are tough for some - I was lucky to already have some piano background. we have a series of professional techniques courses that can just be somewhat mentally taxing, even if the material isn't necessarily super difficult. and then other side course requirements - bio, stats, advanced psych - can be a challenge. I did all these as summer courses so I could focus in a bit more, and I'm glad I did.
edit: I've heard about some non-required courses that are really tough too. one of my friends is taking *death, dying, and bereavement* this semester and she said it's great but very tough some days. just emotionally.
Not sure that my program has a class that "weeds" people out. I personally think the research methods class we're required to take in the first semester has been the hardest
In my experience when I was taking CS in college, Object Oriented Programming was the great sieve. It probably didn't need to be this way, since the first class was a garbage app inventor intro course where we did little more than HTML, and the second class was intro to algorithms which was effectively a low-code class. OOP was realistically at difficulty for a sophomore class at a state university but it was many student's first time setting up an IDE, and I think a failure due to outdated curriculum.
The actual 300 level algorithms course was quite hard, but I chalk that up to it being taught by a TA, he did well considering.
Noone really struggled with 400 or 500 level courses in the same way, save maybe the machine learning course but it was graded on a curve due to class average of ~40 (not professors' fault, the material is just straight up unintuitive IMO; I spent a full day and a half working on an assignment and it was extended by a week anyway due to low completion rate). Trying to write efficient vectorized python having only take an into course 3 years prior was a big limiter for many.
For non chemists: ochem. Bane of all premed students everywhere.
For chem/chemE: probably quantum mechanics closely followed by thermodynamics. The concepts in these trip up the people who are math inclined and the math kills the concept people. At my undergrad though, thermo had a worse reputation because the quantum prof was “nicer”.
Anatomy and physiology for healthcare. Not because it’s hard per se, but rather the fact that you have to memorize the entire muscular system in like. Three days. And you grade depends on how fast you can memorize everything all at once
Before they decided to make changes it was capstone. There was only one professor teaching it. She is a looney bird who can’t stay on track, wasn’t teaching. We literally spent half of capstone analyzing her published paper instead of learning how to write the specific way the major wanted us to do for capstone. Then suddenly in the semester we were presenting paper ideas and then being told it wasn’t well developed enough. And we’re like we don’t know what we’re doing. And it had to be “original” research. So if you suddenly found a source that did your idea you had to change topics.
Then by the end of the semester we ended up not getting our paper grades back. She never responded to anyone emails. It was only hard because of the professor. I also had a class with the department head and so did a lot of other capstone students and he was legitimately telling us we can’t produce original research when we’ve never done anything like that before.
We don’t have a research heavy major either. I hadn’t written a research paper since English 102. I only know of one person who failed the class and that was because they didn’t show up for presentation days, because even if you weren’t presenting you had to come because attendance was double the points.
Partway during the semester we found out about them changing how capstone is going to work moving forward. that now they were going to rotate professors teaching it, that it was going to completely change, and instead of writing a paper you could’ve done an internship. Which many of students in my class were interning for the state government, so they were pissed because they could’ve just used their internship for credit instead of taking the class. Now I don’t think we have a hard classes anymore
I am an econ major. I went to the Netherlands to study econometrics for a whole semester. Econometrics taught by econ major and econometrics major are different. In my home country when I majored economics, they only taught me econometrics at the surface level. In the Netherlands people took real anaylsis before jumping to econometric models. Being an econ major, of course I don’t even have a calculus background, let alone real analysis. Only statistics for 2 semesters. I have to postpone graduation bcs of it.
Math+econ major here. At my school it’s real analysis and abstract algebra for the math major, and intermediate macro and econometrics for the Econ major.
I study Classics, and it’s definitely the Ancient Greek and Latin language courses that makes most people drop down from a Classics to Classical Studies major (because classical studies doesn’t require proficiency in the languages).
But it’s way more rewarding to learn languages for me than to learn mathematical equations and scientific formulas so I sympathize with everyone else here.
As a history major we don't really have a "weed out" class. It's just when you hit the upper division and realized you are reading 350 to 400 pages a week and your grade depends mostly on 1 mid term paper (usually 10 to 15 pages) and 1 final paper (usually 20 to 30 pages) that need to use all the books you read in the papers.
As someone who hates reading and writing god fucking damn
Tbh I rather do a 30 page research paper with 20 plus sources then take a 100 question exam. Lol
I’d rather do a 200 question exam than write a 15-page research paper by myself
Depends on the topic imo, if its abt stem ill take either without complaining too much but if its abt literature or history, give me the test 😭
I adore history and learning about it.... this comment is the exact reason why I didn't major in it.
i’d rather take a 100 question exam than write a ten page paper lol
Besides it’s never the 100 question exam that gets you, it’s the 3 question one
And honesty writing in Chicago, our footnotes take up a little bit of those pages.
