The Hardest Majors – Ranked by Millions of College Students

Author’s Note: This article is based on a longer research paper. The paper can be accessed for details.

In this article, I cover how we can know that some majors are harder than others.

Then I rank 118 majors for difficulty based on millions of student ratings.

Finally, I go over how a hard major differs from an easy one.

Are Some Majors Harder than Others?

Are some majors harder than others? And if so, how can we assess which are hard and which are easy?

As for the first question, the evidence is strong that some majors really do require much more work than others.

Consider these facts:

• The National Survey of Student Engagement estimates weekly study time by major and consistently finds enormous differences. In 2016, the average physics student studied 19 hours per week while the sociology student studied 13 hours per week. This is a 6 hour per week gap, in other words, the physics student studied about 50% more than the sociology student. These differences are not trivial – over 4 years, this amounts to 800 more hours of study time. These staggering differences in study time are consistent for all the years for which we have data. 
• One study shows that biology students get better grades in courses they take outside their own major, except in other STEM fields. If grading standards across majors were the same, this wouldn’t happen (why would anyone do worse in courses they love?).
• Finally, non-STEM majors tend to give out higher average GPAs than STEM majors. This is in spite of non-STEM majors spending less time studying than STEM majors.

So far I’ve shown that rigor is not equal across majors. With whatever metric we use, STEM majors tend to come out as rigorous than non-STEM. But in this article, we’re trying to see which majors are hardest.

I turn to this next.

Measuring Difficulty Using Student Ratings of Difficulty

To rate major difficulty, I use the ratings of course difficulty by college students themselves, generated as they rate courses they’ve completed. In other words, these are subjective ratings, where a student taking a course will rate their courses on a 1-5 scale of difficulty. Using these ratings, I calculate the percentage of professors in each major that are at least of average difficulty (3 or higher).

Although imperfect, this data has the advantage of being extensive. These ratings are based on data I collected from over 200 universities, over 150,000 professors, and almost 3 million student ratings, covering 118 majors.

I validate that these difficulty ratings correspond to reality. For example, the list below shows that STEM majors do have the highest difficulty rating, as we’d expect to see. Also, if you check the relationship between difficulty ratings and weekly study hours per week, you’ll see a strong positive correlation.

In short – the students’ ratings of difficulty appear to be quite sensible.

Disciplines Ranked By Difficulty

1. STEM
   • 63% of professors are difficult
2. Business
   • 56% of professors are difficult
3. Health
   • 48% of professors are difficult
4. Social Sciences
   • 46% of professors are difficult
5. Liberal Arts
   • 44% of professors are difficult
6. Education
   • 36% of professors are difficult

118 Majors Ranked By Difficulty

According to the data, Biochemical Sciences is the hardest major in America today, while the Elementary Education major was rated as the easiest.

You may also notice that difficult majors tend to be high-paying, and majors rated as easy, low paying. I discuss this more below.

Hint: Check out the links for extra details about each major such as common occupations, lifetime earnings, and much more.

What does it mean for a major to be hard?

The data I collected include text tags that can help us understand what characteristics are related to a course (and thus a major) being hard or easy.

Harder professors are:

• Considered Tough Graders
• Assign lots of homework
• Feature tests as a large part of the grade
• Assign lots of reading
• Attendance required to keep up with the class 

Easier professors are:

• More accessible outside of class
• Are considered inspirational by students
• Are more respected by students
• Are more likely to be considered hilarious
• Assign more extra credit
• The grade depends on only a few assignments
• Clear grading criteria

Thus, while some aspects of difficulty may be beneficial for students’ learning (high standards for assignments, lots of material covered in the class), others reflect simply poor quality teaching (having unclear grading criteria or giving dull lectures). 

Thus difficulty as I’ve presented it thus far, is an interesting concept that captures both “good” difficulty and a difficulty that is unhelpful to students. 

Implications of Major Difficulty for Your Choice of Major

1 – Difficulty is a core part of developing skills

As we saw in what the difficulty rating is capturing, the rating is most strongly related to high academic standards. The learning literature is clear, that having high standards, though unpleasant at times, boosts learning. Of course, keep in mind that some difficulty can be unhelpful, due to poor quality instruction.

2 – Difficult Majors Earn More

Related to the earlier point, the marketplace rewards workers according to the skills they’ve gained. And my research confirms that difficult majors earn more than easy ones. This is true within every field: for example, hard liberal arts majors earn more than easier liberal arts majors.

But Will I be able to Handle a Difficult Major?

A common fear students have when choosing a major is that they won’t be able to handle a difficult one. I experienced this myself and know how crippling it can be. Here are some final tips to make difficult coursework more manageable.

Embrace Difficulty

First, recognize that the difficulty you’re experiencing is a good thing. It’s a sign that you are learning and developing new skills and abilities. One of the key characteristics of deliberate practice (the way mental models and skills are developed) is that it is challenging and intense.

Understanding this may help you embrace the difficult courses and learn to enjoy the strain.

Study Effectively

Second, there are highly effective study strategies out there that make the learning process 10X more efficient and enjoyable. One of the best works on this is Cal Newport’s How to Become a Straight-A Student, which has transformed my studying experience. I write about effective learning techniques here.

Thanks for reading, and good luck on your college education journey!