Your Hardest Undergraduate Course

[retro10x]

So I'm curious which course(s) PF found the most difficult during undergrad, whether it's a math course, physics, engineering or art history!

Difficulty is subjective as well as it's definition. It doesn't matter if it was your lowest grade or what you spent the most hours studying for, or some other ranking system entirely. Make sure you explain!

Why was it the hardest course for you?

What advice do you give to similar students taking the course?

Feel free to answer if you haven't graduated yet

~

Personally, it's 3rd-year Quantum Mechanics (still non-relativistic, dirac notation, 3D schrodinger, hydrogen atom). It was more mathematically intense than previous physics courses and Dirac notation confused the heck out of me. I lost sight of it as a physics course and forgot all those kets and operators were physical things. I lost motivation because of this and learning the subject became dull.

I took some great advice and started reading different textbooks on the subject (Feynman's Lectures III is my favourite) and after reading like 5 different sources, I finally started to understand why things were being done the way they were. It seemed to me that each author was leaving something out that didn't complete the picture for me, and it required all of them together to do it. I came out loving the subject with more motivation than ever.

 

[Jorriss]

Grad math methods for physicist.

I was completely unprepared for the material and it moved very quickly.

 

[WannabeNewton]

I haven't graduated yet but I took a course on formulating Lagrangian and Hamiltonian mechanics through the language of symplectic geometry/symplectic manifolds and it was a rough class -shivers-. Who knows, maybe it gets overshadowed by some other course that I take in the years to come xD.

 

[Theorem.]

My focus is abstract algebra, and I struggled at first with my Analysis courses. I put in the time and came to love them though. Complex analysis is especially fun. I took a graduate course on Algebraic Topology last semester as an undergraduate student. I was the only undergraduate and the professor had a thick accent, but with lots of work I ended up doing quite well- but it was probably one of the toughest I've done.
I am taking a 600 level course on Structure theory for Lie algebras next semester, in my final year of undergraduate (5th). It will probably be one of my most difficult, but most rewarding class. Often the two go hand in hand

 

[moouers]

Organic chemistry has been my most difficult class so far. There was so much information to learn in such a short time-frame. I remember flipping through the text before the first term started and thinking to myself, "there's absolutely no way I can do this." Then I busted my butt, studied long hours, and ended up doing very well all three terms (quarter system, lab is in the third quarter along with a bit more book work).

 

[Theorem.]

Organic chemistry has been my most difficult class so far. There was so much information to learn in such a short time-frame. I remember flipping through the text before the first term started and thinking to myself, "there's absolutely no way I can do this." Then I busted my butt, studied long hours, and ended up doing very well all three terms (quarter system, lab is in the third quarter along with a bit more book work).

Before I switched into mathematics I had the luxury of taking Organic chemistry. I actually really liked it, it is a very visual subject. Unfortunately Like many courses, it is a course that seems to be taught for rote memorisation. Yet it was one of the first courses that gave me room to be at least 'visually' creative. Can't say I was a fan of labs. My two left hands and my anxiety never helped with that.

 

[EricVT]

Mathematics: Real analysis
Physics: Electronics

Electronics was difficult primarily because of the language barrier between the students and the professor as well as the marathon course sessions (90 minutes lecture followed by 180 minutes lab). Real analysis was just totally different compared to all the other mathematics I had taken.

 

[Fredrik]

The first calculus course. The math course based on Rudin's "Principles of mathematical analysis" was also very hard, but we were better prepared for it.

Our first calculus course was very difficult, mainly because the problems were really hard. We had to work pretty hard just to learn how to integrate lots of different functions, and even a perfect knowledge of that would only give you 4 points out of 32 on the exam, where we were supposed to need 16 points to pass. There were no easy problems on the exam. And we were a pretty lazy bunch of students. Out of 72 people who took the first exam, the best four people got 13 points. (The teachers decided to lower the requirement for a "pass" to 13 points, and to make a special exam for those who got at least 10 points).

But passing the exam wasn't enough. We also had a list of 45 theorems that we had to learn how to prove. They were divided into three groups of 30, 10 and 5 theorems. After passing the written exam (about a week later), we had to prove one theorem chosen at random from each of the three groups, on a blackboard in front of the teacher.