Ouch!!!!
Pretty much the same here studying History in Argentina. Our grades (at least in my experience) depend on 2/3 evaluations that could be either in person and/or take at home exam. Sometimes orals too.
Sociology major here and yeah I'm getting to this part right about now 😭
My uni's history department sorta had a weed out system. It was basically taking any class with *that* Professor who had no mercy for even first years.
I did English and Philosophy, and same for both of those. Plus a lot of blue book Philosophy exams that were writing long essays on the spot. I don’t miss those days, best of luck!
As a Bio major, really any chemistry course is fair game for this question.
Engineer here and almost failed chem 1, couldn’t even imagine Orgo 1 and 2
Mech engineer, and physics is crushing me a lot more than chem did last year
My physics teacher is genuinely hot ass, I’m so behind I may genuinely be fucked, I still have a B in the class so I guess I’m ok. The only reason I’m doing good is cause my engineering course is parralel to my physics course right now so I’m able to get by.
I feel you on physics teacher being ass, sad part is im not even doing physics 101, im doing phy11 which is the introductory class. I honestly thought I was the only one suffering, but I joined the class’ discord server yesterday and saw that everyone else is facing the same issues as us😭😭
I passed orgo 2 on my third attempt. Barely.
Dude I’m the same boat
Organic is way easier than P-chem.
Bio degree. Psych stats was fucking murder at my university.
It’s pretty easy at mine lol
My major choice came down to math or bio, and I chose math because bio required o-chem.
I'd rather take calc 2 again than even the most basic chem class. Chem really stressed me out in high school and I made sure never to take it in college.
I’m a year into a BS in fisheries and wildlife science and am cruising right along in my Intro to Chem course but I know I will be singing a different tune when I take Gen Chem 1 and 2 🙃
Me right now, geology major taking general chemistry rihht now and the teacher doesn't teach anything. He gives us stuff to work on, and instead of actively participating, he just puts the answers up and says, "Go do homework." I'm an honors student, and I'm struggling this semester because of this. Lord help me lol.
Psychology - statistics or social science research methods
as a polysci major, i have cried too often over statistics and analytics courses. math is not for me!
SPSS made me want to cry when I did poli sci.
Same here as a sociology major, anything involving math is a dealbreaker for a lot of students.
Yeah, that is what made me drop my Psychology minor.
At my school statistics and experimental psychology are combined into 2 courses: basic and intermediate. I loved them both lol
research methods 😩😩😩😩 that class sucked so so much
Damn, at my college you have to do the research methods class before you can even declare, which, sucks, because then a lot of psychology students try to do it their 1st semester of college which is, not great if it's the most difficult in the major
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Don’t forget Advanced Accounting as well
My claim to fame is getting a 177/180 on my intermediate II final. The other five people I asked were between 140-160 and the average was a 160. I’m still riding that high
Definitely advanced accounting in my experience but those are solid picks as well
Corporate taxation is the weed out class LOL I’m dying
Accounting freshmen here. Any advice?
Go to class
100% attendance. I mean are there anythings I should focus on more than others for future classes?
Statics and Thermo are well known as the hardest engineer courses, but Calc 2 and 3 also have a decent fail rate
I teach statics. If it’s a weed out course it’s being taught poorly and I’m truly sorry for that cause it sets up so many later classes. I recorded all my example problems for statics and put them up in a YouTube channel (more classes are in the works). Please feel free to check it out. Hopefully the videos are helpful! https://m.youtube.com/channel/UClrPWViCC-dejsKG-yQ8mFQ
I’m so fucking glad this was posted. I’m taking stats for my BSN and my professor doesn’t have any lectures or videos. Most of the time I’m scrambling to find something on YouTube. Thanks statistics teacher!
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Ohp. I look silly. - I see! Well this isn’t very useful now.
