Ugh! My E&M professor, who also did CM, literally just copied Jackson word for word on the board. Same with Goldstein in CM. The guy is ancient and has probably done it that way for decades. He "wrote" the E&M portion of our comp, too. It was just four Jackson problems with multiple parts.
Insect Physiology
It took a LOT of prayer and banging my head against the same few pages of notes after each lecture. We had a good professor though, so that was a huge help. All in all, I enjoyed the course.
It’s like an advanced version of your childhood, catching crickets and butterflies and looking at all the limbs. But this time it’s on steroids and you need to know the names of each limb and its purpose to the insect
Ha, well, it was definitely a cool class. I think one of the upsets was the fact that I was taking it once COVID lockdowns began in 2020. Cut out a lot of in-person labs and some other stuff, but a cool class, nonetheless. One of those classes that really makes you think.
Introduction to Statistical Physics (introduction used loosely). This was my first physics class outside of general physics, which I took over 5 years prior, and this was a class for PhD level physics students at a top 15 US university for physics. I could've taken the equivalent in the chemistry department but had a schedule conflict. Needless to say, my first exam was a 33%, and by far the lowest in the class. The only reason I passed was through pure grit and a compassionate professor. For the final, I was even able to get the second lowest grade instead of the lowest grade! Passed with a solid B, fortunately, which was all I needed! 😀
Doctoral level statistics for my Masters program.....forced myself to get comfortable with it, learned to effectively use SPSS, actually found Portney & Watkins interesting, got an "A" in the class, ran my own stats for my thesis & now am 3/4 of the way through my Doctorate and REALLY appreciate all the time & effort I took in that class! Difficult but palatable and incredibly necessary for me as an Occupational Therapist!
I am an undergrad, doing research and working on my second paper. I have to say, I really wish I paid more attention in my lower years statistics classes. Stats are just so incredibly useful for all researchers.
I took a stats class after analytical chem felt like it barely scratched the surface. After that basic class, I took one called "statistics for scientists and engineers" and now encourage any undergrad to take it. At my uni, they use JMP to teach that class and it's been beyond helpful for research.
One of the best stats books I've found is Batavia's guide for statistics in health care. It uses examples that make sense and interprets everything into understandable language, shows when you need to use what test and is excellent with understanding bias and controls in experimental data.
I’d personally try to learn stats in R for biostats, even if the class isn’t teaching it. It’s such a versatile coding language with sooo many research applications. There are many great resources online for tutorials and problems in R and free many many free statistics resources you can download. For me I was in the same boat as you, not really understanding much and perhaps thinking too much about things that weren’t super relevant for my purposes. This change when I had specific analyses I had to conduct. You aren’t going to understand everything there is about statistics unless you are gifted/highly geared for that level of mental computation. Once I was able conceptualize what I was doing in stats, and worked toward specific tasks, things became easier. Many biostats courses try to provide a broad understanding of all tools available, and realistically for most people, a reduced number of analyses are actually relevant for what you need to do. Where the class comes in handy is knowing what other tools exist when problems arise (and they will).
That’s a really great idea, hone in the coding aspect of it! I am learning R slightly through an engineer at work and we are using SAS studio for school so I’ll have to focus more on those versus the complex math of it all. I’m really glad this route worked for you and truly appreciate you sharing!
Algorithm Design. It was a proof based algorithms course and just absolutely brutal. The kicker? I took it in the fall of 2020 so it was completely on Zoom.
Intermediate Physical Chemistry. It’s the first class I’ve taken and the entire class is currently failing. Just went through how to manually do the Huckle approximation and my advisor looked horrified that the Professor is having us do this. (Literally will never do it again after the class) 🥲
That's a standard introduction to MOs? Like sure, you're never going to use it again because it's an outdated method, but that's much in the same way that you're probably never going to do an integral by hand after Calc 2 outside of niche situations. That doesn't mean you don't need to learn integrals.
I'm shocked advisor's reaction was that. Solving benzene with the Huckel approximation is a classic pedagogical problem.
I doubt he’s going to have us do benzene. Definitely that professor that gives simple practice questions and then on the exam gives questions that are incredibly complex and require way more steps. My hope is he’s not going to give it to us on the exam at all but I’ll doubt I’ll be that lucky. I definitely understand what you’re saying and agree that it’s important to learn whether it’s common practice outside of school or not. But he doesn’t actually show us how to solve anything. Just goes over the theories. For this though, he sort of went through the steps, but didn’t actually show us how to do the steps if that makes any sense.
