Tough Majors in India: What Makes Them Hard and Who Succeeds

When people talk about tough majors, academic programs that demand extreme focus, long hours, and high emotional resilience. Also known as high-pressure degrees, they aren’t just hard because of the syllabus—they’re hard because of the system around them. In India, three names come up again and again: engineering, medicine, and Chartered Accountancy. These aren’t just degrees. They’re marathons disguised as education.

Engineering, especially through IIT JEE, tests not just your math skills but your stamina. You’re competing against lakhs of students for a few thousand seats. Medicine isn’t much different—NEET isn’t just an exam, it’s a filter that decides who gets into a life-saving profession. And Chartered Accountancy? It’s not about memorizing rules. It’s about surviving multiple levels of exams, each one harder than the last, while working full-time or juggling coaching classes. These paths don’t reward genius alone. They reward persistence. They reward people who show up even when they’re exhausted.

What makes these majors tougher than others isn’t just the content—it’s the pressure. Family expectations. Social status. The fear of failure. CBSE students, in particular, are trained from early grades to see these paths as the only way to succeed. But here’s the truth: the real challenge doesn’t end when you pass the exam. It begins when you start your first job, internship, or articleship. That’s when you realize how much you still don’t know.

You’ll find posts here that break down exactly what these degrees demand—how many hours students actually study, what salary they can expect after graduation, which coaching centers actually work, and whether you need to be a math whiz to survive. Some of these majors are getting harder. Others are changing fast. And some are no longer the golden tickets they once were. This collection doesn’t just list the toughest paths. It shows you what’s behind the label. What you’ll read isn’t advice from a professor. It’s from students who’ve been there, teachers who’ve seen the burnout, and professionals who know what’s really needed to make it through.