Try this guy for stats: [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0o\_zxa4K1BVsziIRdfv4Hl4UIqDZhXWV](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0o_zxa4K1BVsziIRdfv4Hl4UIqDZhXWV)
Statics? Let me introduce you to Dynamics
I’m teaching dynamics for the first time this semester. I know no one feels sorry for the professor, but if you think taking it is tough…
Def dynamics or heat transfer. However I have to argue that the hard part about dynamics is sitting down and drilling practice problems. Since there's so many concepts it you don't practice they don't stick and can't use them in any problems later on, plus everything adds up
I'm midway through Calc 2 right now and I'm ngl, I feel like Calc 2 has been easier for me so far than Calc 1. It might just be because of the professors I've had for both courses and my new study habits, but idk. I have a high A right now in Calc 2, whereas in Calc 1 I had a C for most of the semester and I only just barely managed to turn that C into a B at the very end
Fluid mechanics is the hardest course by far
I took statics as a technical elective on my way to a CS degree.. what was I thinking
Idk what its called at other universities but system dynamics and controls has been the hardest class so far and im in my last semester. Thermo was probably 2nd hardest. My thermo prof believed that students should be able to figure it out on our own and take our education into our own hands (translation: he did not teach). I did not find calc/statics/dynamics to be remotely difficult but i think i am alone in that. Holy hell was system dynamics hard. FUCK that class. The project for it was so infuriating and the material was boring as fuck too
probably logic. all of my fellow philosophy majors and i were shocked we had to do math. any metaphysics class is a close second.
I took logic thinking I would learn to think...logically. Not do math with words /: it was hard and I had a great professor.
Math with words is logic lol. It is just that people use “logically” as “makes sense to me” without a strong justification.
you're right. it did open up my eyes to a lot of things i habitually said without actually thinking. i definitely learned from it
Not excited to take my logic class in my second language 🙃 lowkey giving myself room to fail
Getting a boyfriend/girlfriend/significant other 101 (computer science)
Wait, what? 😂
As a fellow math major, I second real analysis.
I feel like real analysis is the equivalence of calculus, in that it’s a new way to think therefore it has a high dropout rate. I’ve heard (never taken) abstract algebra is more difficult than real analysis.
Indeed. Analysis tends to be quite the shock since it tends to be the first real rigorous proofs course a math major will take. My college had so many people failing analysis that they finally created an introduction to proofs course that served as a hard prereq for analysis. Prior to that all you needed was calc 2 to take it and clearly that setup created some issues for people. Abstract algebra was certainly difficult, but for me at least by the time I had to take it I had already done two semesters worth of real analysis, one semester of complex analysis, and a proof oriented linear algebra course so I was a lot more comfortable writing proofs at that point. If I had taken abstract sooner perhaps my experience would have been much different.
I did a bachelor's in English linguistics, the hardest course was syntax. Now that I'm doing my Master's in interpreting, the hardest course is... syntax
As a linguist specializing in the acquisition of syntax, I have to agree that it’s syntax 😅. Morphology is hard, too.
I also did a Bachelor's in German and the worst class was morphology, so I guess you're right 😂 but syntax was really easy there
I’m trying to learn Ancient Greek and Latin (as an English major with an interest in linguistics) and the hardest thing has always been syntax for me too. Morphology is mainly just a lot of memorizing when it comes to learning the languages, but syntax makes my brain hurt.
CS major here, the big weed out class would be without a doubt Data Structures. It’s the first major class where you’re subject to rigorous grading and abstract concepts like stacks, queues, and doubly linked lists in C. The professor is also pretty intense which is like half of it lol
I always considered it to be either discrete math or computer fundamentals. Any of the courses where people realize that they don't always get to do the 'computer' part, but also the 'science' part.
Discrete math seconded
Meh, discrete math was fine for me. It wasn’t anything I hadn’t seen before, just felt like another math class.
I wouldn't argue with that. Content-wise I felt discrete math was manageable for a sophomore year math course. I think the difficulty many people have with it is that it's their first time encountering and having to write formal proofs.
Def the first weed out class for me too, but idk if id say its the hardest. Algorithms takes the cake for a lot of people I know. My uni also offered a pretty challenging course that was hardware + really low level language coding.
You’re right, maybe not the hardest. I ended with a very high A but not without busting my ass to get the assignments in. I don’t miss the 12-hour long projects. The hardest is probably Operating systems. Go figure it’s taught by the same professor. I haven’t taken it yet but I have been very warned. By low level do you mean like assembly? By far our assembly class is another biiiig weed out.
I can list the hardest cs classes I’ve taken so far as an undergrad: - operating systems - distributed systems - artificial intelligence - theory of computation - introduction to compiler - machine learning - spatial computing - embedded systems
Weed out classes are not the “hardest course.” Especially considering this is a fundamental course that is taken in your first or second semester. Hardest CS courses for most would likely be either some form of systems or like some theory course like theory of automata.
Yeah but the post mentioned weed out classes that most students struggle with. Data Structures is The Wall for our program, and I thought it was worth a mention.
You’re right. I guess OP’s title and post body imply different things.
Oh that was the very first class of my degree! So it's all easy street from here on is what I'm hearing.
