Physics Buzz

We ask a lot of 18-year-old students. Upon entering college, students weigh advice and expectations from parents, teachers, and administrators when choosing a major to study for the next few years. On top of that, they're supposed to decide as quickly as possible, ideally before the end of the first semester. For a "major" life decision, that's not a lot of time to weigh the options. Over the past few decades, a growing body of research has been teasing apart the reasons why people choose certain majors. Career prospects and financial concerns have emerged as some of the defining criteria for this decision, as you might expect. However, new research has identified a different deciding factor: the instructors of introductory courses. A 2008 physics demo from Snead State Community College. Image Credit: Larry Miller

The peak of summer has passed, and many students are slowly turning their minds to the upcoming school year. As back to school specials start hitting stores, many prospective students are hitting the books for graduate school entrance exams or poring over their scores from spring tests. The most pervasive general graduate school exam in the U.S., the GRE , recently released its scoring data for the 1.5 years since a major overhaul of the test in late 2011. Within the dataset, the ETS has grouped average scores by the test-takers' intended graduate major, inevitably contributing to the bragging rights of "major" elitists. So which majors reign supreme on the GREs? Let's have a look at the data for the test's three main sections: verbal, quantitative, and analytical writing. Verbal Reasoning The verbal section measures a student's critical thinking ability, reading comprehension, and vocabulary mastery through a series of multiple choice questions. The q

Anecdotally, science majors such as chemists and physicists tend to gripe about having the hardest majors throughout college. Although "hardest major" rankings may be fairly subjective, new survey data suggest physics majors have the 2nd most demanding major. According to a survey of hundreds of thousands of college students in the U.S. and Canada, 36 percent of physics seniors spend 21+ hours preparing for class every week. Only one other group out-studied the physics majors: engineering students. 42 percent of engineering seniors devoted 21 or more hours to studying every week. Researchers behind the National Survey of Student Engagement compiled responses from college seniors on a battery of questions covering their academic experience. Aside from confirming the fairly demanding nature of a physics degree, the study revealed a number of other interesting comparisons among majors.