Frick,
I 'started' this out, so I'll add a few comments and bow out of the conversation... I also have experience with a few different flavors of Engineering and basic science so I can shed my thoughts.
A few points:
"Difficult" - what it means is different for every person. Some things are known to be difficult, even if the steps are straight forward and there isnt much theory to wrap your head around (think designing a fuel refinery). Some have no clear schema and the difficulty is all internal - in thinking in a new and different way (string theory comes to mind).
So what does it mean for something to be difficult in a collegiate context? Clearly, where I went to school, ChemE was more difficult than say Sociology or BioChem, but not-so clearly I think it was more difficult than even Physics, English Lit, or Electrical Engineering (not to rag on any of those).
We can use objective measures: Course load, required courses, homework load, big projects, high correlation with intelligence, high dropout rates, most time consumed on a weekly basis, most years to complete, and by simply asking those who have take a variety of coursework to compare. There is no single metric here.
There is also the concept of what people *can* do. While an English major may have ended up being very difficult for me, there is no question I could do it, as perhaps most Engineers could, if they needed to. But could most English majors do Engineering? Based on my experience, plenty could (and would hate it), but many simply could not do it - they are not wired for it.
I go mostly by waht causes the most distress and pain to achieve the stated goal: how much do you have to bust yourself to acheiev the minimum. Not the person who took tough electives, but if you did the minimum to become a physics BS or a Cheme E BS, which would really bust your ass?
"Graduate vs Undergrad"
Note the tremendous differences in difficulty between undergrad and grad programs in the same field.
Once you get to the graduate level, there is a huge weeding out, so the level of diffuclty increases, and each individual student runs a different path. Most people dont end up choosing what would be the most difficult path for them - or even if it is the toughest, they presumably enjoy it, which reduces the mental burden.
In the graduate realm, I readily concede that physics can (and often does, but not always) kick most engineering currulum's rear ends. String Theory, gravity, cosmological craziness, as well as other highly theoretical fields such as advanced math or some theoretical economics, are some of the toughest things out there. But people dont do this at the undergraduate level, or if they do, it might be one survey course or so. Engineering courses usually pound you to the limit for one or two years, every course.
"For the MSTP folks"
Remember, Engineering is a professional degree - so you are not only learning theory, you are learning practice and how to think on the job. This has many parallels with Medicine. All Engineers are scientists as well since we need to understand and use the science to acommplish our design and engineering roles. This fits in very well with what MSTP's are looking for (or should be), which is why the engineers who do go MSTP tend to be looked upon favorably. Chem E, being closer to basic biological science than any other engineering (BME is a weird new one, I wont include that), and being the toughest of the standard engineering cadre, is therefore looked upon very favorably. If you have accomplished this well there is little doubt in the minds of an adcom that you can survive an MSTP curriculum. You might not like it, but you can do it.
Don't worry, I have much respect for physics students, many of whom are just as bright as my fellow engineers. But as an opinion I share with many others, Chem E is as tough a program as it gets in most places. That's my plug!
frick said:
Sigh. I'm not going to attest to be an authority on engineering as I'm an undergraduate physics/biochem major, but for the most part, all the people I know pursuing engineering majors complain far more about their design classes than they do about the theory (engineering science) classes.
Also, consider the fact that all of the scientific theory you're learning in an engineering class was probably first worked out by physicists and chemists. Since the (arguable) objective of engineering as a discipline is to produce people capable of *applying* physical principles to real-world situations, rather than attempting to delve further into the realm of theory, it makes sense to me that the most difficult part of an engineering major would be the design components. In other words (and correct me if I'm wrong), design is *supposed* to be the essence of engineering science; otherwise, how is it any different from basic science?
As for the thermo classes -- although you're claiming the Berkeley textbook is not particularly difficult, it's still being used in an upper-division thermo class at one of the best ChemE schools in the nation. This fact alone deals a blow to your claim that ChemE is the most difficult undergraduate major. I'll reiterate that this is only one example, and doesn't really prove much of anything, but you still completely misconstrued its meaning.
The reason physics is "as or more difficult" than engineering is simple: physics (and chemistry, as I stated above) provides the scientific foundation that all of the engineering disciplines are built upon. It is not a sweeping generalization to claim that physics, as an INTEGRAL COMPONENT OF ENGINEERING, is as or more difficult than engineering when a physics major is essentially the same as an engineering major but with an overemphasis on theory and minimal amounts of design.
It *is*, however, a sweeping generalization to claim that ChemE is a more difficult major than physics, especially when (to the best of my knowledge) you're basing the claim off of your individual experiences at a single institution (remember, we're talking about undergraduate majors here). Certainly you can't attest that ChemE is inherently more difficult in a theoretical sense than physics, since the theory presented in engineering classes IS NO DIFFERENT than that presented in physics/chemistry/biochemistry classes (and is usually at a lower level than these classes since applications are supposedly being emphasized). Sure, you might have to take more classes or spend more time in the lab to complete an engineering degree, but the actual DIFFICULTY of the material (I'm tying difficulty to level of theoretical/mathematical abstraction here, which is usually the case for me) is not going to be any worse than it is in a physics class.
That reminds me of one last thing I should point out: engineering majors, in general, are certainly more *time-consuming* than a physics major; and to some, that will certainly make them more difficult.
