Are all courses of equal difficulty?

Gangsta

I was recently having an argument with someone who thinks that all 3rd level courses are of the same difficulty, e.g. Arts/commerce is as hard as engineering/medicine etc. Now is it just me or is this absolutely daft? She claims that it's only more or less difficult to get in and from there on every course is just as hard to pass as the next:eek: Opinions please

tribulus

You'll have to elaborate on hard.

In terms of contact hours engineering will have a lot more than arts for example but that doesn't take into account the amount of reading involved in arts.

Gangsta

Well I suppose it would be a combination of required understanding, hours involved and amount of reading. Isn't it harder to get a H1 in engineering than arts?

Tom Dunne

Gangsta wrote: »

Well I suppose it would be a combination of required understanding, hours involved and amount of reading. Isn't it harder to get a H1 in engineering than arts?

It all depends on the student.

A student who finds maths and engineering quite difficult would possibly fly through and Arts degree and vice versa. Different people have different aptitudes for different subjects.

You cannot say one is harder than the other - it is all relative.

What you can say, however, is are they all of the same academic standard. In that situation, I would say yes, they are all of the same standard.

AARRRGH

I would agree with Tom that it depends on the person, however I think overall an abstract topic like Maths is a lot more difficult than a non-abstract topic like History.

For example, most people could probably scrape a pass in an Arts degree, but very few people can scrape a pass in a Maths degree.

taram

I think it even depends on the department or module, found some modules even similar ones are easy to pass, others I had to work my ass off to scrap through.

But as a science student who had 15+ hours of labs and similar amount of lectures a week in first year I feel my arts friends who had 6-7 hours in total a week in first year had an easier time Might have been as hard, but they had plenty of time to study and write their papers in. (not bitter I swear)

RedXIV

hmmmm i would honestly say no. i'm doing Computer Game Development in college but a friend of mine who was recently freaking out about handing in the last of her essays showed me what she had to do. I wrote one of her essays for her (she's just finished 3rd yr in a child care course) and she got very good marks on it. I haven't a clue to look after kids but i could still bullsh1t through that essay.

claire h

I do think that with essay-based assessment, there's definitely a lot more room for BSing your way through it, but marks tend to be very subjective and there's also a lot more of a gap between 'good' and 'excellent'. The marking in arts & humanities courses can be pretty nuts, and it doesn't automatically work in your favour. It's very difficult to fail in those kinds of courses - doesn't mean it's easier to do well, by any means.

Tom Dunne

dublindude wrote: »

I would agree with Tom that it depends on the person, however I think overall an abstract topic like Maths is a lot more difficult than a non-abstract topic like History

I disagree.

You think it is difficult. Others with an aptitude for it might not.

claire h wrote: »

I do think that with essay-based assessment, there's definitely a lot more room for BSing your way through it, but marks tend to be very subjective and there's also a lot more of a gap between 'good' and 'excellent'. The marking in arts & humanities courses can be pretty nuts, and it doesn't automatically work in your favour. It's very difficult to fail in those kinds of courses - doesn't mean it's easier to do well, by any means.

Let's be honest here - it can be difficult to fail most courses, if you have the aptitude for it. I recently told a class of mine that if they fail my exam they deserve it. The gasps of disbelief were very telling. But it was true, I had covered all the material, practically given them the exam paper (without them knowing, of course) and had plenty of Q&A tutorial sessions where they could have any aspect of the course re-covered if they weren't sure about it.

The key here is aptitude - not all students are suited to all courses.

C.D.

Tom Dunne wrote: »

I disagree.

You think it is difficult. Others with an aptitude for it might not.

Yes, but out the general populace, the proportion who have an aptitude at maths is significantly smaller than those who who would have an aptitude in arts et al. Prime example of this is the CAO system- if there is demand for a course, over time the number of places and points will increase. Take Pure Maths in TCD has ~20-30 per year, compare it the numbers in BESS etc. Nationally there are more third level students undertaking non-technical degrees.

Tom Dunne wrote: »

Let's be honest here - it can be difficult to fail most courses, if you have the aptitude for it. I recently told a class of mine that if they fail my exam they deserve it. The gasps of disbelief were very telling. But it was true, I had covered all the material, practically given them the exam paper (without them knowing, of course) and had plenty of Q&A tutorial sessions where they could have any aspect of the course re-covered if they weren't sure about it.

Explain why the drop out rate for Science/Engineering runs at ~33%?

Broadly speaking I agree that somebody who has an aptitude for a subject will succeed- but the majority of people would find maths/science/engineering harder than commerce/arts as fewer people have an aptitude for it. Art ofc, is a completely different ball game!

Ultimately there are other factors such as the quality of lecturing and support available, but they are for another thread.

claire h

Well, aptitude and then actually putting that aptitude to use. Just because all the material's been covered in class and lecturers have made themselves available doesn't mean that students have actually turned up consistently, paid attention, or taken advantage of all the opportunities available to them.

There is also, I think, a variation from course to course with regard to how far lectures can actually 'cover the material' in the course, and to what extent exam papers reflect the course in its entirety. But again, probably a matter for a different thread. My main point I suppose is that aptitude can only take you so far - obviously it's important, but simply having a flair for a subject isn't going to make knowledge magically appear in your head, particularly if the knowledge you're expected to have in order to get a good mark (as distinct from simply passing) has not been handed to you during lectures.