The only way to prepare for a course like this is to work very hard. Make sure that you know every trick in the book for how to integrate functions, every convergence test for series, etc., and do a lot of exercises where you have to use all of these tricks. Study the proofs very carefully. When you encounter a theorem, first spend some time trying to figure out the proof on your own. If you don't see it, read the proof, and don't feel bad about not being able to figure it out on your own. The first person to prove it probably had several years more experience than you, and may have spent weeks on the problem before he found the trick. When you feel like you understand the proof, put the book aside and try to prove the theorem. Imagine that you're explaining it to someone else. Then read the proof you've written. Would you understand it if you hadn't written it yourself? Are there ways to improve the proof or the explanation you imagined yourself making? If there is, do it again until there isn't. Don't stop until you can close your eyes and do the proof in your head.

 

[caldweab]

I'm going to say my most difficult course has been Applied Mathematics (engineering mathematics). Fourier series, partial differential equations, and a whole lot of other difficult mathematical topics. On top of that we had a pretty tough professor

 

[lisab]

Upper division Electricity and Magnetism pretty much floored me.

 

[trickslapper]

I would have to say my hardest math course was the first abstract algebra. Man i worked really hard in that class. Fortunately i had one of those moments where it all clicked when i took the second abstract algebra and the first week was a review of the topics in algebra 1.

 

[D H]

Upper division Electricity and Magnetism pretty much floored me.

Same here. I managed to get an A, but that was mostly sheer dumb luck. I got a 54 out of 100 on the midterm. The professor was one of those nasty ones who saw his job not as teaching but as showing us students how dumb we really were. He loved ridiculously hard problems such as "An electrician mistakenly wires a transmission line in the form of a Mobius strip. Describe the transients on the line."

That midterm: He had posed two seemingly impossible problems on the test. My 54 was by far the highest score. The class average was 27. I saw that by rewording one of the questions and treating it as a freshman physics problem brought me just shy of a solution. The E&M finished it off. Then I saw I could do almost the same with the other impossible problem. My A was pretty much sealed with that stupid midterm.Other classes that were problematic for me were organic chemistry and European intellectual history, and I did not get an A on these.

Organic was the pre-med bust-out course at my school. The competition to get a top grade was incredibly fierce. I managed to get a B, but it took over the 4 hours of study time per hour of lecture. (Apparently the pre-meds typically put in 6 to 8.)

I took European intellectual history as a senior. Three years of technical classes had trained me to read extremely slowly and carefully. This did not jibe with the reading list, ~200 pages per week. The midterm wasn't a test. It was a paper. The final: a longer paper, and a test. And the term paper: It wasn't just a paper. It was a PAPER.

 

[462chevelle]

Same here. I managed to get an A, but that was mostly sheer dumb luck. I got a 54 out of 100 on the midterm. The professor was one of those nasty ones who saw his job not as teaching but as showing us students how dumb we really were. He loved ridiculously hard problems such as "An electrician mistakenly wires a transmission line in the form of a Mobius strip. Describe the transients on the line."

That midterm: He had posed two seemingly impossible problems on the test. My 54 was by far the highest score. The class average was 27. I saw that by rewording one of the questions and treating it as a freshman physics problem brought me just shy of a solution. The E&M finished it off. Then I saw I could do almost the same with the other impossible problem. My A was pretty much sealed with that stupid midterm.


Other classes that were problematic for me were organic chemistry and European intellectual history, and I did not get an A on these.

Organic was the pre-med bust-out course at my school. The competition to get a top grade was incredibly fierce. I managed to get a B, but it took over the 4 hours of study time per hour of lecture. (Apparently the pre-meds typically put in 6 to 8.)

I took European intellectual history as a senior. Three years of technical classes had trained me to read extremely slowly and carefully. This did not jibe with the reading list, ~200 pages per week. The midterm wasn't a test. It was a paper. The final: a longer paper, and a test. And the term paper: It wasn't just a paper. It was a PAPER.

I have a professor like this. but luckily he doesn't do it on tests. so I kind of like it. keeps me on my toes

 

[WannabeNewton]

Same here.