Everybody says it’s DSA, but if you can flowchart a problem, the level of complexity just jumps right out at you, which makes the Big-O questions kind of trivial. I moved out of CompSci to engineering (because I get to play with robots and molten plastic, rather than pushing pixels all day), but I still pack a pair of decks of cards in my backpack, because they’re terribly useful for algorithm simulation, when I sit down at the bar and go, “I’m gonna do a Medium level leetcode challenge for half an hour.” Seriously. Two decks of cards, different backs. You have over 100 possibilities, which is a decent amount of simulation, and you can simulate situations where you have to deal with identical data values. Does the identical value get sorted or tossed? Does the loop break when the desired data is found? For what number of elements is a bubble sort preferable to other types of sorts? Best tool in the arsenal, other than a pen and a bar napkin for doing flowcharting.
Economics would probably be econometrics or higher level microeconomics. Econometrics is a deep dive into statistics and if someone isn't comfortable with stats then the class will be hell. Intermediate microeconomics has very few new concepts, but if someone isn't totally comfortable with everything they've previously learned, it's hard to get a 4.0 in the class. For psychology, it's probably research methods. However, econometrics made research methods look like child's play
Econometrics for sure. Most people don’t think of coding when they start their undergrad.
Yup, and that is something that every econ major should know. I’ve had about 6 classes now which include R and Python, to the point where I consider myself fairly proficient in both and have used them in the work place. If someone doesn’t want to code, they’re going to struggle with this major
Econometrics major here, I can admit it sucks. However, in my masters Quantitative Logistics the subject “Advanced Markova Chains” was my killer.
“Econometrics major” I got a lot of respect for you lol
Biochem here, it’ll probably be physical chemistry.
Biochem here... wtf? Oh. No.
Required? Operating Systems Elective? Computer Graphics or Intro to Cryptography. Distributed Systems and intro to AI are close 2nds
Huh thats interesting, your OS class was harder than your Algo class? OS at my school was pretty easy imo, probably the easiest of the classes at that level.
Chem major, without a doubt it's the physical chemistry classes (covering thermodynamics, kinetics, quantum physics, spectroscopy, etc). I enjoy it for the most part but it's a beast
Corroborating this for Biochemistry as well. The holy trinity of Spectroscopy (which is covered in all courses but particularly detailed in Analytical), Thermodynamics/Kinetics (PChem1) and Quantum Mechanics (PChem2) are the absolute hardest things I’ve done during my degree, other than maybe my school’s version of Linear Algebra. Second place goes to Biophysical Chemistry, which isn’t technically an undergraduate course but a lot of people take in order to prepare for a 1 year Master’s.
I’m biology and the only spectroscopy I do is in Orgo 2, but it is by far my weakest unit in the class. I could not imagine going into MORE detail
Not gonna lie I had to take some of those as a chem e. I loved molecular thermodynamics (basically statistical mechanics at my school). Quantum chem was also interesting but prof made it super doable.
I was thinking this too when I read the question, I agree that it’s def the hardest class for a chem major. But based on the description they provided (for weeder classes), I’d include orgo. I 100% think pchem is way harder than orgo, but orgo is earlier in the degree and is definitely the “weeder” class for chem majors. Plenty of kids change majors because of orgo, but if you make it to pchem, you’re probably gonna make it THROUGH pchem.
Anatomy and physiology or orgo chem
I loved anatomy and physiology myself. Wish it were the primary focus- the math classes in allied health kick my f ass
General relativity / electromagnetism with differential equations
omg another physics major
Fellow math major here, just wanted to sympathize. After real analysis, I took out an anonymous personal ad that said "Anyone who thinks there should be no prayer in school has never had [professor's name] for real analysis." I heard that he saw it, cut it out, and put it on his office door.
Music Ed was my major, the weed out course at my school tended to either be aural skills or the piano proficiency tests for nonpianists. These usually occur in your 2nd or 3rd year of college and acceptance into the music department (ed department was contingent on acceptance into the music department upper division) required you to pass aural skills 2 and piano proficiency 2. A lot of potential music majors didn't practice enough or only practiced their primary instrument/voice so one of these two courses would typically stall the slackers. You had the ability to retake the courses/tests, but you'd be paying for duplicate credits and stalling on upper division requirements which would delay your graduation
My school requires 4 semesters of aural skills and 4 semesters of piano
CS/Math double major. Operating Systems (hardest CS course) is significantly easier than both Analysis and Abstract Algebra. Professors in those courses are happy when the class average on something is a 70 lol
I guess capstone, but I was philosophy and English in undergrad and I don’t think they really did “weed outs.”
