# Why does it still only take 4 years to complete a physics degree? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 15, 2009, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-still-only-take-4-years-to-complete-a-physics-degree/496562 "2009-05-15T20:09:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![mnemosyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@mnemosyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mnemosyne)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2009, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-still-only-take-4-years-to-complete-a-physics-degree/496562/61 "2009-05-18T17:05:25Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > I would agree that many (but by no means all) science and engineering folk have no small difficulty with written communication skills that are imperative for studies in the humanities and soft sciences. > > Stranger This is so true, unfortunately. In my first degree, biochemistry, we were expected to write long lab reports (well, long-ish, usually in the 10 page range for a 2-3 hour lab) and so many students struggled with that. Now that I’m in engineering, it seems to be even worse; I’ve heard so many students complain about the difficulty in writing a 1/2 page lab procedure “in their own words”, and I’ve often heard statements along the lines of “we shouldn’t have to write so much, we are engineers, not English majors!” I find that attitude so sad. I once helped my husband edit a couple of pages written by a classmate for a group project in his undergrad, Software Engineering. He couldn’t understand what the girl had written at all. Based on my years of helping my mom grade her student’s work, or just reading those stories for fun (I spent a day doing just that last weekend!), I feel fairly comfortable in saying that this student, in her third year of an engineering program at university, was unable to write two pages of text at anything much beyond a grade school level. Grade 6 at best, but I was inclined to think Grade 4. Heck, for that same class, he had three classmates get suspended for plagiarizing a paragraph-long text assignment about _plagiarism!_ ---
**Author:** ![BrandonR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/779978/32.png) [@BrandonR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrandonR)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2009, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-still-only-take-4-years-to-complete-a-physics-degree/496562/62 "2009-05-18T17:08:17Z")
> [@mnemosyne](#): > > This is so true, unfortunately. In my first degree, biochemistry, we were expected to write long lab reports (well, long-ish, usually in the 10 page range for a 2-3 hour lab) and so many students struggled with that. Now that I’m in engineering, it seems to be even worse; I’ve heard so many students complain about the difficulty in writing a 1/2 page lab procedure “in their own words”, and I’ve often heard statements along the lines of “we shouldn’t have to write so much, we are engineers, not English majors!” I find that attitude so sad. My experience has also shown a large number of engineering types to be terrible at writing. I, on the other hand, have always seemed to excel more at grammar rather than math… Higher SAT score on the verbal than the math section, and I’m still a decent writer. Hopefully that will help me at some point during my engineering career. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![GargoyleWB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gargoylewb/32/199_2.png) [@GargoyleWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GargoyleWB)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2009, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-still-only-take-4-years-to-complete-a-physics-degree/496562/63 "2009-05-18T18:39:37Z")
> [@MikeS](#): > > There are some subjects in physics that are not taught as much as they once were… its decline isn’t so much due to a need to “make room for new knowledge” in the curriculum. I’m sure it depends on the institution, but my B.S. in Physics was set up as a “core” of 100-200 level classes (mechanics, E&M, some applied math), and the rest was all electives. Many of the electives were shared directly from other departments like Engineering, Astronomy, Chemistry, etc. So, in effect, a Physics student could build their own minor or specialty with electives. I knew people in the program who never took any nuclear/atomic classes, or who never took a circuit class. My “physics department electives” looked like this: ASTR 323 EXTN GALAXIES COSM CHEM 455 PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY PHYS 324 QUANTUM MECHANICS ASTR 322 CONTENT OF GALAXY ASTR 321 SOLAR SYSTEM …and so on. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2009, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-still-only-take-4-years-to-complete-a-physics-degree/496562/64 "2009-05-18T19:10:38Z")
> [@](#): > > So, in effect, a Physics student could build their own minor or specialty with electives. I knew people in the program who never took any nuclear/atomic classes, or who never took a circuit class. In the astronomy program I was in, everyone who had an astronomy major ended up automatically getting a physics minor (I think technically there was one lab that was only needed for the physics minor, not the astronomy major, but they never told us that until after we’d taken it), and we only needed to add three more classes to tack on a math minor, too. We didn’t take (nor really have room for) any chemistry classes, but we really ought to have. ---
**Author:** ![shiftless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9c0ed/32.png) [@shiftless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shiftless)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2009, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-still-only-take-4-years-to-complete-a-physics-degree/496562/65 "2009-05-18T19:46:19Z")
I’m one of those people who got a BS in Physics and no more. A BS is just enough information to start to figure out what branch of Physics one wants to work toward or, as in my case, whether one is capable of going on. Fortunately a BS in Physics requires enough Math so that I was able to get a BS in that too. Another subject where a BS is just the beginning. My art student roommate and my liberal arts major (the term he used) best friend seemed to feel the need to spend a lot of time telling me about how their areas of study were just as difficult as mine. I believe I once saw one of them actually studying a book, so they could be correct. ---
**Author:** ![Kimmy\_Gibbler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Kimmy\_Gibbler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimmy_Gibbler)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2009, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-still-only-take-4-years-to-complete-a-physics-degree/496562/66 "2009-05-18T19:55:35Z")
> [@shiftless](#): > > My art student roommate and my liberal arts major (the term he used) best friend seemed to feel the need to spend a lot of time telling me about how their areas of study were just as difficult as mine. God, I hate it when people constantly carry on about how hard their major was. Especially _years_ after they’ve left college. ---