Was this the "advanced electricity and magnetism" course offered by the physics department at Cornell that uses Heald and Marion: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0030972779/?tag=pfamazon01-20

 

[moouers]

Before I switched into mathematics I had the luxury of taking Organic chemistry. I actually really liked it, it is a very visual subject. Unfortunately Like many courses, it is a course that seems to be taught for rote memorisation. Yet it was one of the first courses that gave me room to be at least 'visually' creative. Can't say I was a fan of labs. My two left hands and my anxiety never helped with that.

My organic chemistry class would also be considered my favorite class in college so far. I loved every day of it. My professor was thankfully extremely gifted in teaching the material -- his class mainly relied on understanding the material rather than memorizing it. Of course there was still memorization involved, but not as much as I had assumed there would be.

 

[George Jones]

uses Heald and Marion

My wife took a course that used this. My upper-level E&M courses (2) used Jackson,

 

[WannabeNewton]

My wife took a course that used this. My upper-level E&M courses (2) used Jackson,

Jesus that couldn't have been fun lol. Was there a lot of coffee involved?

 

[D H]

Was this the "advanced electricity and magnetism" course offered by the physics department at Cornell that uses Heald and Marion: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0030972779/?tag=pfamazon01-20

It was Cornell applied and engineering physics rather than Cornell physics, and the author was just Marion back then, but yeah, that's the text.

 

[WannabeNewton]

It was Cornell applied and engineering physics rather than Cornell physics, and the author was just Marion back then, but yeah, that's the text.

Yeah I've heard from quite a few people that the classes that use that text are insanely brutal and one of the hardest of the physics courses in the undergrad program. At least the silver lining is it feels like heaven once you finish the course :p

 

[mathwonk]

Many people agree that the hardest course was analysis. Most mathematicians of my generation took this as their first year "calculus" class, so we tend to say that first year calculus was the hardest, i.e. we all had a Spivak style calculus course first semester. This tends to be the same course as the real analysis which non honors students meet in junior/senior year, only we met it without the background of a computational calculus class. Hitting it freshman year, with only a high school algebra and geometry background, was definitely a wake up call.

After that, the next hard course was graduate algebraic topology (Spanier), and the next one was graduate algebraic geometry (Hartshorne). In comparison, everything else was easy, except philosophy, which was such BS it was hard to figure out what they wanted to hear.

 

[Seydlitz]

Many people agree that the hardest course was analysis. Most mathematicians of my generation took this as their first year "calculus" class, so we tend to say that first year calculus was the hardest, i.e. we all had a Spivak style calculus course first semester. This tends to be the same course as the real analysis which non honors students meet in junior/senior year, only we met it without the background of a computational calculus class. Hitting it freshman year, with only a high school algebra and geometry background, was definitely a wake up call..

But you did make it, that's absolutely amazing! I can't imagine studying heavy calculus like Spivak without computational calculus class background. I've had one in fact but I find doing Spivak's proof quite challenging, and I'm just in the prologue chapter. (I've just graduated high school)

Will it get easier though I mean once you get used to the problem, and the instructors tell you what needs to be done as time passes on?

 

[Theorem.]

But you did make it, that's absolutely amazing! I can't imagine studying heavy calculus like Spivak without computational calculus class background. I've had one in fact but I find doing Spivak's proof quite challenging, and I'm just in the prologue chapter. (I've just graduated high school)

Will it get easier though I mean once you get used to the problem, and the instructors tell you what needs to be done as time passes on?

That is also how our program works over here: we are taught analysis rather than computation calculus. We do a few computations and are encouraged to do some computations on our own but the courses focus on rigour and the development of the subject

 

[Arsenic&Lace]

General topology and abstract algebra. I have yet to encounter the upper division physics courses, but I have needed to refer to Peskin and Schroeder for my research on several occasions, and while I am excited to learn field theory some day, I expect it will be the most difficult course I ever take.

 

[dipole]

Theoretical Mechanics was the course which required me to work the hardest, largely due to the professor (who was a great teacher), but conceptually General Relativity was the most difficult.

