Top 10 toughest courses at St Andrews

[LK Today]

One of my flatmates in 4th year did psychology and I have never seen anyone work so hard. Psych must be up there.

French is quite a lot of work too. Especially if you take litterature modules, where you have to read a book in a foreign language and take it to pieces every week. I only did one of these modules though. And never really did much work. This is not a question I should be answering.

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[Lid]

Would it not just be a fair assumption to make that if you're not naturally talented at a subject, anything is a tough course?

I take Physics, and struggle by, just about. There are people I know in Physics that just sit back and it seems to just make sense to them. This makes it inconclusive.

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[Colin]

Quoting Mehmsy from 10:14, 26th Jan 2007
I'd actually go so far as to say that Astronomy is harder than Physics; and possibly the hardest course here. The workload may not be as much as some other courses, but the level of understanding required is very high. Not to mention that exams are absolutely killer.

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I quite agree. Astronomers are by far the best graduates around as their degree is toughest and worth more.

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[mcg23]

arabic's got to be up there

[novium]

my point was that classics, as a discipline, involves both greek and latin, plus a bunch of other stuff.

Quoting Das Feuer liebt mich from 17:22, 26th Jan 2007
Hahahahahaha try Hebrew.....

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tamen ira procul absit, cum qua nihil recte fieri, nihil considerate potest.

[nighteyes]

Quoting LK Today from 18:03, 26th Jan 2007
One of my flatmates in 4th year did psychology and I have never seen anyone work so hard. Psych must be up there.

French is quite a lot of work too. Especially if you take litterature modules, where you have to read a book in a foreign language and take it to pieces every week. I only did one of these modules though. And never really did much work. This is not a question I should be answering.

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I do psych and I seem to be logging alot of hours for very little success. My mother says that I should have done history as I find it easy but I like the challenge of psych.

As to this question - I just wanted the boards to start moving again but I understand that difficulty is subjective. I know I would suck at an English degree given my lack of spelling and grammar.

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i didnt say i was consistant, just right!

[Pan]

I'm surprised there aren't more (any) modern language courses up there, as I know the modern language people work very hard and I wouldn't like to be learning something like Russian, that must be tough!



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[Gubbins]

Quoting Mehmsy from 10:14, 26th Jan 2007
I'd actually go so far as to say that Astronomy is harder than Physics; and possibly the hardest course here.

Oh, definitely. Absolutely no contest.

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Mind you, I've lived with a medic for three years, and although it's conceptually easier, they have to remember a hell of a lot more.

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...but then again, that is only my opinion.

[novium]

i think we should divide and define difficulty in three ways
a)conceptually difficult. I would put, oh, the quantum sort of physics and etc in this catagory. Although possibly the more linguistic aspects of language too- trying to understand really complicated grammar rules in a larger framework, for example.

b)work load. Courses that keep the student up to their neck in work. Medicine seems to definitely be an example here.
and c)
difficult to learn. I would say certain languages fall in this catagory, as do oh, some parts of history and etc. This can be massive amounts of memorization, or trying to internalize said information (like you would for a language) or wrapping your head around postmodern critical analysis techniques (i.e. the endless layers of thinking, like two mirrors facing each other, reflecting infinity).

So, i think the hardest course would be the one that hits all three.
Of course, natural talent may make things seem easy, but I think even in that case it would be possible to recognize the inherent difficulty of a subject.
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tamen ira procul absit, cum qua nihil recte fieri, nihil considerate potest.

[trouble]

Quoting nighteyes from 08:10, 26th Jan 2007

10.IR



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i didnt say i was consistant, just right!

come on! you can't be serious....

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[exnihilo]

Quoting nighteyes from 23:21, 26th Jan 2007
I know I would suck at an English degree given my lack of spelling and grammar.

Do you honestly think that a university degree course in English is about grammar and spelling? Perhaps if people had a greater understanding of what courses other than their own actually involved this thread would have more purpose? For example, I've lost count of how many times my degree has been derided by science students because "history is just remembering dates" - no, it bloody isn't.

[maenad]

Who created this list anyway? It strikes me as the kind of thing impossible to put into a list. Most people tell me Greek is easier than Latin. I'm still waiting for that to play out.

Not that it really matters anyway, as I don't think most people know what Classics actually is. Even other students. I have a friend doing Medicine at Oxford who remarked to a mutual friend that she didn't think I would have managed the Classics course there (not that I even applied to Oxford) because it was "very language based". Er ... what?

Maybe my entire uni career is doomed. I've come to see the response 'St Andrews? That's in Edinburgh, isn't it?' as a weird kind of success.

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[novium]

I agree about the history, but maybe they are saying they would not be good at writing essays, which would definitely be an obstacle to overcome for any of the humanities.

Quoting exnihilo from 12:28, 27th Jan 2007

Quoting nighteyes from 23:21, 26th Jan 2007
I know I would suck at an English degree given my lack of spelling and grammar.

Do you honestly think that a university degree course in English is about grammar and spelling? Perhaps if people had a greater understanding of what courses other than their own actually involved this thread would have more purpose? For example, I've lost count of how many times my degree has been derided by science students because "history is just remembering dates" - no, it bloody isn't.

