April 18, 2003
A: FROM MENTOR JOAN LUSK IN RI
For the same level of education (bachelors, masters or doctoral
degree), the average time is the same (bachelors) or less (graduate
degrees) for science fields than for humanities and social science.
At least part of the difference can be explained by better funding:
science graduate students generally are funded during the summer to
work on the research for their dissertations, while humanities
students may be flipping burgers. Part of the difference may also
come from closer attention from advisors: when the grad student's
research will result in co-authored papers and the completion of work
on the advisor's grant, then the advisor has a personal stake in the
student's success. In the humanities, grad student tend to work on
independent projects and their advisors' careers are not so dependent
on the students' success. Humanties PhD's take a couple of years
longer, on average, than science PhD's.

Education in any field is a slow process, and we've produced more and
more knowledge for the next generations to assimilate. Fortunately,
in science the new knowledge often explains and organizes more
phenomena with fewer principles - if you go back to chemistry in the
19th century there was less known but so much less understood that
learning it must have been harder. Of course, as my thesis advisor
told me, "All the easy experiments have been done," meaning that new
knowledge is always hard-won.
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A: FROM MENOR NICOLE O'HARA IN NJ
It's not impossible to get out of college on time with these majors. However, many schools design their programs to keep people for longer than four years (it makes sense - for money and simply because they are tough majors). Majors like biology, math, chemistry are fairly easy to get done in four years. I think the more common longer majors are things like engineering, biotechnology. biochemistry, molecular biology. Look into the programs of schools that you are interested in, and determine which science/math etc classes youre going to have to double up in every year, in order to get out on time.
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A: FROM MENTOR MOLLY WILLIAMS IN MI
Most academic bachelor's degree programs can be completed in 4
years. However, there are several reasons why most students take
closer to 5 years. First, many college students work part time in
order to cover their expenses. That means that they don't have the
time to take a full academic load. If they take fewer courses each
semester, it takes more semesters to complete the degree program.
Also, if students don't have a secure enough background in
mathematics, they might need to take a pre-calculus course before
they enroll in college calculus. That situation delays their entry
into other science and engineering courses, so it takes longer to
finish. It's possible to complete a science or engineering degree
in four years, but only if you can take a full academic load
(meaning your "full time" occupation is taking classes and studying)
and you don't need to take any extra foundation courses in
mathematics or science prior to beginning the academic program.