 

[Punkyc7]

Graduate Discrete Math as an under grad. The hard class that was an undergrad class was Abstract Algebra.

 

[Visceral]

Math: Real Analysis
Physics: Classical Mechanics 2 (Lagrangian/Hamiltonian/etc)

But its really hard to say what the "hardest" as been. CM 2 was hard because it was a different professor than the first course, and was much more demanding on the homework. Real analysis is just a hard topic in general for most people. I had little exposure to proofs before taking it, so it was a huge step up in terms of rigor/abstractness.

 

[Alpharup]

My hardest was learning C++ in grade 12. I never knew C because the previous teacher in grade 11 did not know how to teach and I also had the difficulty in memorizing the syntax. Each time I read the book on C, I was lost. To be frank, I was just pass in the C exam.

Then came grade 12. The new teacher employed different method in teaching the algorithms. Her class was like that of kindergarten class in which the students would repeat whatever the teacher says. But neverthless,it was very interactive.

Basic "for" statement was very tough according to me. Following the increment or decrement of the values of certain variables was a little confusing. The most challenging was following this algorithm..

int a,b,c;
cin>>a>>b>>c; //accepting the value of a,b,c
a=b;
b=c;
c=a;// so a takes the original value of b, b takes the original value of c, and c takes the original value of a.

I hated C before. Now, working hard trying to understand C++ is rewarding as I could also do some programming in C.

 

[vanhees71]

My hardest experience in my entire physics studies were the labs. Th only good thing for me was that it made it easy for me to decide to become a theoretical rather than an experimental physicist.

 

[Fusiontron]

Physics - Quantum Mechanics I - the fact I never went to class probably didn't help.
ME - MATLAB - The class was boring and MATLAB is useless.

 

[Choppy]

ME - MATLAB - The class was boring and MATLAB is useless.

I would beg to differ on that last point.

 

[Choppy]

For me just about every class was a challenge in its own way. I took a general relativity course in my third year that I wasn't ready for and it was probably the toughest slog.

 

[soothsayer]

I actually thought my upper-div Classical Mechanics class was the most difficult I took. The professor was a hard *** and was rarely helpful. Material moved along at a furious pace, and we had weekly quizzes that were a substantial part of the grade that consisted of two or three problems that were difficult to solve in time; if you didn't read and study that week, you were surely screwed. On top of that, we got more homework in that class than any other.

Math methods for Physics was a close second, to be sure. Three quarters of increasingly rigorous mathematical Hell. Not fun times, but I went into it feeling like I wasn't as good at math as most of my classmates, and came out feeling like an accomplished mathematician/physicist.

 

[WannabeNewton]

I took a general relativity course in my third year that I wasn't ready for and it was probably the toughest slog.

I'll be taking a proper GR course next semester so it should be fun to see how that plays out

 

[micromass]

I'll be taking a proper GR course next semester so it should be fun to see how that plays out

If it doesn't use Wald you're probably going to fail the class.

 

[WannabeNewton]

If it doesn't use Wald you're probably going to fail the class.

I'll just have to convince the professor that whatever text he/she intends to use is unequivocally inferior to Wald's text xP, but as of now it does use Wald's text so yay!

 

[micromass]

I'll just have to convince the professor that whatever text he/she intends to use is unequivocally inferior to Wald's text xP

Even if they use Malament?

 

[WannabeNewton]

Even if they use Malament?

Lol it's a physics class not a philosophy class.

 

[micromass]

Lol it's a physics class not a philosophy class.

Oh, so it's rather easy then. Gotcha.

 

[soothsayer]

Hartle makes a great GR text too. I used it in my undergrad GR course, and I aced the course.

...and I NEVER aced physics courses XD

 

[eumyang]

I would have to say my hardest math course was the first abstract algebra. Man i worked really hard in that class. Fortunately i had one of those moments where it all clicked when i took the second abstract algebra and the first week was a review of the topics in algebra 1.

