Top 10 Hardest College Classes / Undergraduate Classes
Top 10 Hardest College Classes / Undergraduate Classes | Hardest Classes In High School. While you’ll find a course easy to grasp as a math major, somebody else may find it excruciating (and vice versa). However, there are courses that have a reputation across college campuses for being the foremost torturous, often even for those majoring within the topic.
This list of toughest college classes below should not scare you away from taking any of the following courses, either. Plenty of students pass them with flying colors. You should just go into them prepared to put in some extra time and effort, which you should do with all of your classes, should you need to.
List of Hardest College Majors
- Calculus.
- Quantum Mechanics / Physics.
- English Literature
- Psychology
- Philosophy / Metaphysics.
- Thermodynamics
- Organic Chemistry
- Linguistics
- Economics.
- Anatomy
- Statistics
- Theory.
Things to Consider When Choosing a College Class
1. Anticipated Career or Graduate School Requirements
Some courses might be necessary for getting into graduate school or pursuing a career in a certain field. This is especially true for aspiring healthcare professionals, from doctors to physical therapists to pharmacists. Make sure you read up on what you’ll need to do when you’re planning your course schedule.
2. Instructor Reputation
You may not always have the intel when it comes to who’s teaching what — especially in the case of introductory classes — but if you can learn anything about the instructor’s reputation, that may help inform you about which classes to take.
3. General Education Requirements
Many schools have general education requirements that all students must complete. If you’re lucky, you’ll have some choice within these requirements, but that’s not always the case. Be sure to map these out too, as you don’t want to end up needing to take a bunch of these at once just to graduate on time.
4. Your Major
Normally, you don’t have complete control over your schedule. You’ll need to complete certain requirements for your major. Be sure you’re aware of these courses, and draw up a plan to spread them out over your four years.
Hardest College Classes | Most Challenging College Courses And College Majors
1. Anatomy
Anatomy is the study of the human body and all of its parts and processes. This course is tough because it’s a lot of memorization. Because, in case you haven’t heard, the human body is pretty complex. This course is a requirement for some health professions, like physical therapy and nursing (surprisingly, it’s not often required by medical schools, but is for physician assistant programs). Gross anatomy focuses on the study of the body’s internal and external structures, such as the bones, muscles, organs, and systems (such as the circulatory, respiratory, and nervous systems).
2. Calculus
Calculus is also a Hardest college class. It is a branch of mathematics that deals with the study of change and motion. It consists of two main branches: differential calculus and integral calculus. If you’re not into math or not math-minded, calculus can be a nightmare given the abstract and difficult concepts in mathematical theory, like limits, functions, derivatives, and integrals. Enough said.
3. Theory
There are different disciplines that fall within theory, such as political theory or scientific theory. Many find theory difficult because the courses study different explanations of thought and the results behind them. The subjects can be difficult to follow and rigorous in terms of course material, which is likely why students often deem theory subjects among the most challenging.
4. English Literature
If you’re not a strong or particularly fast reader, readings can pile up quickly. Reading the material isn’t the only requirement, either. Students must comprehend large quantities of material (often in old English) and apply it by writing lengthy essays and on dreaded essay exams. While many may find these courses a snap, the majority of STEM majors avoid English Literature like the plague. The study of English literature involves analyzing the form, structure, language, and content of literary texts, as well as their historical and cultural context.
5. Philosophy / Metaphysics
In metaphysics, you learn and discover extremely abstract concepts and theories that question reality and physical senses. It’s a philosophical head spin, which many have trouble grasping. We don’t blame them, either. Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental questions about existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy that examines the nature of reality, including the relationship between mind and matter, substance and attribute, potentiality and actuality, as well as the concepts of space and time.
6. Quantum Mechanics / Physics
What some describe as a tedious subject to learn, other students find the abstract aspects, like the theory that everything is made of waves and not particles, applied to numbers is challenging to comprehend. Apparently, you either get quantum mechanics and physics or you don’t. In classical physics, objects have a definite position and velocity at any given time, but in quantum mechanics, objects exist in a state of superposition, meaning that they can exist in multiple states at the same time.
7. Organic Chemistry.
This course weeds out the doctors from the wannabes. It’s certainly difficult. There’s a consensus that it takes a lot of work, memorization, and commitment. With motivation, however, it is manageable. In organic chemistry, students will study the structure, properties, and reactions of organic compounds and organic materials. This subject is the most tricky part of chemistry. It’s certainly difficult. There’s a consensus that it takes tons of labor, memorization, and commitment. With motivation, however, it’s manageable.
8. Linguistics
Linguistics isn’t just the study of different languages; it’s the analysis of language form, meaning and context. As students get into higher-level linguistics, things start to get more complicated. Colleges don’t mess around. Linguistics is the toughest college class. Linguists study how language is represented in the brain, how it is acquired by children, and how it changes over time.
9. Psychology
If you’ve met a handful of people in your lifetime, you know that the science of understanding individuals and groups can’t be easy. People are hard to grasp and society can be even more difficult to understand at times. Now, put that in the context of an academic setting. In Psychology, students cover everything related to human behavior and processes.
10. Economics
Economics is also Hardest college class. It is the social science that studies how individuals, institutions, and society make choices about how to allocate scarce resources to satisfy unlimited wants and needs. It seems like a lot of students simply find economics a combination of extremely challenging and extremely boring. Boring makes a lot of people zone out, and you have to focus to understand challenging concepts, which is a lethal combination for a GPA.
11. Statistics.
Statistics involves collecting, analyzing, interpreting, presenting and organizing all aspects of data. That means it involves a lot of charts, numbers, equations and controlled experiments with numbers, which many students find confusing to follow, difficult to comprehend, and monotonous.
There are two main branches of statistics: descriptive statistics and inferential statistics. Descriptive statistics deals with the organization, summarization, and presentation of data, such as calculating measures of central tendency and dispersion. Inferential statistics deals with the process of drawing conclusions about a population based on a sample of data, using techniques such as estimation and hypothesis testing.
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