What is/was your college major's "weed-out" class?

[NuclearNed]

Kind of inspired by a thread in the software forum.

My college major was computer science with emphasis on software engineering. Our "weed-out" class was IBM 370 architecture assembly language. It was a sophomore level class taught by the guy who literally wrote the book on the subject. As a matter of fact, the instructor's book was the textbook we used.

It was a known fact that in our department, this class was designed to "weed-out" the people who really weren't serious about their computer science studies. If you couldn't complete this course, it was probably a good bet that you needed to find another major. Needless to say, I and many others had to repeat this course due to its difficulty level.

 

[mitmot]

COMP15 - Data Structures..

ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

 

[sao123]

here is what really torques me off...

Penn State uses
1)3 dimentional vector calculus
2)Differential Equations
3)Physics (electromagnetism)
and
4)Calculus based probability

as weed out classes for computer science majors...

 

[mugs]

Probably data structures... It wasn't a terribly difficult class, and looking back I think it was quite easy - but the people who weren't really cut out for comp sci changed majors after that.

We lost about 2/3 of the students who started in comp sci to other majors. But I started school toward the end of the dot-com boom (lots of people in it just for the money).

 

[CptObvious]

When I was a bio major it was organic chemistry. It was successful in weeding me out

My friend in med school tells me he hasn't had to study o-chem since

 

[Cheetah8799]

I hated assembly language. Absolutely no use for it in my opinion unless if you plan to actually do work in that field in the future... I don't think I did well in that class. Fortunately I transferred schools soon afterwards and didn't have to worry about it anymore.

At my second school, a private university, I don't recall any "weed out" classes. To be honest, it was all so easy compared to the public university (U of MN IT). I do recall many people having problems in the low-level programming classes, which were java based. It didn't make sense to me, they were easy classes...

 

[drsafety]

Physiology

 

[HardcoreRobot]

CS 307, recursion (Scheme) based "intro" programming course, goal was to weed-out 2/3 of the people]

it worked

 

[effowe]

I am also computer science, and at DePaul the class was Computer Systems. Functional ML programming is not fun.

 

[RandomFool]

I was computer engineering for awhile and it seemed like the whole program was designed to weed people out, There's some ridculous percentage of kids who drop out/switch colleges/major it's like 60% during the first year. I made it througth that but when I got to assembly language and started thinking about another 4 years of learning programming i was like hell no. Now I'm IT and at least enjoying my major..whether or not I can get a job when I graduate is another story.

 

[BrianH1]

English 365-Secondary Teaching Methods : devising your own lesson plans, days, weeks, and Unit lessons. Then going over heavy schools of literay schools all while fulfilling 20+ hours at a local school.

 

[Hammerhead]

Legal thought in Japanese history.

 

[rmrf]

Business Data Communications and Network Design

 

[A5]

Here at Georgia Tech, there's a lot of weed out classes for the school in general...
Calculus I & II (especially II)
Physics I & II (again, especially II)
For my major (Computer Eng), it's ECE 2025 (Intro to Signal Processing).

 

[purbeast0]

at UMD it was CMSC250 - Discrete Math.

one of my roomates took it 3 times and failed it all 3 times. After failing a class 2 times you are not allowed to take it again and have to switch majors, but they allowed him to take it 3 times. he failed it again and had to switch majors

I remember our final, the average was a 29%. a C was a fvcking 29%! luckily I got a 39% so I did pretty good on the final. It was a really REALLY touch class.

 

[VTHodge]

I was an ME at Virginia Tech. The freshman "Engineering Fundamentals" classes were pretty harsh (EF 1015/1016). Lots of business majors after those two.

 

[mercanucaribe]

We don't have any.

 

[ngvepforever2]

Data Structures tends to weed out people...
But Formal Methods and Languages with the professor I have would surely weed out a lot of people. Required class, my professor wrote the book we use, his class is really fast paced, it's interesting stuff but hard to digest , hopefully we'll get a nice curve at the end of the semester.

Regards

ng

 

[daveymark]

CS 345

 

[tami]

data structures and algorithms or software engineering.

 

[J Heartless Slick]

1. First and second semester freshmen chemistry

2. Organic Chemistry

 

[Gibson486]

Originally posted by: mitmot
COMP15 - Data Structures..

ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

that class if F'n terrible....

but my weeding class was the entire freshman year, circuits, Emag, and Linear Systems.

 

[SacrosanctFiend]

BCMB 402 - Physiology
That class made organic chemistry seem like high school general chem.

 

[Feldenak]

Telecommunications management. It was a business class taught by a professor who had an EE undergrad. Gawd, that class nearly killed me...I knew I didn't want to be an engineer when I started school and then I hit that class.

Edit: My major was MIS.

 

[NatePo717]

Mechanical Engineering - Statics. If you couldn't get through Statics you couldn't finish the major.

Statics -> Mechanics of Materials -> Dynamics -> Design of Machine Elements -> few others I can't remember.