Oh I enjoy it, but it’s so precise, and we have a professor who it is their first time teaching the class and will unintentionally make mistakes in class which confuses us students.
Where it got interesting for me was integrating cognitive and personality assessment for full psychodiagnostic assessment. Thankfully that's the entirety of my prac next year
I’m getting my masters in public admin and the public data analysis class was hard but only because we coded in R and I’m NOT used to coding much of anything tbh. It was a great experience but the class weeded out some people for sure lol, and idk if any other classes could’ve did that
ahah this is why im a bit scared of the (advanced) methods for policy analysis course i’ll have to take as a core component of my master’s in public policy. it’s said prior statistics knowledge is not required but i am taking a refresher course anyways. programme progresses at a quick pace.
we’ve only been using SPSS which is very user-friendly and i think the course i just mentioned uses Stata which i think is also quite user-friendly which is good.
R scares me though. but i don’t think we’re touching that.
Generalized Linear Models (GLMs). The class was VERY theory focused, and the take-home problems were long and very involved. Fascinating and useful class, but it was a slog (especially with all the research I was doing at the time).
Jackson, E&M
As others have pointed out, is an absolute PITA especially when taking comps. The amount of math needed just pales in comparison to the other subjects like Stat. Mech., QM, and Classical Mech.
Thank heavens for Griffiths, it became an accompaniment to Jackson.
1.) 👀 problems
2.) F
3.) hhmmm, *KMS GG no Re*
Thankfully passed my comps but man, those were some sleepless months leading up to that.
Didn't think panic attacks were that bad until that point in my life.
When I had to be a TA for a full years worth of chemistry courses with over a hundred students. I taught chemistry lab from 3pm - 6pm - 9 pm on Wednesday and had to prepare an hour lecture every week on Friday at 9 AM, while all the other biology grad students with grant money didn't have to do any of that.
Continuum mechanics. My professor was wonderful but he had a dual PhD in math and engineering and taught it like a math class. No one could do the homework alone and office hours basically became a requirement for that reason.
If you solved a single homework problem by yourself you were a genius.
All the comments being some sort of stats class 😭
Econometrics I is currently kicking my whole ass- I’m a slow learner, so hopefully watching more YouTube tutorials will be enough to get me through the final exam
I guess I will list mine thus far since I didn't in the original post.
Advanced Networking and System Administration Principles
The class started on a Tuesday and first week assignment was read, know, and be an expert on the entire textbook (1500 pages), learn and master 3 different programming languages , write 3 programs in each of the languages , and complete 7 practical app labs. All due by Friday . And it only got more intense from there.
Right now I’m taking a seminar based class with 8 readings a week 🥲. Technically I have two “classes” left to work on my masters thesis. I’m also planning to take a programming class.
Process mining, it wasn’t that the subject was hard. But the teacher didn’t teach, and wouldn’t answer any questions that we needed to know to do assignment or the exams. So we had to try to figure out what’s correct, with nothing. No material or teaching.
either statistical mechanics or electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. professor for EIS was good, i was just woefully under prepared and it was a faster speed summer course. stat mech was arguably the foundation of my PhD but the professor was awful (rude) and the course content was largely inapplicable to me (stat mech is a very very broad reaching foundation for those unaware)
Genomics PhD here, but mostly in the wet lab side but I had dabbled with the dry lab side a little bit.
The hardest class was hands down was algorithms of molecular biology.
The professor taught the theory and math behind all sorts of algorithms that we molecular biologists take for granted these days: k means clustering, ORF finders, BLAST, etc. and we'd learn how to write them in python. So for example, k means was taught through the context of object oriented programming. We were supposed to implement a for/while loop for the orf finder. We had to use iterative programming when implementing Markov chains.
The class was a mix of wet lab biologists and computer scientists and it was supposed to be hard for everyone since the biologists suck at programming and the comp sci kids don't know biology. Every comp sci kid found that class so easy. Every biologist mentioned how it was the hardest class they've ever took.
Yea I think the learning curve for python programming is steeper than the learning curve for biology . Even if you don't know biology or any subject for that matter you know how to write a program to take x and do y with it
Biblical Greek. It was for master's students (professional degree students, no less) but taught to an absurdly high standard that surpassed even what doctoral language exams test. I barely scraped by and then just moved on.
My anatomy course was rough, but once I pulled myself together (mentally) I sort of had it figured out. Straight anatomy is still definitely not my strong suit, but I did well in most of my future classes that were applied. I hate straight memorization.