This describes me, more or less. I remember taking Abstract Algebra 1 and I totally bombed the 1st test (57/100 I think). The prof. was my academic advisor, so I begged him to retake the test, giving some excuse. I'm not proud of doing that, but he did allow me to retake; I don't remember what I got, but I think I passed. That was my wake-up call; from then on I visited the prof. during office hours and worked my butt off. It paid off; I got a 91/100 on the 2nd test. I think I ended up with a B overall in that class.

Many people agree that the hardest course was analysis.
(snip)
In comparison, everything else was easy, except philosophy, which was such BS it was hard to figure out what they wanted to hear.

Interesting enough, I had less trouble with Analysis than Abstract Algebra. And I loved philosophy - at my undergrad two lower-division courses and a course in Ethics were part of our Gen-Ed.

 

[WannabeNewton]

Hartle makes a great GR text too. I used it in my undergrad GR course, and I aced the course.

Oh I was talking about grad GR, not undergrad. My adviser told me I would be bored to death if I took undergrad GR.

 

[soothsayer]

Oh I was talking about grad GR, not undergrad. My adviser told me I would be bored to death if I took undergrad GR.

Oh! Yes, my undergrad GR course was not super difficult, but it certainly wasn't boring! The subject was obviously awesome, and I liked that I got to learn a lot of new math. I remember some of the material actually being pretty hellish.

 

[WannabeNewton]

Oh! Yes, my undergrad GR course was not super difficult, but it certainly wasn't boring! The subject was obviously awesome, and I liked that I got to learn a lot of new math. I remember some of the material actually being pretty hellish.

Yeah I'm sure the class itself is awesome but I meant that my adviser thought it would be boring for me personally, not that the class itself was boring in nature. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

 

[soothsayer]

Yeah I'm sure the class itself is awesome but I meant that my adviser thought it would be boring for me personally, not that the class itself was boring in nature. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

No worries!

 

[TomServo]

Honors quantum, though it was a lot harder than it should have been due to family issues at home.

There is also the class where we made one level of a 2D platformer, building the game engine and everything from scratch using XNA and C#. It was brutal because of the workload and time constraints, but it made me ten times a better programmer than I was before.

 

[deskswirl]

Engineering:

Linear Control Systems . . . probably due to the hard a** of a professor that we had literally 700+ pages of hell and 35hr+/week homework assignments...the final took nine hours IN CLASS.

Physics:

UG Math Methods . . . Confluent Hypergeometric, Mathieu, Elliptic blah blah ..the only thing I found interesting in this class was Green's Functions and Calculus of Variations. Seriously probably lost years of of my life staying up to do the homework. A friend of mine taking the class told me it was his first B (EVER!). I was just glad to be finished.

Note: The above combinations of courses should not be attempted at the same time.

 

[DimReg]

Probably the hardest undergraduate class I took was the freshmen E+M. Not that it was objectively hard, but it was the first time I really applied integral calculus to physics, so it was very "mind expanding". It was also the first time that many problems had (at least in principle) multiple solutions given the course material. Also, the teacher had very high expectations.

Honestly though, after that "hard" never really seemed like an appropriate description of coursework. It always seemed like the dominant limiting factor was my work ethic.

 

[wotanub]

Statistical Mechanics as an undergrad. I got an A but I don't even know what I learned. All I could manage was to plug and chug because I didn't get the point of the physics.

 

[jasonRF]

A history course I took first semester freshman year on turn of the century Europe. Had to buy 10 books for the course, by such easy reading authors as Nietzche and Durkheim and Freud and ... well, you get the picture. every couple of weeks had to produce a paper criticizing what we read. I was WAAAY out of my depth, but it did teach me something about writing.

jason

 

[Metta]

That sounds brutal. Is that the norm for all linear control classes or was it the professor?

Engineering:

Linear Control Systems . . . probably due to the hard a** of a professor that we had literally 700+ pages of hell and 35hr+/week homework assignments...the final took nine hours IN CLASS.

Physics:

UG Math Methods . . . Confluent Hypergeometric, Mathieu, Elliptic blah blah ..the only thing I found interesting in this class was Green's Functions and Calculus of Variations. Seriously probably lost years of of my life staying up to do the homework. A friend of mine taking the class told me it was his first B (EVER!). I was just glad to be finished.

Note: The above combinations of courses should not be attempted at the same time.