Choosing a major is a challenge to students. If you’re reading this, you probably take it seriously. It’s great that you understand all the consequences of this decision. To help you make an informed choice, we’ve compiled the following list of top 10 easiest and hardest college majors throughout the country.
Easiest College Majors Students Dream Of
Of course, an easy major doesn’t guarantee a successful employment. At least, you may enjoy your college years much better having minimum hours of assigned reading per week (look at here to get a distinguished writing help in any field of study).
- Communications, Journalism, and Advertising. The good news is that this category is free of brain-crunching lab work and mathematics. Isn’t it what you’ve been looking for?
- Social Sciences. This group includes some calculations, requiring some Math and Statistics, but not as much as Chemistry or Engineering students have to go through. The only disadvantage is that you’ll have lots of writing assignments.
- Business Administration and Marketing. The fun part of these majors is that students often have to write proposals for their own startups and every day see how the theoretical principles they learn are used in practice.
- Education. Learning how to teach can be not very exciting, but it doesn’t require too much calculations. By the way, spending time in the classroom, teaching students, you’ll have less time left for assigned reading.
- English. Spending four years studying a language you’ve been speaking your entire life (or at leas a half of it if you’re an ESL student) is the laziest choice ever.
Hardest College Majors for the Brave
And the most difficult degrees that will require most effort, dedication and time are the following:
- Engineering. This one is an absolute leader in the dropout rates. In some courses, it reaches 60%. Chemistry, Calculus, Statistics and Physics you’ll have to study if you choose this hardest college major will leave you happy with a ‘C’. ‘As’ are rare and accidental when it comes to Engineering students.
- Physical sciences. Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Geology fall into this category. You’ll need photographical memory to remember the numerous Latin words and their meanings.
- Computer Sciences. Of course, it will absolutely pay off after you finally get your diploma. Your task is simply to stay alive and sane spending the vast majority of your awake time studying.
- Health Professions. Nursing students confess that at least 80% of their classes are challenging. No time to relax. But at least we can feel safe. Medical students’ missed classes are too costly for their future patients.
- Mathematics. While a lot of students are looking for majors which do not require calculations, this one consists mainly of calculations which can make brains boil.
At the same time, the hardest college majors can be the first to pay off. So, weigh up all the pros and cons and make your choice. Or, have you already chosen?
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“Spending four years studying a language you’ve been speaking your entire life… is the laziest choice ever.” As an English major, I don’t take offense to this statement, but I disagree with it in its entirety. In the interest of dispelling this harmful stereotype, I’ll try to lay out a comprehensive defense of English majoring as best I can. Jack, I ask that you consider revising your original post in light of these insights.
First thing you ought to know about English is that it’s a far more multi-faceted degree than what your blog implies. Studying English isn’t just about honing one’s basic linguistic skills. Most English educations focus on literary analysis, or the break-down of culturally and/or intellectually significant works of literature such that new, valuable knowledge may be gleaned from these works and applied to real life. This process yields a multiplicity of invaluable products for the literary analyst; an enriched understanding of human nature and the surrounding world, an improved efficient reading and writing skills, and a sharpened argumentative prowess are just some of the endless potential products of a rigorous English education.
Endeavoring to devote one’s college education to these ends takes strength of altruistic character, especially given the anti-humanities stigma if today’s college-centric discourse. It takes cajones to major in English when seemingly everyone has jumped on the “liberal arts degrees are worthless” train. The mechanics of the degree itself, contrary to popular opinion, are also extraordinarily demanding. English is a degree that by definition centers around reading and writing. By the time they’ve graduated, students of a strong English education will probably have completed not only a bookshelf’s worth of reading material, but also a 40 – 70+ page portfolio of essays (and creative material for students emphasizing creative writing). English majors simply cannot slack off because they’re reading and writing all of the time. And both processes, when undergone properly, require extensive thought beyond the rudimentary act of absorbing or producing words on a page. There’s a reason not everyone “got” The Great Gatsby or To Kill a Mockingbird when they read such texts in high school – classic literature is f*cking hard to understand! Successful English majors don’t just put in the time to read and write the voluminous texts with which they interact. They put in extra hours to think critically about how they’re approaching the text in question. Even for the best English students, one five-page chapter in a Dostoyevsky novel can balloon into an hour-long rabbit hole of conspiracy theorizing if the chapter is nuanced, subtle, and/or self-contradictory enough. A ten-page paper can be similarly challenging if the paper itself covers a difficult subject. Hence, both a surface-level acknowledgment of the sheer volume of work done by English majors and a consideration of the surplus efforts necessary to accomplish this work refute the paradigm that English is an “easy” degree.
