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Most Difficult Degree to Achieve?

^Vet school is harder to get into than medical school: you need higher grades and to show more commitment

Vets have to learn the anatomy, physiology, diseases and treatment of many species, including birds and exotic animals, not just one species

Vet school often takes longer than medical school: vets have to study more

Animals can't talk, so vets need to be better at problem solving and diagnosis

Vets are expected to diagnose, prescribe medicines and do surgery as soon as they graduate - they do much more, sooner than human doctors
 
AmorRoark said:
You can get a BA in law in Australia? Here it's almost always pre-law? Here you have to go to law school (like a graduate/maters program) for any 'legitimate' legal degree.
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To practice in front of the Bar, yes, but this BA Completion in Legal Studies prepares one for either a pre-law or paralegal track. I just might do the one I posted if I stay in the area and don't find tax fulfilling (both are up in the air). If I do, I'll have FINALLY completed my BA in something that won't drive me insane and have an ABA-approved paralegal certificate.

I believe at least in CA, you can sit for the Bar and become a practicing attorney without a degree if you work for an attorney under special supervision. More on that here.

Of course, it'd be unlikely that an attorney without a degree would be able to get a job, so it seems like a fruitless effort at least on paper - but if you hitch your wagon to the right star/rainmaker, if you can pass the Bar apparently you can practice law here. Who knew?

I agree with those who said mathematics or medical school; those are what I think I would find most personally challenging.
 
I think this whole thread is like a grown-up version of the "5 tiers of Education" thread from a few months back. Seriously, it all depends on the person. I went to graduate school for math and survived it because it's something I'm naturally gifted at. However, I don't think I could even get a Bachelor's Degree in dance or studio art, because I have two left feet and two left hands(?). People saying that math would be ridiculous clearly have never seen me even attempt a simple foxtrot ;) What seems "ridiculously hard" really does vary from person-to-person.

So I don't think one should look at this as a "what is harder" as in content (even, say, to the Average Joe), but instead statistically which degrees have the highest *pre-set* failure rates. So even if everyone was equally really talented in the field, there still would be a high element of difficulty in actually achieving the degree. I apologize if this point has been already made. I'd like to eliminate the "what actually requires the most natural brainpower" from the equation when trying to answer this question, and think about it more practically.

There's not a huge failure rate in math graduate school, as pretty much everyone who makes the decision to start working toward the achievement eventually gets there. There's not a ton of competition or anything once you're in. Sure, it takes a lot of work, but basically everyone going into it makes that pledge, and meets the goal. So ya, I don't know the answer to this, but I'm guessing it's something within higher medicine or law. Or something in the military. Something where competition *post-acceptance* exists.
 
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You also need to keep in mind that the entrance requirements for degrees don't just come from how intellectually taxing the material is, but are also a function of how much student demand there is for a course. Courses which are more popular or high status tend to have higher scores. This is also why entrance scores vary from institution to institution: more prestigious universities have higher entrance scores because more people want degrees from there. Having high scores keeps them prestigious and elite. Some entrance scores are also associated with professional regulation over student numbers. Medicine and dentistry are a good example of this.
 
AmorRoark said:
You can get a BA in law in Australia? Here it's almost always pre-law? Here you have to go to law school (like a graduate/maters program) for any 'legitimate' legal degree.
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In Australia to do undergraduate Law, you need to do a combined degree, for example Arts/Law, or Science/Law or Engineering/Law etc. This is the most common way to do Law in Australia.

A combined degree takes 5 years and you end up with two bits of paper :)

For reference, a BA or a BSc takes 3 years in Australia and a BEng takes 4.

You can also do Law as a postgraduate degree.
 
Chaos Butterfly said:
In Australia to do undergraduate Law, you need to do a combined degree, for example Arts/Law, or Science/Law or Engineering/Law etc. This is the most common way to do Law in Australia.
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You don't need to do a combined degree to do law in Australia. I know ANU at least offers a straight 4 year Bachelor of Law. It depends on the institution.
 
Mariposa said:
To practice in front of the Bar, yes, but this BA Completion in Legal Studies prepares one for either a pre-law or paralegal track. I just might do the one I posted if I stay in the area and don't find tax fulfilling (both are up in the air). If I do, I'll have FINALLY completed my BA in something that won't drive me insane and have an ABA-approved paralegal certificate.