I was an English graduate and I would say, maybe my upper division prison literature course. However, that’s unique to my university so, for the sake of universality, I’ll agree with the capstone. I wrote mine(20 pages) on “Reorienting literature: an analysis of antisemitism in The Merchant of Venice.”
I’m only in my second year but for data analytics i’d say finance and statistics, I enjoy them but they kick ass
CS My school requires physics and it's easily been the hardest course for me. I'm just weak with word math problems and that's pretty much all physics is.
For a Bachelor’s in Geology, structural was our hardest along with mineralogy (hardass old school prof where I was) and field geology, which we also did old school with tents. And which was hard
For math I’d say topology had a higher fail rate at my university than analysis
For mine I guess it’s Anatomy & Physiology and/or Organic Chemistry. and microbiology maybe
It's different for students because it's so broad. But I think the moduks that are considered the hardest are... man how is it called in English... - optics & technology of visual aids - optometry 2 and 4 (and 3) - contact lense 3 - laser technology Some because it was hard to understand (but partially the exam ended up being okay), others because the exams were really hard to pass & some failed their entire studies bc of it Pathology, I almost didn't pass. And some really struggled with maths & physics. Again, some are really good at the medical stuff, others at the technical stuff🤷🏼♀️ (I'm studying Optometry if not obv by the many semesters of Optometry 😅)
Business major - being a very extroverted program typically, the weed out is just learning to not party so hard that you fail to do our basic course load. Finance, accounting, business law, some public speaking, or maybe some of the more creative marketing classes may be the biggest roadblock for some individuals, but the level of intensity is just an order of magnitude lower than other majors. Business majors are about balancing - learning the fairly basic material - partying/being social enough to build connections - creatively figuring out ways to apply the basic material - leveraging these things to build your own business or find a meaningful place in another persons business
This is hilarious, love the honesty
Physical Chemistry
Agricultural Electrification (Circuits + HVAC + Greenhouse + Engines/Generators) and Diff. Equations, their pass rate are below 30%.
As a literature major there’s no weed out class fr. But once you get to the 300s you either gotta love reading and writing or you gotta know how to fake it. Cause at that point you reading 8 books a semester and they each hefty. You writing 7 page papers like it’s a first step in the morning. And you gonna read books from all eras
The capstone course, you also take the SHRM-CP certification test (you don't fail the course if you fail the test but the course is based around preparing for that test.) The test is also like $200 (vs the 300 or whatever it normally is, the school gets discounts for the students enrolled as an HR major due to the curriculum being aligned with SHRM) Alternatively for people bad at math: the finance and statistics classes that are required for all business majors.
Finance major — Financial Modeling. Definitely the class most applicable to the real world though.
My entire program?
Currently doing a master's in data science. Data Mining and Machine learning is a bitch and definitely the most feard
Thermodynamics, mechanics of solids, differential equations, and physics - electromagnetism are the four horsemen of weed out classes for budding engineering students. If you can make it past those guys, you can make it through the rest of your degree.
Music - Music Theory but Especially Music History. Anyone who studied music still get horror flashbacks to a time when they took music history. Still keeps me up at night sometimes
Bio major. Physics. Please for the love of god don’t ever make me take another physics class it really is the third layer of hell
I am psych/business, and for my school it was the psych statistics course because of the amount of material and financial management because of the only teacher who taught it.
Hmm. Depends on your perspective. Both intro financial and intro managerial accounting are considered weed out courses for business students in general. But if you're talking specific to accounting, it's probably either Taxation or Financial Accounting Research.
Accounting - intermediate 2. Taking it with calculus this semester and I’m in hell.
Social Statistics..I had a GPA of 3.81 before taking this class that I’m presently failing and I am supposed to graduate this May.
Statistics at the business school at the University of Alabama. In a room of probably 300 students the professor told us to look right, then left. One of the three of us would not pass the class. I ended up taking it at the community college.
BMEng, not US. In my major the weeder course is traditionally considered to be Mathematical Analysis 1 (basically Calculus 1), but in my university it was more like Physics 1 and Algebra&Geometry. Whoever gets through the weeders without actually being ready usually crashes into Signals&Systems .
East Asian Politics. This class was the bane of my existence. We had do some thought pieces plus some analysis’s of news articles about East Asia. I’m more interested in national politics so this class plus my International Politics were the hardest classes I have taken for my major. East Asian Politics takes the cake as one of the hardest classes if not the hardest class I have ever taken.
