User Panel
A&P 1 and 2.
I did a summer program that was all summer long, both classes straight through. It sucked but I escaped with a B. |
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The hardest class was Feminist Perspectives in Literature.
I'll bet most guys won't trade basic training for THAT experience. |
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I have a BS in physics from 1993.
Hardest class was differential equations. I also have a BS in chemistry from 2006. Hardest class was biochemistry. Biochem was a lot of brute memorization. I suck at that. |
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Diff Eq 2
Professor hated that I kept checking my calculus with approximation formulas from the EE department. |
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Earthquake Engineering. There was no description for the class because it was the first time it was being offered, and I enjoyed the professor who taught the class. I had him for advanced steel design and bridge engineering, he said it was going to be a fun class. We obviously had different ideas of what would be fun.
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Organic Chemistry for me. Like I had run into a brick wall. I couldn't get a tutor to help (I didn't fit into those "certain groups worthy of help"); worked full time and had some major family issues. I withdrew from that class and came up with a plan to get through the next time. There were 2 classes one after the other. I signed up for the 2nd one then sat through the 1st one (early morning, so there were always open seats) and then went to my signed up class. Did well enough for the first part of the class that I had enough points to pass. Pure memory; never understood the second half of the course.
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Differential Equations (mainly because the instructor sucked).
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calculus 3 View Quote Passed with a B as I recall on attempt #2 with a part time teacher who actually had us understanding what the hell calc 3 was all about. And I actually liked it. |
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Statistics 101. My class started out with 70'something people and on the day of finals, there were only 12 of us. I got a "B" in the class and I am more proud of that than any "A" I got in any other class. Stats was a hard bitch!!
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DiffEq. My lifetime DE average is an F. Two Incompletes, an F and a B. (0 + 0 + 0 + 3)/4 = 0.75 = Eff Me. I was happier to get that B than any of the As I ever got. View Quote Wound up having to bail half way through DiffEq since it was making no sense to me. I was basically memorizing how to work with and solve them without understanding what I was doing, 100% mechanical. The prof didn't help matters. I wound up taking it again next semester, hit every recitation and managed to get by with a passing grade. /shudder All because Computer Science was considered an Engineering degree where (and when) I went, so I had to take plenty of math and physics to go along with it. |
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Diff Eq, Statistics, digital processing, I took a Material science class and an elective and it was tough but I passed.
yes they were requried. |
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I can't remember the course titles.
Lowest grade - NE301 Radiation and nuclear interactions and whatnot. Concepts not terribly difficult to grasp, but toward the end the math starts to get intense. Professor was a dick and graded on what I'm convinced was a negative curve. Hardest - NE401 Reactor physics. The neutron transport equation. Concepts were hard to grasp, but doable if you put your mind to it. The math was just retarded. Ever seen differentials and integrals in the same equation? The transport equation is so complex an entire year is devoted to it, one semester using it (the pre-req to this class) and another simply deriving its DRASTICALLY simplified form (this class). The professor no shit wrote "magic" on the board as one of the mathematical derivation steps, and boxed it in all fancy-like with stars and underlines and everything, and told us to write that in our notes. He was every bit the stereotypical Russian, and we're almost certain he's ex-KGB. Least understood - Forget the course number, combined PY/NE plasma physics course. It was an 'interest' elective, so not set up to be hard grade-wise. Concepts are just completely out to lunch. I learned NOTHING in that class. Plasma is just fucking weird. The math wasn't exactly easy, but I could follow it and do it. I just had no fucking idea whatsoever what it was supposed to mean. Most amount of work - NE302/402 Reactor heat transfer (parts 1 and 2). My best class. Fully understood the concepts, the math, and how they related to each other. The professor was a tough SOB, but he might be the single best instructor that ever lived. He made Thermodynamics II (a pre-req for the course that NO ONE left the class actually understanding) clear in a single sentence. The entire class went "OOOOOOOOOHHH" together when he said it. ("Entropy is simply a mathematical representation of energy that is unavailable to perform work.") The weekly homeworks took roughly 20 hours to complete. About the same for the bi-weekly lab reports. Tests were always at night, and consisted of two questions. Started at 7, and you just kept going until you finished or gave up in tears. No time limit. When the last person finishes, the Prof joined us at the bar across the street. I'm not sure he ever had to, but I imagine he'd have made the last straggler stop at around midnight so as to have time left to drink. The final project was essentially to mathematically model the heat flux/cooling channel profiles of a reactor. Basically stitch all the previous homeworks together into one massive problem. Was something like 20 pages of printed out Maple worksheet. |
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Discrete math was tough, both the topic and the professor. Discrete math, data structures and logic were lumped into the same class. It was a set of two courses that sort of ran together. It all felt very poorly planned. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
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Data Structures. Discrete Math a distant second but even that was HAF. C's get degrees! Discrete math, data structures and logic were lumped into the same class. It was a set of two courses that sort of ran together. It all felt very poorly planned. |
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Funny note on the Business Calculus thing, I had to have a "chat" with the Dean after this conversation:
Prof: You need to learn how to do this without a calculator because if we have a massive power outage or if the bombs fall, you're going to need to do this with a pen and paper. Me: I am pretty sure a rifle and foodstuffs will be a lot more useful than business Calc if the world ends. I'm 90% sure I would have been dismissed if I said that in today's world. |
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O chem. Failed a midterm test with a zero percent, missed all 10 synthesis problems .... as did 5-6 other people. A Brit with a sanctimonious attitude taught it to make sure that plenty of people failed. Got a C in the class but damn it sucked.