I believe at least in CA, you can sit for the Bar and become a practicing attorney without a degree if you work for an attorney under special supervision. More on that here.

Of course, it'd be unlikely that an attorney without a degree would be able to get a job, so it seems like a fruitless effort at least on paper - but if you hitch your wagon to the right star/rainmaker, if you can pass the Bar apparently you can practice law here. Who knew?

I agree with those who said mathematics or medical school; those are what I think I would find most personally challenging.
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I wasn't asking about paralegal/clerk work in US. I obviously already know what it takes to be a lawyer vs. paralegal/clerk in the workplace. I was asking about being a full-fledged lawyer in Australia. I know of the few exceptions where you don't have to go to law school to be a lawyer in the US. I learned about that in Professional Responsibility class because of the cases where a persons had made fraudulent representations on their bar application. Most of the exceptions for states where you don't have to go to law school to be a lawyer are, generally, residual laws from when lawyers would learn the practice through apprenticeship. Other states have their own reasons but I don't think they should keep allowing people to pass the bar without going to law school. Just me I think.

I'd imagine most people who are able to pass the bar without going to law school would do the 'hang a shingle' method and work for themselves or join up with one or two other lawyers and start a very small firm. As you already said, I'm sure this is rare.
 
Chaos Butterfly said:
In Australia to do undergraduate Law, you need to do a combined degree, for example Arts/Law, or Science/Law or Engineering/Law etc. This is the most common way to do Law in Australia.

A combined degree takes 5 years and you end up with two bits of paper :)

For reference, a BA or a BSc takes 3 years in Australia and a BEng takes 4.

You can also do Law as a postgraduate degree.
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Thanks for explaining this to me! Very interesting system. :)

Is getting the degree part of the requirements of passing the bar? Is there a bar? Haha, I think I'll just look it up on my friend google. :)
 
^^

From what I understand after you finish your undergraduate studies, you then have to do the College of Law. You generally do this while working at a law firm. I'm not sure exactly how long it takes, or exactly what it is you qualify as (solicitor/barrister etc... all those terms confuse me ;))

Satiricon, I didn't know that, thanks for the clarification :) I'm going off what I know from Uni of Sydney :)
 
satricion said:
You also need to keep in mind that the entrance requirements for degrees don't just come from how intellectually taxing the material is, but are also a function of how much student demand there is for a course. Courses which are more popular or high status tend to have higher scores. This is also why entrance scores vary from institution to institution: more prestigious universities have higher entrance scores because more people want degrees from there. Having high scores keeps them prestigious and elite. Some entrance scores are also associated with professional regulation over student numbers. Medicine and dentistry are a good example of this.
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Vet even more so. The governing bodies of veterinary medicine actively prevent a glut of veterinarians by discouraging the schools and classes from expanding.

I think difficulty of degrees should be based solely on competition to be admitted, and competition for good work and research opportunities after admission. Some kind of high-ranking, highly specialized kind of military officer title would be my guess. Does the Space Program grant a degree? If so, that.

The world has a lot of people. For every pursuit there is, and certainly for every one that grants a doctoral level degree, there are plenty of people who are talented at it and enjoy doing it. I bet most people have a field they're technically capable of hacking a reputable PhD program in, if they got the right background exposure. But that doesn't mean they've got the right motivation, opportunity, connections, exposure, or desire to take so high a shot.

I do medicine and foreign languages and anything to do with words just fine. I could never do anything even approaching high level with computers.
 
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I still have to disagree with you about veterinary medicine. Perhaps you are correct when it comes to medicine associated with adults. However, I believe you forgot about Pediatricians Satrician. Jerome Groopman MD, depicts this example best in his book "How Doctors Think." He interviews Pediatricians and how they explain it is similar to how you explain Vet medicine. The majority of the Pediatricians patients are toddlers and very young infants who can't communicate with the doctor; can't express nor relay their problems verbally. Therefore, the Pediatrician has to take the words from the parents or guardians about what's wrong with kid even though the guardians may not be qualified for medical assumptions. Pediatricians have to constantly monitor the infants, and must be willing and courageous -- for lack of a better word -- to disagree with the guardians.