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tamen ira procul absit, cum qua nihil recte fieri, nihil considerate potest.

[novium]

One person told me greek was easier than latin- my mother. For years and years. Then, when I was taking latin, the most brilliant, lingually-talented people I know would rave on and on about how fun and easy latin was, and how horribly hard greek was. How they struggled with it, etc.

They had me pretty freaked out.

I think the hardest thing in greek is that a)it seemingly takes a long time to get used to the different alphabet (I can't just look at it and read it like I could in latin)
and b)vocab is harder because there's no easy way to spot english derivations...or even false cognates (which do come in handy, in a weird way).

Quoting maenad from 12:37, 27th Jan 2007
Who created this list anyway? It strikes me as the kind of thing impossible to put into a list. Most people tell me Greek is easier than Latin. I'm still waiting for that to play out.

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Tommy can you hear me?

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tamen ira procul absit, cum qua nihil recte fieri, nihil considerate potest.

[nighteyes]

Of course I dont bloody think that spelling is the only thing involved in an English degree I am not a complete idiot. But seeing as I get such a great time on here about my lack of ability it seems that I have no concept of the English language.

Quoting exnihilo from 12:28, 27th Jan 2007

Quoting nighteyes from 23:21, 26th Jan 2007
I know I would suck at an English degree given my lack of spelling and grammar.

Do you honestly think that a university degree course in English is about grammar and spelling? Perhaps if people had a greater understanding of what courses other than their own actually involved this thread would have more purpose? For example, I've lost count of how many times my degree has been derided by science students because "history is just remembering dates" - no, it bloody isn't.

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i didnt say i was consistant, just right!

[exnihilo]

But that's the point, you see, there is no degree at St Andrews in the English language. Only in literature, spelling and grammar are largely (and tragically) deemed not to be important.

[theonlyone]

Quoting sat from 13:04, 26th Jan 2007

Quoting exnihilo from 12:53, 26th Jan 2007
Or this whole exercise could just be pointless, because nobody is in a position to judge more than a handful of courses except on the basis of their friends' whining about their workload. Different levels of intelligence and ability and different areas of expertise from one person to the next make the whole question moot.

I agree.

I'm actually quite interested in the whole business of assessment. What thoughts do others have? For example, should there be more or less continuous assessment, should exams be more or less standardised...?

There is quite a lot of emphasis (sometimes) on continuous assessment for some of my modules, and I often feel that this only serves to get in the way of the subject: it turns into an issue of getting marks rather than thinking about the different possibilities for answers. It also stifles discussion with the lecturers because lecturers can be reluctant to release answers.

(Off topic slightly. Sorry. I'd be interested to see some thoughts though.)

I think there are too many continous assesment questions, and they are often made a lot harder than the actual exam, not sure wheter this is on purpose or not, but no one looks at them other than the lecturer in question. And one does feel rather a lot of pressure to succeed in these areas, as at the time one doesn't really know that the exam isn't going to be as hard.

Also, I do find them to be quite interesting, and would like to know more about the situations we are required to solve. But as "sat" said the lecturers don't open up! And often we dont fully have our questions answered. Discussion with lecturers would be far more helpful, I believe. All in all, ditch marks for continous assesment!

And exams.....well after sitting one that hasn't changed over the past 4 years, at least,I think they should be looked at a little more carefully!! Not that Im complaining that it was the same, it gave me a very good chance, but when you spot these patterns, you just want to jump through the hoops, and forget about the other stuff in the course, I don't see much point in that to be honest. Although I can understand why they do make them the same, don't get me wrong I wouldn't want to have to set an exam paper.

This of course is in relation to Physics and Maths.

Which by the way, I think are probably two of the harder subjects, as it takes understanding, you can't get by, by simply memorising various names, or whatever. But I couldn't place it in any order. As I haven't completed every degree under the sun!! Bit of a pointless question, not to mention unfair.

[Mehmsy]

Quoting theonlyone from 10:29, 28th Jan 2007
This of course is in relation to Physics and Maths.

Which by the way, I think are probably two of the harder subjects, as it takes understanding, you can't get by, by simply memorising various names, or whatever. But I couldn't place it in any order. As I haven't completed every degree under the sun!! Bit of a pointless question, not to mention unfair.

This is very true. Walking into a physics exam requires not only knowing formulae and the theory behind them, but also to take an extra step of understanding in each question.

It's as if they give you a toolbox but only teach you how to use the tools individually--it's up to you to put all that together in the exam.

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[exnihilo]

Personally I despise modules and continuous assessment, both as a student and as a tutor. The creation of discrete packets of learning which is supposed to allow people from different disciplines to dip into areas outside their core has led to a system of ten teaching weeks, exam, forget, repeat. It's contrary to the purpose of education and it achieves nothing.

[flarewearer]

Most people take a single honours degree, and a few will take joint honours. How is anyone one person in a position to judge a top 10? It's certainly not by any sort of objective analysis based on their own experiences. There's been some stupid sinner threads but this really is up there.

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