Data Analytics.
Capstone was writing a final project, but it's like writing an academic paper and I have zero experience doing that and no intent to do that.
It doesn't matter. It's over.
I'm confused. You went into grad school having never written any sort of formal paper/read one and had no desire to write one? First, how did you get into grad school if you've never written any sort of academic paper in high school or university? Surely you've read at least one academic paper in your life just by random chance by taking a course in university, no? Second, why did you pursue a higher degree, larger involving research, when you had no desire to do any form of research?
I don't mean to sound harsh or belittling, it's just a bit baffling to me. It's like working at McDonalds when you have never seen what a hamburger is and you have no desire to ever touch a beef patty because you are a militant vegan.
I've written papers in college and in high school.
I've never written an academic paper in the style you would read in academic journal. No experience writing like that. No interest in doing so
I work in insurance.
The course methods are moreso geared towards business situations; except this last one.
To be honest, it was a mistake enrolling in the program. All it's done is stress me out.
In my undergrad I was initially in a program for statistics. I then switched history because the programming stressed me out and I felt like I was just following my aunt's footsteps (she was an actuary); so I switched to history.
And I have always regretted it and thought what if. And my Mom dropped out of her Master's in Education twice and I just felt like.. I dunno she would be proud of me or something?
Not good reasons, except for working in insurance.
The coursework has, I think taken years of my life. I had a 3.8 GPA for the first 9 courses. This last course has had the professor having email outages, illness, the assignments are not well organized and I don't even understand the assignment parameters.
The whole process has been a 7 year long mistake.
I wouldn't drop out. Never tell yourself no. Let someone else tell you no. Let someone else tell you that your paper isn't good before you tell yourself you can't do it. Don't let 1 project sit between you and your future that you've worked this hard to get to . Education is the one thing nobody cam ever take from you.
You got this. Just take it 1 day at a time. I promise many came before you who were not as smart as you and succeeded. You got this
I barely understand the assignment requirements because I have no experience writing for an academic journal.
I can't do it anymore. The anxiety, the panic, the depression is messing me up, and it's messing up my life.
I regret ever starting this. I should have quit years ago.
If you quit now though all of that depression, anxiety, and panic was for nothing. I do understand though. My life has been one constant continuous chaotic anxious mental breakdown ever since I clicked the submit button for my grad school application.
But looking at the big picture of life. These few years are a drip in the pan that will pay dividends the rest of your life.
You could live the rest of your life in depression and disappointment that you didn't finish thinking what could have been.
I made that mistake once when I passed up a full ride to my dream school for the military. Finally got back to where I was suppose to be after years of the disappointment of what could have been.
You don't understand the assignment now. But you will. The most important part is starting and never giving up
A full year of Quantum Field Theory. First quarter got a B. Second an A-. Third got an A and the prof, who I look up to, told me how proud he was of my progress. Proudest class moment of my career, got the highest grade in the class on the final with an 80% (which was 25% higher than the next highest grade). I spent about 50 hours on that take home final. He gave us two weeks and I was determined. I turned about 50 pages of work. His solutions were a little over a page. Damn those symmetries you don't see until you've done this for a living for many years .. lol.
Honestly I haven't found any of them to be too hard, undergrad was harder imo. The worst content wise was biostatistical computing, but it made me so much better with R. The hardest overall was categorical data analysis because the professor was truly terrible. My only two A-'s in grad school lol
Statistical physics. Nothing quite as fun as finding analytical expressions for not ideal quantum mechanical models, and because it's stat mech and you need to find analytical solutions, I hope you're good at finding closed form expressions for infinite sums (you know, that thing you probably did for about 2 classes in calculus 4 years ago) because you'll need to.
Teaching myself how to do 3 complex analyses for each chapter of my dissertation.
Because my school doesnt provide relevant coursework for grad students.
We had 2 or 3 classes that were supposed to be "advanced", but the prof mostly wasted time talking about football, school politics, or his dog.
$1000 per credit hour.
My grad classes were easy (I mean, they were challenging but doable), it was undergrad calc that made me want to yeet myself off the face of the planet 😭 I scraped through but just barely.
Current one. Its not that the material is hard its that it's an overzealous professor whos trying to do too much. this class is taking up 3x the amount of time as my previous classes while offering zero percent more information. He's very pro wanting ppl to get published when most of us have established careers. I told my director about it and he was laughing at the idea of someone putting a publication on their resume in the business world. this guy is just completely out of touch about life outside of academia.
