OT: Hardest class at U-M?

Acc 625 - Advanced Accounting.  We had a ball-breaker of a mid-term and the funniest thing is that there was 1 really complex problem that everyone in the class got wrong. 

So when we got the exams back, the prof. (a very well known and smart dude) was solving it on the board and half way thru it he stopped and stared at it and said his answer was wrong and was too tough to complete.

Echo Econ 401.  Got about 55% on the final and a B+.  Stoked!

Before clicking on the thread my first thought was ME 240. But I have to say it was Orgo 1 (don't remember the class number). That was awful.

EDIT: My wife says genetics also sucked donkey nuts.

ChE 360 (lab 1).  I think this course has been revised significantly from when I took it in the late 90s, but you worked your ass off for a B in this course.  We did 1 calibration report and 3 full reports, and think the semester before did 1 and 4.  The full reports are 20+-page technical reports with lit search, backgrounds, and full data analysis with charts/graphs.  Forced lab partners means one of your partners will either be dropping out for LSA or going through some mental crisis and never show up for meetings.

I really hated the group projects with forced partners all throughout undergrad -- I think the idea is that "well, you're going to have to work as a team on the job, and you won't get to choose your partners" which is BS because you're not going to be working with people you hardly know while under that much time pressure.

ChE 528 taught by Fogler.  Fogler was on sabbatical when I took 344 in undergrad.  Got him in grad school, though, and the struggle is real.  Great course and I learned a lot, but the workload is extreme.  It's like he doesn't even realize you're taking three other courses at the same time.  We used an ODE solver called Polymath at the time, and the syntax/debugging was so frustrating at times -- so much time wasted just trying to get Polymath to work.

Other courses were plenty difficult, but these two stood out for me.  It's usually not one course by itself, but the accumulated workload of four courses at a time that can just crush you.

Greek

Geology grad:  toughest class was "HETEROGENEOUS PHASE EQUILIBRIA", taught by the late-great Eric Essene!

THEORY 532 Schenkerian Theory and Analysis II: esoteric music theory focused on reducing entire movements of Beethoven symphonies into various levels of voice-leading graphs. I liked learning a more linear-based approach to harmony, but trying to apply the same basic Schenkerian prototype model to EVERY single piece felt weird after a while, plus trying to remember all of the German names for the different features and procedures was difficult. It didn't help that on the last day the professor basically said that Schenker wasn't in fashion anymore and that anyone who used his methods as their cheif analytical framework was probably going to face career setbacks.

Ugh. This is such a Michigan thread - everyone humblebragging about how difficult their classes were as if the difficulty itself was some sort of accomplishment.

I tricked myself into taking "Spies, Sci-Fi, and Looney Toons" my first semester freshman year (as an engineering student). How could that not be an awesome class? Turns out it was about McArthy-ism and cold war culture. It was not awesome. At least it counted as a cognate.

Not at UM but Calc I and II for me. Got a B+ in Trig...failed Calc I twice, got a C the third time. Currently in Calc II and hoping for a C. Just doesn't click for me. I know how to draw the squiggly line...so I have that going for me. 

One of my NERS classes in grad school, can't remember the number but it was one of the rotating topic classes. The semester I took it, it was Stochastic Processes. Though I ended up getting an A (which I have no idea how that happened), each day I showed up for the class I sat there dumbfounded as to what was going on. Basically, it was really, really theoretical multivariable calculus.

I went through the engineering program in the 90s and can also suggest engineering classes as the hardest at UM. However, it seemed like the ChemE majors had it the worst, so I will go with whatever ChemE majors consider the toughest in their curriculum.