I was a physics and a math major and currently a biophysics phd. For me my most difficult courses were my senior year complex analysis course and abstract geometry. The whole idea of topology was difficult for me. My physics courses were not too bad and they were honors courses. I guess I was just one of those people who though quantum and thermo were not too bad. Which is prolly the reason, I am doing a spectroscopy project for my thesis....
I'd say Pharmacology. We had to know every single drug in the world it seemed. And the questions didnt just ask what the drugs were for, most of them asked for potential interactions with other drugs or side effects and shiite. It was the hardest class for me to maintain my 4.0, ended up with an A- which brought me down to 3.98.
No one has mentionned Electromagnetics yet.. by far the hardest I've ever taken.
For me it was organic chemistry.
Not because I found it that hard, but because I found it so mind-numbingly, crushingly boring. Add to that the facts that I had a Chinese professor that flunked the TOEFL test twice AND it was right after lunch, staying awake became almost a literal impossibility for me. Nothing like learning about chair configurations from someone speaking in a foreign tongue as the insulin crash from lunch sets in.
I still get sleepy just thinking about it.
After literally waking up one day in class, I decided I'd rather go to law school than med school.
Hardest class I took was some media and law BS class that was only hard because it was so incredibly indescribably boring and completely and utterly irrelevant.
wrong - calculus B was not the toughest of all the maths at your university, if it is your university is in trouble...you just never made it to the upper level math classes - and no to all you people out there diff equations and linear algebra don't count as upper level math classestry topology maybe a little diffusion theory or stochastic differential equationspersonally i found stochastic differential equations to be my toughest course but i think it all depends on the demands of the individual teacher teaching the course
Kamikaze wrote:
Calculas B... was the toughest of all the maths at my university, and I had to go through three calculas', DE, and Linear Algebra.
and a very close second was Tax accounting, partially because it was sooo boring and because it was corporate taxes.
Intro to Exercise Physiology (400 level course).
Only because you never knew when you were going to be tested so you had to be on it every single day. Day usually began with "Anyone have any questions?". No questions, you got tested. So, you better have some questions...:)
Alan
It is classes as you are describing that prompted me to become a physician and not a math professor..I might add though as I am sure you are aware of the diversity in the field of mathematics. One can be good at one field of math at no the other. I performed better in Analysis than Linear algebra and they were both upper undergrad requirements for the major
Zat0pek wrote:
it was right after lunch, staying awake became almost a literal impossibility for me. Nothing like learning about chair configurations from someone speaking in a foreign tongue as the insulin crash from lunch sets in.
I still get sleepy just thinking about it.
It appears you may have fallen asleep in physiology class as well. Your sleepiness after lunch is due to the phenomenon known as "the alkaine tide," this is especially evident after the consumption of carbohydrates.
http://tinyurl.com/l3vakObviously English was a pretty difficult class for the person who started this thread. It should be "taken" not "took".
justintherunner wrote:
Obviously English was a pretty difficult class for the person who started this thread. It should be "taken" not "took".
What is the hardest class you ever taken in college?
Yep. Sounds about right for letsrun.
Pherekydes wrote:
What is the hardest class you ever taken in college?
Yep. Sounds about right for letsrun.
They have the internet in West Virginnie now? Yeeee-haw!
Zat0pek wrote:
For me it was organic chemistry.
Not because I found it that hard, but because I found it so mind-numbingly, crushingly boring. Add to that the facts that I had a Chinese professor that flunked the TOEFL test twice AND it was right after lunch, staying awake became almost a literal impossibility for me. Nothing like learning about chair configurations from someone speaking in a foreign tongue as the insulin crash from lunch sets in.
I still get sleepy just thinking about it.
After literally waking up one day in class, I decided I'd rather go to law school than med school.
That my problem with my calc 2 course. I had a prof who talked like Ben Stein and it was at 1:30 pm right after I had lunch and I ate alot of carbs because I was on the crew team at Purdue that year. I fell asleep about every lecture. I got an A because I taught myself the material but it was kinda embarrasing to fall asleep in a 25 person classroom every lecture.
that was my problem
Advice Guy wrote:No one has mentionned Electromagnetics yet.. by far the hardest I've ever taken.
Ditto for me. I struggled and struggled and struggled but just wasn't getting it, but then at some point I decided to read the text book cover to cover and had an epiphany - suddenly it all made beautiful sense. I wound up with a pretty good mark, but I've never had to work harder than that in an undergrad course. Highest effort to reward ratio of all my courses.
A couple of my fourth year courses - thermodynamics and some course about solid state physics - would be close runners up. In both cases, it was crappy professors that made the material more difficult than it needed to be. I struggled in both all term. A week before the exams, I read the textbooks cover to cover and wound up with decent marks again.
At the graduate level so far, I am just starting my 2nd year this fall, my hardest course has been cell biology. The cell bio course I taken was a senior biomedical engineering cell bio course that my friend Jeff, a 2nd year biophysics phd student, recommended to me. He said it would be more quantitative than the cell biology department's course. Well it was to a point. It started to be a pain in my ass when I had to compete against senior biomedical engineers and the TA for the course, who graded everything including exams, graded strictly straight from a rubric. The prof would refused to accept exams for regrades. I came from a biochemistry point of view and of course the TA did not know about half of the enzymes I talked about in my exams. I knew I answered at least 90% of the exam questions correct because I already passed the biochemistry prelim. Even my advisor could not believe I was getting C's in the course for give correct answers. I ended up with a C+. The other biophysics phds in the course also failed the course with C's too. So, next semester we all have to take it over again, but this time I am taking the 600 level graduate course from the cell bio department. At least I will get some more leeway with the prof in this course.
I was a business major so most classes were pretty easy but I'd definitely have to say that the Accounting classes were pretty tough, I actually had to study and do work...wtf!
Feedback Controls of Dynamic Systems
Far and away the most difficult course I have ever muddled through. It didn't help that it was a 2nd semester senior year class and the professor enjoyed failing people.
wolverine318 wrote:
That my problem with my calc 2 course. I had a prof who talked like Ben Stein .
Talked like Ben Stein, eh? You had it easy. I had a TA from France. 30 years later I can still hear her high pitched whine, "Intahgrrrrulllll sine cosine faytah is whahh?
"Whah?" Yeah, that's the answer I always came up with - "What?"
malmo wrote:I had a TA from France. 30 years later I can still hear her high pitched whine, "Intahgrrrrulllll sine cosine faytah is whahh?
"Whah?" Yeah, that's the answer I always came up with - "What?"
What is it with math professors and the english language? We had a math prof called Fast Eddy, from some east European country. He spoke broken english so fast there was no way anyone could pick up on what he was saying. And he wrote on the board equally fast. He would write with his right hand, and at the same time would follow along with the eraser in his left hand. If you didn't stay focussed, you missed everything.
Another math prof was of east Indian heritage. He used to say things like "scare the wariable," meaning of course, square the variable. We used to reply "boo!" whenever he said that. Which I suppose sounds much funnier in my head. He never knew why we were saying that to him, though.