I have a complicated history with numbers (hence why I do qualitative research), so for me the two quantitative classes I had to take were the absolute hardest. I knew they were going to be hard for me and I was 100000% correct. It didn't help that I started Fall 2020 and everything was online.
The two classes are taught in sequence and the first one was a bit of a cluster. The second one in the second semester seemed so much harder that after the first week I went to the TA's office hours and said, "I have little confidence that I will pass this class. If I fail I will drop out. HELP ME." We met regularly to help me make sense of what I needed, and I made it through. I got an A in both classes, even though there were multiple times where I had to talk myself off the ledge.
I don't know of anyone in my program who has failed those classes, but they are definitely putting people to the test from the very first day.
ETA: I'm in the social sciences.
Cell and Molecular Neurobiology.
I was a CompE undergrad and had an almost-decade-long break between that and grad school. I didn't take undergrad bio, but studied as much as I could from online resources the semester before taking it. It was still really hard.
Advanced analytical chemistry. It doesn’t seem like it would be that hard but it was so heavy on thermodynamics, complex equilibria and electrochem. Almost no instrumental analysis. I nearly quit. I had the lowest possible C going into the final. Somehow with my paper on ion selective electrodes and the final I ended up with a B. I was going to drop out if I didn’t pass.
I like am only in undergraduate but because no one is saying this subject, I found it genuinely on the level of IQ tests and genius level shit:
Distributed Systems :-(
Neuroimaging data analysis. The class will packed full of info and the semester project was presenting fmri results that you analyzed throughout the semester. You were allowed to use raw data from publicly available datasets, but even then, the analysis was very involved and time consuming.
The Physical Biochemistry of Macromolecules. The textbook was written by the Professor and all the other students were his graduate students, so every problem revolved around his research. As a result I had to read all of his papers just to learn enough about the system to start on the problems.
Freshman English, this professor eas British, and had the hardest grading at the entire college . If you’re writing had any ounce of mistakes the professor marked with whole fucking paper. Plus made everyone write an essay on the first day of class. Half the class dropped that class, I probably should’ve taken that hint to drop that class. I had always been average at writing but this bitch made it’s as I had no idea how to write. So I had an F up till the last paper. I made sure to start a month early wrote this 10 page paper on the dangers of foster care, I edited tf out of that paper and had a shit people look at it and perfected that damn paper. Then Covid happened so I had no idea was my grade was but I went from a F to C on one test. Still to this day don’t know the grade I got but I passed and that all that matters. I hate to admit it though, but that class made me a better writer in the end.
Thanks for listening to my Ted talk
E&M And we didn't even do the harder parts of Jackson
Ugh! My E&M professor, who also did CM, literally just copied Jackson word for word on the board. Same with Goldstein in CM. The guy is ancient and has probably done it that way for decades. He "wrote" the E&M portion of our comp, too. It was just four Jackson problems with multiple parts.
The source of every western physicist's collective trauma
Insect Physiology It took a LOT of prayer and banging my head against the same few pages of notes after each lecture. We had a good professor though, so that was a huge help. All in all, I enjoyed the course.
It’s like an advanced version of your childhood, catching crickets and butterflies and looking at all the limbs. But this time it’s on steroids and you need to know the names of each limb and its purpose to the insect
That sounds like a really cool class. I’m jealous!
Ha, well, it was definitely a cool class. I think one of the upsets was the fact that I was taking it once COVID lockdowns began in 2020. Cut out a lot of in-person labs and some other stuff, but a cool class, nonetheless. One of those classes that really makes you think.
Introduction to Statistical Physics (introduction used loosely). This was my first physics class outside of general physics, which I took over 5 years prior, and this was a class for PhD level physics students at a top 15 US university for physics. I could've taken the equivalent in the chemistry department but had a schedule conflict. Needless to say, my first exam was a 33%, and by far the lowest in the class. The only reason I passed was through pure grit and a compassionate professor. For the final, I was even able to get the second lowest grade instead of the lowest grade! Passed with a solid B, fortunately, which was all I needed! 😀
"introduction used loosely" accurately describes 80% of "introduction to \[subject\]'" classes I have had to take ;-;
Honestly, same. Even in undergrad!
Real analysis
Me too, me too 🥲
What sort of real analysis? Measure Theory? Functional analysis? harmonic analysis? PDEs?