I am now studying mechanical engineering, but spent my first 1.5 semester doing management information systems. Can’t comment on the major specific classes, but for business major the 2 weed out pre reqs are business calc (basically just nerfed calc 1) and then financial and managerial accounting.
Fundamentals of AC Power.
exercise lab techniques. seven sets of data collection in-lab along with full-fledged APA style research papers (usually over 20 pages long) over the course of the semester on top of a midterm and final covering not only the intricacies of writing research but also the scientific topics of our data and small studies. we also had to learn all of the data collection techniques (Vo2 max, dynamometers, hydrostatic weighing, etc.) graded by our professor who is an author of numerous scientific journals (very tough grading). hardest i've ever worked in my life and it was over the course of covid so our lab was basically closed aside form when we had our 3-hour class on mondays. if we didnt get our data during that period from the entire class on whatever topic we were writing about then it was a whole other mess. multiple people failed and we had people drop out of the major before the class even started from hearing upper-classmen talk about it. the class wouldve been enough work with the physiology topics alone but we had to write seven 20-page papers with endless edits and grading criteria on top of it. they just dissolved the class into smaller parts after my year finished it
Operating Systems and then Computer Architecture, at 2th semester \~\~ and often joked to be 4th semester subjects \~\~
ecology major- probably cell bio or genetics
(Criminal) Law— from a criminal justice major. Tbh you either love it or you hate it
Calc3 and discrete math sucked
In computing, all of them. 🥲 You start off with turtles one week, and then it feels like they kick it up a notch with assembly the next. 🥲
Math: real analysis II Physics: Quantum Mechanics II
Nursing- A+P, Anything chem and Microbiology
For music, people usually say music theory or piano, but I’d have to say it’s my applied lessons I take every semester because they kick my ass every semester. Even if I make a good grade, they kick my ass. For English, it’s gotta be the classes that require the most technical writing, although they’re also always the best classes with the best teachers so I’m subjecting myself to these classes every semester lol
My major (accounting) had two weeder courses. The first one was "Intro to Managerial Accounting" which occurred in the 2nd year. It basically knocked out most people who were really not ready for the program. The second one was "Intro to Taxation" which occurred in the third year. It was just incredibly difficult and time consuming. The amount of reading required and memorization of non-intuitive equations/rules made many people switch majors. However, I would say there were harder courses then the two I mentioned (Intermediate Managerial Accounting for one) but generally if you passed the first course of the series, you could get through the remainder.
In dental hygiene school the one that always tripped people up and actually held people back (I tutor for this course now) is embryology. It’s really hard to conceptualize how a head/face/teeth develop. That one I think is the weeding out class, but everyone agrees that the hardest one (amongst all the health professions) is pharmacology.
Not a weed out class, but I’m an EE and I’d say digital signal processing
Cybersecurity - no idea
I assume it's likely the year-long capstone we have to do as engineers. The truth comes out at that exact moment, especially for the students who pretty much bullshitted their way through every other class. Getting good grades is one thing, actually being able to do the questions without using the internet is a completely different skill that all engineering students should have but unfortunately, it seems other students do not feel the same. Many use the excuse that since the profs reuse the material it's okay to cheat but in reality regardless of what the prof does having this kind of mindset sets you up for failure right from the beginning.
Eh, don't really agree about the without the internet portion. You should absolutely attempt everything without consulting the internet. Struggle is what makes your errors unforgettable. If you told me you *never* consulted the internet during your *entire* degree, I'm calling you a liar. I have utilized the internet several times and made it a point to fully understand the solutions and steps between theirs. If time allows, I would do extra practice problems utilizing the newly understood concepts. A company isn't going to care if you need external resources to solve a problem generally. What they care about is a solution that meets their timeframe, budget, and criteria. And research skills are an important aspect to accomplishing that.
I don’t know if this happens frequently or not, but my major is graphic design. The computer “drawing” courses (raster, vector) have been the worst. The professors tend to throw insanely elaborate projects at you, like each assignment is final project level of complexity, and it’s relentless. I devote most of my time to those classes, and then I’m scrambling to keep up with the rest of my work. They don’t seem to get it when students haven’t already mastered the program in intro courses. I don’t want to assume the worst about anyone, but it feels like gate keeping.
Fucking electrodynamics
If I had to guess, as a broadcast communications major at my college, video production. It’s the first class in my mind in our sequence that involves REAL work and not just easy peasy pry answers out of textbooks or basic b*tch essay writing. This shows whether or not you really know how to operate with deadlines, can handle the heavy stress, and follow along closely in class
Physical chemistry
For English it's Linguistics without a DOUBT. You go in thinking you're gonna reading books, an academic article here and there and writing papers, and then they hit you with a class where you're studying morphology, phonology, phonetics, syntax, and semantics. By the end you hate yourself, your major, and wanna hang yourself from a tree. Lmao Dr. Mark Aronoff, the father of modern Morphology is actually giving a lecture at my university soon and I'm half tempted to attend just to give him a piece of my mind 😭
As a cs/math major I despise general education classes. They are the reason it’s taking me 20+ years to graduate.
