Engineering degrees ranked by difficulty

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have heard systems engineering is difficult. I would put it at tier one.

LOL!! No.

Actually, I have heard the program at UVa is fantastic and really difficult.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am curious about material engineering, I don’t totally understand how it is different from chemical

In a nutshell, it's hard stuff rather than liquids or gas. It's a lesser known field, but the ratio of jobs to applicants is very favorable - you are very versatile, less funneled into one narrow path. At most schools, you'll benefit from smaller classes and lots of faculty attention and research opportunities once you've made it out of the Intro to Engineering type classes. Worth checking out.

Absolutely. We have such a hard time hiring materials engineers - they are in really high demand! The ones I know are absolutely brilliant.

What kind of applications do ut work with?

[Anonymous]

I'm a chemical engineer. I do not think that it was a harder course of study than other engineering disciplines. There is some extra course load w/ the extra chem courses and associated labs (damn you P-chem lab!), but "harder"? Nah. More time-intensive? Probably.

What I love about engineering school is that it teaches kids to get comfortable with the feeling of being lost. There are times when you are sitting in a lecture and have zero idea what the professor is talking about. You don't panic. You sit with the discomfort and then eventually, hopefully, things start to click. This is why I love hiring engineers for jobs even when not directly technical. They know how to solve problems and don't freak out when given a task outside their comfort zone.

[Anonymous]

I studied Electrical Engineer in college but I've been working in Cybesecurity for almost twenty years, and I am getting paid 400k/year. Cybersecurity is a piece of cake when you compare it to any engineering disciplines.

[Anonymous]

If the professor is good and the student keeps up with the lectures, engineering is not that hard - especially for the core classes.

Problem is most teachers are not that good/rush through the material.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is appalling that Electrical isn't number 1. Easily the hardest subfield.

+1 Every Engineer concedes this. EE is the toughest.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I studied Electrical Engineer in college but I've been working in Cybesecurity for almost twenty years, and I am getting paid 400k/year. Cybersecurity is a piece of cake when you compare it to any engineering disciplines.

I call BS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Electrical Engineering requires the most physics knowledge and is a very heavy theoretical field for an engineering degree. I'd put them "tier 1" before chemical any day

As a chem e, I took every EE course requirement through junior year. And the chem labs were insanely harder than EE “labs” (building circuits). So both very hard, but I’d say chem e harder. Fortunately I went to law school and found that to be insanely easy by comparison.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is appalling that Electrical isn't number 1. Easily the hardest subfield.

+1 Every Engineer concedes this. EE is the toughest.

No, they obviously don't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:On a side note I went to an engineering school and I don't think any of the majors are hard for those type of students.

I say that as my roommate was absolutely "big bang" theory brilliant. For him the very difficult Engineering major was super easy. I lost track of him, but I know he went to MIT for Grad School.

For average non STEM majors Engineering is insanely difficult. But the people who do it most are brilliant and for them it comes naturally.

No, not every STEM major is in the top 0.0002% of IQs. Think about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is appalling that Electrical isn't number 1. Easily the hardest subfield.

+1 Every Engineer concedes this. EE is the toughest.

No, they obviously don't.

Please find a chemical engineer who agrees.

[Anonymous]

Why is this comparison necessary? All engineering is hard. This is known.

[Anonymous]

I think a lot of people would be interested in the number of credits, completion time, level of math involved, and salary prospects.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think a lot of people would be interested in the number of credits, completion time, level of math involved, and salary prospects.

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They could do that without combining them into a ranking.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:On a side note I went to an engineering school and I don't think any of the majors are hard for those type of students.

I say that as my roommate was absolutely "big bang" theory brilliant. For him the very difficult Engineering major was super easy. I lost track of him, but I know he went to MIT for Grad School.

For average non STEM majors Engineering is insanely difficult. But the people who do it most are brilliant and for them it comes naturally.

That's a nice anecdote, but I don't think most engineering students are geniuses who find their degrees a breeze. Over 100,000 bachelor's degrees are awarded by American universities a year.