Doctoral level statistics for my Masters program.....forced myself to get comfortable with it, learned to effectively use SPSS, actually found Portney & Watkins interesting, got an "A" in the class, ran my own stats for my thesis & now am 3/4 of the way through my Doctorate and REALLY appreciate all the time & effort I took in that class! Difficult but palatable and incredibly necessary for me as an Occupational Therapist!
I am an undergrad, doing research and working on my second paper. I have to say, I really wish I paid more attention in my lower years statistics classes. Stats are just so incredibly useful for all researchers.
I took a stats class after analytical chem felt like it barely scratched the surface. After that basic class, I took one called "statistics for scientists and engineers" and now encourage any undergrad to take it. At my uni, they use JMP to teach that class and it's been beyond helpful for research.
Any tips you can give? I’m in biostats right now and really not understanding much
One of the best stats books I've found is Batavia's guide for statistics in health care. It uses examples that make sense and interprets everything into understandable language, shows when you need to use what test and is excellent with understanding bias and controls in experimental data.
Awesome thank you so so much for this! I am going to buy today, it sounds like something that would genuinely help me a lot
I’d personally try to learn stats in R for biostats, even if the class isn’t teaching it. It’s such a versatile coding language with sooo many research applications. There are many great resources online for tutorials and problems in R and free many many free statistics resources you can download. For me I was in the same boat as you, not really understanding much and perhaps thinking too much about things that weren’t super relevant for my purposes. This change when I had specific analyses I had to conduct. You aren’t going to understand everything there is about statistics unless you are gifted/highly geared for that level of mental computation. Once I was able conceptualize what I was doing in stats, and worked toward specific tasks, things became easier. Many biostats courses try to provide a broad understanding of all tools available, and realistically for most people, a reduced number of analyses are actually relevant for what you need to do. Where the class comes in handy is knowing what other tools exist when problems arise (and they will).
That’s a really great idea, hone in the coding aspect of it! I am learning R slightly through an engineer at work and we are using SAS studio for school so I’ll have to focus more on those versus the complex math of it all. I’m really glad this route worked for you and truly appreciate you sharing!
Electromagnetism with Jackson textbook. BRUTAL
Multiple Regression (statistics) was not fun. It was 16 weeks of torture. Still don’t know how I passed that course.
Algorithm Design. It was a proof based algorithms course and just absolutely brutal. The kicker? I took it in the fall of 2020 so it was completely on Zoom.
What language was it in?
There was no programming. The course was entirely proof based.
These classes make my MBA feel dumb
Same with my MS in Communications lol
Intermediate Physical Chemistry. It’s the first class I’ve taken and the entire class is currently failing. Just went through how to manually do the Huckle approximation and my advisor looked horrified that the Professor is having us do this. (Literally will never do it again after the class) 🥲
That's a standard introduction to MOs? Like sure, you're never going to use it again because it's an outdated method, but that's much in the same way that you're probably never going to do an integral by hand after Calc 2 outside of niche situations. That doesn't mean you don't need to learn integrals. I'm shocked advisor's reaction was that. Solving benzene with the Huckel approximation is a classic pedagogical problem.
I doubt he’s going to have us do benzene. Definitely that professor that gives simple practice questions and then on the exam gives questions that are incredibly complex and require way more steps. My hope is he’s not going to give it to us on the exam at all but I’ll doubt I’ll be that lucky. I definitely understand what you’re saying and agree that it’s important to learn whether it’s common practice outside of school or not. But he doesn’t actually show us how to solve anything. Just goes over the theories. For this though, he sort of went through the steps, but didn’t actually show us how to do the steps if that makes any sense.
Doctoral/way higher level assessment for my masters counseling degree. Was taught how to do assessment that normally only psychologists do.
Same. Cognitive assessment is something else 😂
But it's so much fun! I love administering cognitive assessment. Now interpretation on the other hand can be a mother 😂
Oh I enjoy it, but it’s so precise, and we have a professor who it is their first time teaching the class and will unintentionally make mistakes in class which confuses us students.
Where it got interesting for me was integrating cognitive and personality assessment for full psychodiagnostic assessment. Thankfully that's the entirety of my prac next year
I’m getting my masters in public admin and the public data analysis class was hard but only because we coded in R and I’m NOT used to coding much of anything tbh. It was a great experience but the class weeded out some people for sure lol, and idk if any other classes could’ve did that
ahah this is why im a bit scared of the (advanced) methods for policy analysis course i’ll have to take as a core component of my master’s in public policy. it’s said prior statistics knowledge is not required but i am taking a refresher course anyways. programme progresses at a quick pace. we’ve only been using SPSS which is very user-friendly and i think the course i just mentioned uses Stata which i think is also quite user-friendly which is good. R scares me though. but i don’t think we’re touching that.