**Author:** ![Shot\_From\_Guns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2009, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-still-only-take-4-years-to-complete-a-physics-degree/496562/67 "2009-05-18T20:28:04Z")
My two cents… My BA is in English, and I threw in a CompSci minor for “fun.” For me, the programming classes were a refreshing change from my lit ones–I knew when I was done because my code would compile, run, and do what it was supposed to do. With an English paper, there was no real “thank god I’m done” moment, because there was always something else you could do to refine an argument, tweak a thesis, etc. Coming up with an original, arguable thesis for a course in the humanities is, IMO, just as difficult as the work done in the hard sciences–it’s just a _different kind of difficult_, and one that’s much trickier to set a bar for, since it can be so subjective. ---
**Author:** ![GargoyleWB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gargoylewb/32/199_2.png) [@GargoyleWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GargoyleWB)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2009, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-still-only-take-4-years-to-complete-a-physics-degree/496562/68 "2009-05-18T20:36:30Z")
With regard to the difficulty compared to Liberal Arts… In my case, I struggled and got far worse grades in my Liberal Arts reqt’s than I did in Physics/Math classes. Most of these classes required metric tons of writing papers that I am admittedly terrible at. Exposition is not my strong point, I take a “just the facts, ma’am” approach to writing. That approach, when writing a paper on Impacts of Post-Rennaisance Artwork on Modern Women’s Studies earned me poor grades when trying to write in my style (logical and evidentiary) instead of the musing, speculative, conjectural papers that were expected. My roommates were both Political Science majors…that was _hard studying_ in my view, I wouldn’t have traded classes with them for anything. There were many LA electives that I withdrew from, not due to lack of interest or effort, but due to the reading/writing burden and terrible grades (Peruvian Anthropology, and Celtic/Saxon Epic Poetry, among others). In contrast, I aced a fewPhysics and Math classes with almost zero lecture attendance and cursory textbook reads, it just came quickly and naturally to me. ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2009, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-still-only-take-4-years-to-complete-a-physics-degree/496562/69 "2009-05-18T21:51:46Z")
> [@Kimmy\_Gibbler](#): > > God, I hate it when people constantly carry on about how hard their major was. Especially _years_ after they’ve left college. I hate it too, and not just after college. They sell t-shirts at my school in the engineering building sometimes that say “EE is harder than your major” or something like that, and it pisses me off. How much more blatantly boastful can you be? I’m an EE. Not only that, but I’m a damn good writer compared to my classmates, if I do say so myself – I originally planned to major in English – but I couldn’t imagine doing some of the crap the humanities students do. Having to write 4 or 5 20-page papers discussing some obscure political science or philosophy topic just to pass a single class? Not for me. In my experience, the difficulty of a subject is almost entirely due to one’s familiarity and interest in it. Case in point: I knew a woman in the Army who thought I was some kind of genius because I knew calculus. “How can you read that? It’s not even in English!”, she’d say about a math book I had. But this person was the queen of Dungeons and Dragons. I got a hold of one of her Dungeon Master’s guides or whatever they are, and it was almost completely full of incomprehensible gibberish to my eyes! On one page there would be a picture of a gnome or something, and on the next page would be something like this: “+25HP, 12q power, sword of fire, -15QRS, ~45H, ¡16”, just filling up the entire page. I don’t know specifics, but it looked like gobbledygook to me. Anyway, the point is that you can learn almost anything if you are sufficiently interested in it. Obviously math will be hard if you aren’t interested in it. Just like I find D&D completely mystifying. ---
**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2009, 12:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-still-only-take-4-years-to-complete-a-physics-degree/496562/70 "2009-05-19T12:12:36Z")
> [@DrCube](#): > > In my experience, the difficulty of a subject is almost entirely due to one’s familiarity and interest in it. … Anyway, the point is that you can learn almost anything if you are sufficiently interested in it. Obviously math will be hard if you aren’t interested in it. My entire career is based on the presumption that it’s “hard” or “black magic,” when in fact it’s based entirely on logic or common sense (err, common sense based on some foreknowledge, of course). I often forget that when I have to explain something that’s really quite elementary, that the other person didn’t have the interest to learn the details originally, and from his perspective, it’s not really elementary. ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2009, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-still-only-take-4-years-to-complete-a-physics-degree/496562/71 "2009-05-19T13:14:38Z")
> [@BrandonR](#): > > My experience has also shown a large number of engineering types to be terrible at writing. I, on the other hand, have always seemed to excel more at grammar rather than math… Higher SAT score on the verbal than the math section, and I’m still a decent writer. Hopefully that will help me at some point during my engineering career. 🙂 It should. I’m an engineer (currently working as a project manager), and in the course of an average work day, I write far more than I do calculations. Compared to the other engineers around me, I’m definitely an above-average writer. (I also scored slightly higher on the SAT verbal than the math section–though I did well on both.) ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2009, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-still-only-take-4-years-to-complete-a-physics-degree/496562/72 "2009-05-19T13:26:50Z")
> [@Kimmy\_Gibbler](#): > > God, I hate it when people constantly carry on about how hard their major was. Especially _years_ after they’ve left college. Well, I’m very proud of the fact that I completed my B.S. in Chemical Engineering, even ~20 years later. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life, more so than the Navy nuclear power program, and more so than grad school. But I don’t generally carry on about it. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![shiftless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9c0ed/32.png) [@shiftless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shiftless)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2009, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-still-only-take-4-years-to-complete-a-physics-degree/496562/73 "2009-05-19T13:57:18Z")
> [@Kimmy\_Gibbler](#): > > God, I hate it when people constantly carry on about how hard their major was. Especially _years_ after they’ve left college. And here I was trying to follow your cue. ---
**Author:** ![Kimmy\_Gibbler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Kimmy\_Gibbler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimmy_Gibbler)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2009, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-still-only-take-4-years-to-complete-a-physics-degree/496562/74 "2009-05-19T14:15:03Z")
> [@shiftless](#): > > And here I was trying to follow your cue. Golly! Where did I boast about how hard my college concentration was?!? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-it-still-only-take-4-years-to-complete-a-physics-degree/496562.md?page=3)