Only class I have ever failed: statistics. The material was not hard, but the prof was soooooo unbelievably dry I simply couldn’t concentrate during lectures. The textbook was even worse. I literally got nothing from them that I could retain. He structured the class with 2 midterms and a final. Both midterms were scheduled after the drop date. Wanted to drop after the first exam, but couldn’t. |
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Chemistry. 2 classes for my ME degree. It was a clusterfuck. Got my B's and got out. It was painful, though.
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Life Drawing.
I was banging the model. Apparently the professor had feelings for her. |
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It's difficult to decide between Ochem or Calc3. Calculus is based on a set of rules that starts easy and becomes increasingly more difficult once you enter the multivariate world. But organic chemistry was like learning a completely different language in that your perception and way of thinking had to change in order to visualize what is going on.
It also makes a difference where and who you take the course from. Ochem was the pre-med weed out class and the entire set of calc was the engineering weed out classes. 20 credits of hell. |
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Organic chemistry
It was taught by a new prof who got his PhD at like 22 at some ivy, he was supposed to be the lab prof for a year or two, but the regular prof went out with cancer unexpectedly. Dude gave zero shits we couldn't follow along at his speed. Per the rubric and his published grades to that day, the highest anyone could get going into the final, if they got a perfect score, was a D-. A significant chunk of people withdrew prior to the final or skipped it. Everyone who sat for the final got a B- for the semester, every single person. Kharn |
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Tie between discrete math and organic chem III.
Organic Chem was made difficult by the fact that the Indian "Professor" barely spoke English, had suffered a stroke at some point making his speech even more unintelligible, and did not give the first flying fuck whether anyone understood a word or not. Arrogant cloistered shithead like most (not all) tenured university faculty. |
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Calc 3 was the hardest simply because of content.
Computability Theory was a class taught by a professor so bizarre that not only did I not learn anything, after passing with a C I still wasn't even sure what it was that we were SUPPOSED to have learned. |
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Calc 3 and PChem. Those are by far the most difficult undergrad classes in the science/math world. Only other ones that compare were grad level ChemE classes. They were a special kind of impossible. Took groups of 5 to solve 1 problem a week for homework. The tests were 4 hrs and were usually 2-3 problems. View Quote Attached File |
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What is the hardest class you took in undergrad that you passed? View Quote Was the class a required part of your major? View Quote |
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DE, Econometrics, or maybe Linear Algebra. Since Econometrics is applied Linear Algebra combined with programming and statistical analysis I'm going to have to go with that one.
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Quoted: I took it but we used terminal instead of punchcards. Still had to indent 7 spaces? Had an A but the finally project wouldn’t work. I went to the instructor weeks before it was due, he couldn’t find the problem either. Asshole gave me a C. View Quote I had access to a PDP-11 running RT-11 with a fortran compiler. I did all my work on a terminal using an editor, and had an interactive debugger (ODT?). I was given my very own RK-05 removable disk and could use the computer at night when nobody else needed it. Later I had access to a PDP-11 running Unix and did all my C programming there. The good old days... |
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Dramatic history. Was five days a week, and covered all of theater history from ancient greece through modern times in excruciating detail. In conjunction with the history, we were expected to read a play every single day and hand in a report. I remember the midterm was 36 pages of essay questions, and the final was something we formed study groups for a month in advance. Learning in that class was like drinking from a firehose.
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Got a B- in Calc. It just about killed me.
Some kids were never meant to be astronauts. |
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Structures II:
Calculating mathematical formulas to solve within other mathematical formulas to determine Moment/ Axial/ Shear Forces combined with Point/ Uniform/ Non-uniform loads in regards to building design. As an Architect, that why I hire Structural Engineers. They love math! I however, don't. Req'd to graduate with a Bachelor of Architecture degree. |
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organic Chem - straight up momorization
Calc 1 and 2 sucked, but 3 and Diff Eq were horrible Biometrics was the class I worked hardest at. ANOVA (Analysis of Variance) tables still haunt my dreams |
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Huh. Let me consult the Wayback Machine ...
What comes to mind is Intro to Number Theory. The professor seemed to think of the course as a talent identifier, and set a pretty high bar with a GFY attitude for the students who had trouble clearing it. I can see the text on my shelf from where I'm sitting right now. |
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Physics 2 for me. I have no idea how I passed, I had no idea what the fuck was going on for 90% of the class. It was required for my major, but I have no clue why - I'm a mining engineer, not an electrical guy.
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Production management. 1 part dull teacher, 1 part complicated production statistics, 1 part insomnia, 2 parts terribly timed final exam. The decided to make the finance 200 level final and I believe managerial accounting final and this class all on the same day. These were all the 3 hour tues-Thursday class of 200 students per class. They apologized but they couldn’t get the administrators to schedule them differently. I had to cram for all three and production management was already my weakest. I got a D in the class it killed my GPA. Since I had one quarter left I suck fuck it and took the hit. Now none of my employers have ever asked for it but then again I’ve never worked at a big enough company that would care about GPA. Ten years on its more about my work accomplishments.
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