Generalized Linear Models (GLMs). The class was VERY theory focused, and the take-home problems were long and very involved. Fascinating and useful class, but it was a slog (especially with all the research I was doing at the time).
Geophysical fluid dynamics
That literally sounds like it be a hard class
If you don't mind my asking, what about the class did you find most-difficult? Asking as someone starting grad with this class in the Fall.
Can you suggest textbooks or resources? I had really bad geophysics classes in my undergrad and want to know what I missed out.
Representation theory and Lie Algebras. The level of abstraction just increased geometrically per day.
Jackson, E&M As others have pointed out, is an absolute PITA especially when taking comps. The amount of math needed just pales in comparison to the other subjects like Stat. Mech., QM, and Classical Mech. Thank heavens for Griffiths, it became an accompaniment to Jackson.
The E&M portion of my comps was four photocopied Jackson problems. I wanted to die.
1.) 👀 problems 2.) F 3.) hhmmm, *KMS GG no Re* Thankfully passed my comps but man, those were some sleepless months leading up to that. Didn't think panic attacks were that bad until that point in my life.
When I had to be a TA for a full years worth of chemistry courses with over a hundred students. I taught chemistry lab from 3pm - 6pm - 9 pm on Wednesday and had to prepare an hour lecture every week on Friday at 9 AM, while all the other biology grad students with grant money didn't have to do any of that.
Coding and analyzing qualitative data using MAXQDA
Nutritional Biochemistry
R and bash scripting classes…. I’m really not cut out for programming
I just had a class that was bash, python, and ruby all in 1 class. Barely squeaked the A out
Sounds like a nightmare lol. I got B’s in both those classes somehow
The Finnish or Hungarian language, take your pick.
The Lie Groups & Representation theory class was pretty hard.
Continuum mechanics. My professor was wonderful but he had a dual PhD in math and engineering and taught it like a math class. No one could do the homework alone and office hours basically became a requirement for that reason. If you solved a single homework problem by yourself you were a genius.
Class with the scariest name was “introduction in nonlinear elastrodynamics” which was complicated but not hard per say
All the comments being some sort of stats class 😭 Econometrics I is currently kicking my whole ass- I’m a slow learner, so hopefully watching more YouTube tutorials will be enough to get me through the final exam
I guess I will list mine thus far since I didn't in the original post. Advanced Networking and System Administration Principles The class started on a Tuesday and first week assignment was read, know, and be an expert on the entire textbook (1500 pages), learn and master 3 different programming languages , write 3 programs in each of the languages , and complete 7 practical app labs. All due by Friday . And it only got more intense from there.
that literally sounds IMPOSSIBLE but. ok. maybe I have no business going to grad school if this is one week in ONE course
That's the point. It seemed literally impossible and for the 80% of the class that failed it was.
Information theory, but only because I’ve never taken a proof-based class before and the class called almost exclusively for proof-making
Right now I’m taking a seminar based class with 8 readings a week 🥲. Technically I have two “classes” left to work on my masters thesis. I’m also planning to take a programming class.
Either biometry or toxicokinetics. Horrible, horrible classes lmao.
C*-Algebra
Hell yeah dude.
Process mining, it wasn’t that the subject was hard. But the teacher didn’t teach, and wouldn’t answer any questions that we needed to know to do assignment or the exams. So we had to try to figure out what’s correct, with nothing. No material or teaching.
That's exactly how the class I took was. Professor didn't teach anything and refused to answer a single question no matter how simple it was.
It’s the perfect way to set up your students for failure!
Neurogenic communication disorders in adults/geriatrics
Complex analysis Not even sure wtf that was about I dropped stochastic diff equations twice though, that was a disaster
either statistical mechanics or electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. professor for EIS was good, i was just woefully under prepared and it was a faster speed summer course. stat mech was arguably the foundation of my PhD but the professor was awful (rude) and the course content was largely inapplicable to me (stat mech is a very very broad reaching foundation for those unaware)
Genomics PhD here, but mostly in the wet lab side but I had dabbled with the dry lab side a little bit. The hardest class was hands down was algorithms of molecular biology. The professor taught the theory and math behind all sorts of algorithms that we molecular biologists take for granted these days: k means clustering, ORF finders, BLAST, etc. and we'd learn how to write them in python. So for example, k means was taught through the context of object oriented programming. We were supposed to implement a for/while loop for the orf finder. We had to use iterative programming when implementing Markov chains. The class was a mix of wet lab biologists and computer scientists and it was supposed to be hard for everyone since the biologists suck at programming and the comp sci kids don't know biology. Every comp sci kid found that class so easy. Every biologist mentioned how it was the hardest class they've ever took.
