The graph, arranged descendingly from the perceived “hardest” majors, indicates that students find Engineering and Chemistry to be the hardest majors: and among these majors, as well as in Physics and Astronomy, the percentage of students in that major that perceive it as such is more than 25% higher. However, while most majors are also perceived as a bit more difficult by students enrolled in them than they are by the general populace, and a few majors like Native American Studies are considered vastly so, several actually rank lower among students involved with those departments: with 3.4% of students suggesting that Neuroscience is the most difficult, and not a single Neuro major ranking it as such.

The data for my visualization is courtesy of Dartmouth Pulse, which collected the data as part of the “Top Five” survey. There were a bit more than 500 respondents, and the data was kept anonymous. I have Terren Klein of Pulse to thank for being willing to share the complete data set with me, upon my inquiry.