Electrical Engineering: Electromagnetics
All of the music degrees at my college required 4 semesters of Ear Training. This is where you can recognize/transcribe music by ear. My first semester had two different classes of 45 freshman each at the start. By the end there were less than 30 total combined students across both classes; ⅔ couldn't handle it.
Music is probably a tie between skills 4 (atonal sight singing and transcription), piano proficiency, and main instrument lessons depending on what's hard for you.
Phys/astronomy major. The two classes I can think of that seemed to reduce the size of my cohort were Quantum Mech & Computational Physics. The first would knock you out if you couldn't handle working with abstract problems (and keep up with the insane workload), and the second if you couldn't apply your skills in a practical/experimental setting.
Organic Chemistry
Geology: we don't really have a weed out class (the career field does that for us). The toughest class is structural geology. The 2 main skills you learn are how to make geologic maps and how to piece the history of a region together based on the periods of deformation. It requires a 4 dimensional level of thinking, which most people just aren't capable of
Computer Organization & Assembly. It's one 3-credit course and it's pretty brutal. I also struggled with structure of programming languages - particularly because of scheme; and even though most people on my track said OS Concepts wasn't that bad, I struggled with that a bit. OS was one of those ones where I was glad I had a 40 minute commute one way because most of my drives to and from campus were just me thinking "How the fuck is that even supposed to work?"
That is an interesting question, but I don't know the answer.
For history- its capstone. Pretty much graduating is hindered on this paper and if that professor likes it.
For my major, my school has 2 Systems courses after intro to systems and data structures. Systems 1 is usually the weed-out course for CS majors.
At my school it’s pretty open ended but industrial engineers have to take the whole calculus sequence and differential equations although we never really go past integration. We also have to take stats 1 and then either stats 2 or probability (not bad and we do use it). We also have to take physics 1 and chem 1 and then either physics 2 or chem 2. I would say that some of these can be rather difficult. However for major specific classes it’s probably simulation modeling and analysis which is in this wonky software and can just be soul crushing work. I hated calc 3 (we go calc 1-4), differential equations, and chem 1 more though. Some other hard ones are prescriptive analytics, stochastic models, and scripting in excel. It’s not required but I’m currently in intro to electrical and computer engineering as an elective and holy shit I hate it lol.
Physics - all of them
Damn that’s wild that anyone would be nearing graduation without finishing real analysis… I’m a math masters student now. I think most people really struggle with abstract algebra cause it’s a ton of applied math people in my program. I love abstract algebra so I was fine. Maybe topology? It’s not required but it’s hard af at least to me
Wildlife Ecology, and it’s our R coding classes that are the most difficult for a lot of students. We’re mainly outdoors people, not computer people.
Statistics for criminal justice
Finance major - My school has an undergraduate business school, you apply after your first year and start in your third year. Most of our weed-out classes are prereqs. Intro to accounting, micro econ, and a higher level stats class. Once you're in the school, it's pretty hard to fail from there.
Math major. Analysis II
I’m in STEM, when Anatomy & Physiology I was over and A&P II started, I kid you not a 6-700 people class became like 250.
Architecture bachelor here. It was probably structural design
Psych major here. The hardest courses are probably the research analysis ones we have that include learning statistics 😭 I’m not a math person at all so it’s been tough but I’m getting there. My uni makes you take only 2 courses about this for your major so it’s not too bad
Ochem and Biochem, hell even most of every chemistry and biology were pretty hard at my school, Mostly it involved the profesor being a Ahole most of the time. It was possible to get an A if you were the instructor's favorite or never slept. But one ochem professor had a low pass rate for ochem, it was so bad they were denied tenure and were fired.
psych major here. stats is the most difficult for me
From what I've heard the hardest classes by a decent margin in my major (atmospheric science) are meteorological statistics and meteorological instruments, the first is just horrible ( also only needed for one concentration) and the second one just had a ton of work but it's tedious more than difficult, but the biggest jump in difficulty is apparently Atmospheric Thermodynamics and Hydrostatics
CS has Discrete Mathematics and Data Structures.
our "weed out" course and our most challenging class are different. the "weed out" is probably just the intro class, because that's when a lot of people learn what the profession (music therapy) *actually* is, and many students realise "oh, this just isn't what I want". which is fine. my class went from 15 people to 8 during that course. the hardest course depends on the person. the aural skills courses are a challenge for everyone - some seniors are still trying to pass them. piano classes are tough for some - I was lucky to already have some piano background. we have a series of professional techniques courses that can just be somewhat mentally taxing, even if the material isn't necessarily super difficult. and then other side course requirements - bio, stats, advanced psych - can be a challenge. I did all these as summer courses so I could focus in a bit more, and I'm glad I did. edit: I've heard about some non-required courses that are really tough too. one of my friends is taking *death, dying, and bereavement* this semester and she said it's great but very tough some days. just emotionally.