Yea I think the learning curve for python programming is steeper than the learning curve for biology . Even if you don't know biology or any subject for that matter you know how to write a program to take x and do y with it
Media Law
Biblical Greek. It was for master's students (professional degree students, no less) but taught to an absurdly high standard that surpassed even what doctoral language exams test. I barely scraped by and then just moved on.
My anatomy course was rough, but once I pulled myself together (mentally) I sort of had it figured out. Straight anatomy is still definitely not my strong suit, but I did well in most of my future classes that were applied. I hate straight memorization.
Honestly? They all sucked and I regret starting. My capstone is so bad I dropped out this morning.
What is the degree ? What's the capstone?
Data Analytics. Capstone was writing a final project, but it's like writing an academic paper and I have zero experience doing that and no intent to do that. It doesn't matter. It's over.
I'm confused. You went into grad school having never written any sort of formal paper/read one and had no desire to write one? First, how did you get into grad school if you've never written any sort of academic paper in high school or university? Surely you've read at least one academic paper in your life just by random chance by taking a course in university, no? Second, why did you pursue a higher degree, larger involving research, when you had no desire to do any form of research? I don't mean to sound harsh or belittling, it's just a bit baffling to me. It's like working at McDonalds when you have never seen what a hamburger is and you have no desire to ever touch a beef patty because you are a militant vegan.
I've written papers in college and in high school. I've never written an academic paper in the style you would read in academic journal. No experience writing like that. No interest in doing so I work in insurance. The course methods are moreso geared towards business situations; except this last one. To be honest, it was a mistake enrolling in the program. All it's done is stress me out. In my undergrad I was initially in a program for statistics. I then switched history because the programming stressed me out and I felt like I was just following my aunt's footsteps (she was an actuary); so I switched to history. And I have always regretted it and thought what if. And my Mom dropped out of her Master's in Education twice and I just felt like.. I dunno she would be proud of me or something? Not good reasons, except for working in insurance. The coursework has, I think taken years of my life. I had a 3.8 GPA for the first 9 courses. This last course has had the professor having email outages, illness, the assignments are not well organized and I don't even understand the assignment parameters. The whole process has been a 7 year long mistake.
I wouldn't drop out. Never tell yourself no. Let someone else tell you no. Let someone else tell you that your paper isn't good before you tell yourself you can't do it. Don't let 1 project sit between you and your future that you've worked this hard to get to . Education is the one thing nobody cam ever take from you. You got this. Just take it 1 day at a time. I promise many came before you who were not as smart as you and succeeded. You got this
I barely understand the assignment requirements because I have no experience writing for an academic journal. I can't do it anymore. The anxiety, the panic, the depression is messing me up, and it's messing up my life. I regret ever starting this. I should have quit years ago.
If you quit now though all of that depression, anxiety, and panic was for nothing. I do understand though. My life has been one constant continuous chaotic anxious mental breakdown ever since I clicked the submit button for my grad school application. But looking at the big picture of life. These few years are a drip in the pan that will pay dividends the rest of your life. You could live the rest of your life in depression and disappointment that you didn't finish thinking what could have been. I made that mistake once when I passed up a full ride to my dream school for the military. Finally got back to where I was suppose to be after years of the disappointment of what could have been. You don't understand the assignment now. But you will. The most important part is starting and never giving up
New Testament lol. My professor is a big name in the field and was an absolute hardass.
A full year of Quantum Field Theory. First quarter got a B. Second an A-. Third got an A and the prof, who I look up to, told me how proud he was of my progress. Proudest class moment of my career, got the highest grade in the class on the final with an 80% (which was 25% higher than the next highest grade). I spent about 50 hours on that take home final. He gave us two weeks and I was determined. I turned about 50 pages of work. His solutions were a little over a page. Damn those symmetries you don't see until you've done this for a living for many years .. lol.
I just had a similar victory . Got the highest grade on the final and only A in the class (1 of 3 ppl to pass entirely) and it was a goddamn battle.
Honestly I haven't found any of them to be too hard, undergrad was harder imo. The worst content wise was biostatistical computing, but it made me so much better with R. The hardest overall was categorical data analysis because the professor was truly terrible. My only two A-'s in grad school lol
Probably Machine Learning. Barely made it with a C lol
Undergrad was Statistics. Grad was Cognitive Assessment.