I hope that my thoughts have made sense thus far, and that any English majors, pre-majors, minors, or potential majors who feel attacked by the original post now have something to reassure them that their choice of major isn’t “lazy”. The same is true, I should point out, of nearly all of the degrees listed. I’m not qualified to defend an education degree, but I know that what makes a college degree a college degree is that it takes work, time commitment, and endurance. More importantly, whether you’re majoring in business or anthropology, your college education is what you make of it, both in terms of your material success and the deeper merits of an intellectually stimulating program. A sociology degree whose achievement brings the sociologist student a competitive GPA AND the joys of a worthwhile education is priceless compared to the average marks and lackluster personal development earned by a bored, unengaged business student.
Soapbox rant over. Thanks for anyone who made it all the way through. Jack, if you read my comment, by all means respond as you will… but please, for the love of Shakespeare, at least write something other than ‘majoring in English is the “laziest thing ever.”‘ Hasta luego.
“I don’t take offense to this statement” then creates a 7 page essay, jk.
Totally agree with the article. I’m currently in nursing major, and I have no time to relax, no time for self care, no time for family and friends, stress out, and burned out. Had to study really hard in pre-nursing to get straight As for prerequisites to get into a nursing program. Then in nursing program I have lots of work (assignment, exams, lab, clinical rotations for 20 hours a week, and so on and so on) non-stop. I was in business administration before I switch to nursing and I can feel the difference in workload between the two. Anyway, I guess every major can be difficult depending on the person.
Need to start a career in regards to my work experience and education as of right now
Can you be a double major for both computer science and engineering?
Yea but you can just take software engineering or computer engineering which will be similar
Sure, you can!
This article is crazy biased. No degree is easy by any means. It might be easier to get a passing grade in social science or English classes than it is in math or engineering. In math or engineering, you either know the answer, or you don’t. In social sciences, you can be partially correct, and still get passing grades. Regardless of the major, you have to put a shit load of hours into your classes to get an A. I’m doing a social sciences degree, and I can tell you it is hard, but it is also subjective. It’s hard for me because I work my ass off and I have never had any grade lower than an A-. A degree is as hard as you make it.
Same. My friend is on his 4th year of engineering and I’m on my 3rd of sociology with an economics minor, and I can say for sure it’s all about the person’s conviction. It’s as hard as you make it. My friend gets Bs and studies all night and I get As by studying all night. But graduating with a C average in engineering is more desirable than an A average in sociology to potential employers. Why? Because who enjoys learning formulas more than reading Marxism lol
You have an A because it’s easy
Come study nursing or medicine, then u will know ur social science is child’s play. Then u will work ur ass up, and d best u still get is ”C”.
I completely agree with you I’m doing a double major in psychology and criminal justice which will get me 2 master degrees once I graduate. And after that law school this college stuff isn’t easy by any means at all.
Ironically put “It might be easier to get a passing grade in social science or English classes than it is in math or engineering.” – thanks for the laugh.
I’m pretty sure Engineering isn’t about knowing the answers but the method to get to the answers, and then the process to get to the answer.
No one’s saying that because some degrees are harder than others, that those in the easier degrees don’t work their butt off and it isn’t hard work.
this comment is crazy biased. what you say goes without saying.. but some degrees are objectively (much) harder than others. I know facts hurt feelings but for the love of God, it’s ok.
Lol, the difficulty of a major is 100% an opinion and not a fact. You tried though.
Lol facts??? Just look at the courses needed for the degree, some majors are harder than others, not only in uni, but in grade school too.
Thank you for the feedback, Elias!
Calculations and number crunching start to disappear in advanced mathematics, enter proofs!
You kinda forgot about architecture. What you study and have to know might not be so hard to take, but we definitely the most hard-working, weeks of not sleeping to submit a project you’re not even finished. A lot of people drop out halfway through or need breaks. The physical and mental recovery takes a lot longer than the day or two you’re actually free in during each semester. They’re never enough.
I find it amusing that this writer declares an English major “easy” because one spends all the time studying a language you have spoken all your life. I have news for this writer. When he is given lines from a random Shakespeare play to identify by character, action, and significance, he may just change his message. Can this writer read Beowulf or the Canterbury staled in old English? I doubt this fool can read much if anything based on his persona and style of expression. He sounds like a true light-weight and not someone who has a worthy opinion about any of these fields.
I wonder how much demand there is for those skills. Probably zero because no one cares if you can identify a line from a book we all read in high school. And you describe the major likes it’s based on memorization and book reports. Sounds easier then anything STEM or medical related.
Thanks for the feedback, Kate!