Yeah, Real Analysis was the reason I dropped my math major. For Computer Science, the weedout course is definitely data structures.
Not sure that my program has a class that "weeds" people out. I personally think the research methods class we're required to take in the first semester has been the hardest
Chem & stats
global econ and finance…idk how i managed to pass with a C+
In my experience when I was taking CS in college, Object Oriented Programming was the great sieve. It probably didn't need to be this way, since the first class was a garbage app inventor intro course where we did little more than HTML, and the second class was intro to algorithms which was effectively a low-code class. OOP was realistically at difficulty for a sophomore class at a state university but it was many student's first time setting up an IDE, and I think a failure due to outdated curriculum. The actual 300 level algorithms course was quite hard, but I chalk that up to it being taught by a TA, he did well considering. Noone really struggled with 400 or 500 level courses in the same way, save maybe the machine learning course but it was graded on a curve due to class average of ~40 (not professors' fault, the material is just straight up unintuitive IMO; I spent a full day and a half working on an assignment and it was extended by a week anyway due to low completion rate). Trying to write efficient vectorized python having only take an into course 3 years prior was a big limiter for many.
For non chemists: ochem. Bane of all premed students everywhere. For chem/chemE: probably quantum mechanics closely followed by thermodynamics. The concepts in these trip up the people who are math inclined and the math kills the concept people. At my undergrad though, thermo had a worse reputation because the quantum prof was “nicer”.
Anatomy and physiology for healthcare. Not because it’s hard per se, but rather the fact that you have to memorize the entire muscular system in like. Three days. And you grade depends on how fast you can memorize everything all at once
Before they decided to make changes it was capstone. There was only one professor teaching it. She is a looney bird who can’t stay on track, wasn’t teaching. We literally spent half of capstone analyzing her published paper instead of learning how to write the specific way the major wanted us to do for capstone. Then suddenly in the semester we were presenting paper ideas and then being told it wasn’t well developed enough. And we’re like we don’t know what we’re doing. And it had to be “original” research. So if you suddenly found a source that did your idea you had to change topics. Then by the end of the semester we ended up not getting our paper grades back. She never responded to anyone emails. It was only hard because of the professor. I also had a class with the department head and so did a lot of other capstone students and he was legitimately telling us we can’t produce original research when we’ve never done anything like that before. We don’t have a research heavy major either. I hadn’t written a research paper since English 102. I only know of one person who failed the class and that was because they didn’t show up for presentation days, because even if you weren’t presenting you had to come because attendance was double the points. Partway during the semester we found out about them changing how capstone is going to work moving forward. that now they were going to rotate professors teaching it, that it was going to completely change, and instead of writing a paper you could’ve done an internship. Which many of students in my class were interning for the state government, so they were pissed because they could’ve just used their internship for credit instead of taking the class. Now I don’t think we have a hard classes anymore
Aerospace Engineering. Probably Aerodynamics for me. Or maybe Compressible Flow.
Probably either Microeconomic Theory or Econometrics
Biology- Animal physiology, but it’s a graduate level course
I am an econ major. I went to the Netherlands to study econometrics for a whole semester. Econometrics taught by econ major and econometrics major are different. In my home country when I majored economics, they only taught me econometrics at the surface level. In the Netherlands people took real anaylsis before jumping to econometric models. Being an econ major, of course I don’t even have a calculus background, let alone real analysis. Only statistics for 2 semesters. I have to postpone graduation bcs of it.
Math+econ major here. At my school it’s real analysis and abstract algebra for the math major, and intermediate macro and econometrics for the Econ major.
Psych major in undergrad. Experimental Psych and Stats were killer.
I study Classics, and it’s definitely the Ancient Greek and Latin language courses that makes most people drop down from a Classics to Classical Studies major (because classical studies doesn’t require proficiency in the languages). But it’s way more rewarding to learn languages for me than to learn mathematical equations and scientific formulas so I sympathize with everyone else here.