Academic terror Memes

The hierarchy of scientific terror is beautifully captured here. Biologists are losing their minds over calculus while physicists just sip their coffee with that smug "I use calculus to calculate my breakfast" expression. Nothing strikes fear into the heart of a biology major quite like seeing dy/dx on an exam. Meanwhile, physicists are over there treating differential equations like they're just spicy arithmetic. The true horror isn't the monster—it's realizing you picked the wrong science major when that first partial derivative shows up.

The horror story in two integrals! The top one (∫1/x⁵ dx) is actually quite friendly—it's a basic power rule integration that gives you -1/(4x⁴) + C. But add that innocent little "+1" to the denominator, and suddenly you're staring into the mathematical abyss. That bottom integral (∫1/(x⁵+1) dx) has no elementary antiderivative. It requires special functions or numerical methods to solve. The face of pure dread in the second panel perfectly captures the moment when you realize your homework just went from "I'll finish this before coffee" to "I need to reconsider my life choices."