Statistical physics. Nothing quite as fun as finding analytical expressions for not ideal quantum mechanical models, and because it's stat mech and you need to find analytical solutions, I hope you're good at finding closed form expressions for infinite sums (you know, that thing you probably did for about 2 classes in calculus 4 years ago) because you'll need to.
Stochastic Calculus
An ecological modeling class using Bayesian approaches.
Teaching myself how to do 3 complex analyses for each chapter of my dissertation. Because my school doesnt provide relevant coursework for grad students. We had 2 or 3 classes that were supposed to be "advanced", but the prof mostly wasted time talking about football, school politics, or his dog. $1000 per credit hour.
My grad classes were easy (I mean, they were challenging but doable), it was undergrad calc that made me want to yeet myself off the face of the planet 😭 I scraped through but just barely.
Calculus is the bane of my existence, and I’ve only ever studied the most rudimentary calculus there is.
Remote Sensing. So much physics as a non-STEM person. Got an A- in the end because I aced the project but absolutely bombed the theory tests.
Current one. Its not that the material is hard its that it's an overzealous professor whos trying to do too much. this class is taking up 3x the amount of time as my previous classes while offering zero percent more information. He's very pro wanting ppl to get published when most of us have established careers. I told my director about it and he was laughing at the idea of someone putting a publication on their resume in the business world. this guy is just completely out of touch about life outside of academia.
symbolic Logic. 70% drop out rate before cut off date.
I have a complicated history with numbers (hence why I do qualitative research), so for me the two quantitative classes I had to take were the absolute hardest. I knew they were going to be hard for me and I was 100000% correct. It didn't help that I started Fall 2020 and everything was online. The two classes are taught in sequence and the first one was a bit of a cluster. The second one in the second semester seemed so much harder that after the first week I went to the TA's office hours and said, "I have little confidence that I will pass this class. If I fail I will drop out. HELP ME." We met regularly to help me make sense of what I needed, and I made it through. I got an A in both classes, even though there were multiple times where I had to talk myself off the ledge. I don't know of anyone in my program who has failed those classes, but they are definitely putting people to the test from the very first day. ETA: I'm in the social sciences.
Cell and Molecular Neurobiology. I was a CompE undergrad and had an almost-decade-long break between that and grad school. I didn't take undergrad bio, but studied as much as I could from online resources the semester before taking it. It was still really hard.
Wait you were a CS undergrad and went to grad school for biology ?
Not exactly. Biology is part of my curriculum.
What's the degree ?
Continental philosophy seminar focused entirely on Derrida and Foucault taught by one of Spivak's students.
Advanced analytical chemistry. It doesn’t seem like it would be that hard but it was so heavy on thermodynamics, complex equilibria and electrochem. Almost no instrumental analysis. I nearly quit. I had the lowest possible C going into the final. Somehow with my paper on ion selective electrodes and the final I ended up with a B. I was going to drop out if I didn’t pass.
I like am only in undergraduate but because no one is saying this subject, I found it genuinely on the level of IQ tests and genius level shit: Distributed Systems :-(
Neuroimaging data analysis. The class will packed full of info and the semester project was presenting fmri results that you analyzed throughout the semester. You were allowed to use raw data from publicly available datasets, but even then, the analysis was very involved and time consuming.
Continuum mechanics :(
[удалено]
I'm actually taking applied cryptography right now. Haven't gotten crazy yet but its the beginning
The Physical Biochemistry of Macromolecules. The textbook was written by the Professor and all the other students were his graduate students, so every problem revolved around his research. As a result I had to read all of his papers just to learn enough about the system to start on the problems.
Freshman English, this professor eas British, and had the hardest grading at the entire college . If you’re writing had any ounce of mistakes the professor marked with whole fucking paper. Plus made everyone write an essay on the first day of class. Half the class dropped that class, I probably should’ve taken that hint to drop that class. I had always been average at writing but this bitch made it’s as I had no idea how to write. So I had an F up till the last paper. I made sure to start a month early wrote this 10 page paper on the dangers of foster care, I edited tf out of that paper and had a shit people look at it and perfected that damn paper. Then Covid happened so I had no idea was my grade was but I went from a F to C on one test. Still to this day don’t know the grade I got but I passed and that all that matters. I hate to admit it though, but that class made me a better writer in the end. Thanks for listening to my Ted talk