I'll post a quote from Jerome Groopman in his book. He states, "Pattern recognition in pediatrics begins with behavior. And the art of pediatrics, then, is to further study the child while simultaneously interpreting what the parents report."

I know this may seem like a small example but the chapter is relatively large and goes on a lot more. My point is is that Vet medicine can be juxtaposed with pediatrics and I although both are similar because the 'lack of communication', I believe it would be harder considering how many more human diseases are their compared to animal? And if there are just as many diseases in the human to animal ratio, how many of those diseases do vets really look deep into and treat? Besides the obvious ones like diabetes, etc...
 
^ Certainly the stakes are higher in pediatrics than in any veterinary medicine.

I am very certain I will not go into pediatrics. The fact that they can't communicate their problems well, and the looming frantic parents, kind of give me the heebiejeebies.
 
Yes I agree, I myself plan on residing in Internal Medicine. When and if I get accepted to Medical School of course. :)
 
StrawPipes said:
I still have to disagree with you about veterinary medicine. Perhaps you are correct when it comes to medicine associated with adults. However, I believe you forgot about Pediatricians Satrician. Jerome Groopman MD, depicts this example best in his book "How Doctors Think." He interviews Pediatricians and how they explain it is similar to how you explain Vet medicine. The majority of the Pediatricians patients are toddlers and very young infants who can't communicate with the doctor; can't express nor relay their problems verbally. Therefore, the Pediatrician has to take the words from the parents or guardians about what's wrong with kid even though the guardians may not be qualified for medical assumptions. Pediatricians have to constantly monitor the infants, and must be willing and courageous -- for lack of a better word -- to disagree with the guardians.

I'll post a quote from Jerome Groopman in his book. He states, "Pattern recognition in pediatrics begins with behavior. And the art of pediatrics, then, is to further study the child while simultaneously interpreting what the parents report."

I know this may seem like a small example but the chapter is relatively large and goes on a lot more. My point is is that Vet medicine can be juxtaposed with pediatrics and I although both are similar because the 'lack of communication', I believe it would be harder considering how many more human diseases are their compared to animal? And if there are just as many diseases in the human to animal ratio, how many of those diseases do vets really look deep into and treat? Besides the obvious ones like diabetes, etc...
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None of that is inconsistent with what I said about the influence that status and competition (as opposed to mere difficulty) have on the entrance requirements that universities set for their courses.
 
I think a lot of it depends where you go to school. For instance, the biochem program can vary wildly from university to university - at some schools it's kind of a joke major, but at my school, it's fuckin hardcore. I know that with the honors degree program I'm in combined with the additional separate honors curriculums I'm taking that I'm in one of the hardest degree programs at my school. Out of 30,000 students, only 200 or so a year even graduate in my major, let alone at the honors level.

It also, as others have said, depends quite heavily on your interests and abilities. I'm sure I could do plenty of other majors if I tried, but I don't find it as interesting, so that would likely make things far more difficult. I mean, anyone could really do most any major if they set their mind to it, just most people aren't willing to work excruciatingly hard to get into a field they don't care about, lol.
 
^ That's a good point. A major can sound impressive, but be the school's biggest joke, or vice versa. This is one reason why graduate programs and employers are often as interested in what school you went to, as they are in what you studied there.

People get impressed when I tell them I majored in Chinese. But foreign languages just happen to be what I can do naturally, and my school's Chinese department did a lot to keep spirits up students motivated.
 
I'd have to say a PhD in Virology. Just think.. They havn't found the cure for AIDS, Herpes, HIV, the Common Cold, even Cancer(chemo doesn't count).

Just think those people go to school to learn how to find cures for shit, and they havn't found anything.
It's gotta be a hard program, or something..

I dunno.
 
Think about all the charity money that gets thrown at you to do research too.
 
I think a Phd in philosophy would be pretty challenging. In order to explain the hard problem and consciousness, you have to have a critical understanding of all sorts of fields including interdisciplinary ones such as biophysics. Try reading Fodor and you'll understand some of this material is not very accessible. There have been a lot of geniuses in philosophy.
One philosophy professor at my former school is trying to mathematically model the brain's thought processes for the development of robotic AI.
 
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