I'm basically wondering what kind of jobs I can get with a major in physics/engineering. Preferably physics. Assume I go higher education, at least a masters. I basically want something that will allow me to live comfortably, not filthy rich (although it doesn't hurt). I also don't want to spend a majority of my life at work. Anything?
Physics Major?
- Thread starter corpseofworms
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Teaching, meterology (sp?), astronomy, research w/ just physics. With engineering, anything is possible; design (ICs for AMD maybe?), of course teach, research materials and how to apply them.
That's what I'm hoping to do anyway; I'm double majoring in EE and physics.
That's what I'm hoping to do anyway; I'm double majoring in EE and physics.
If you go physics, you really need to go all the way through PhD or get a graduate degree in Engineering to really do much IMO. I basically agree with what bobsmith said. Disclosure: EE major (2 more weeks!), Physics minor.
I definitely don't want to teach. Can you really get a decent job in astronomy? I've always liked that stuff.
Astronomy is normally a graduate level program. The stuff they do is far different from doing backyard astronomy BTW, so keeping astronomy as a hobby is the way to go for 99% of astronomy fans.
Being a physics major myself (Citadel '99) I kind of realized around my junior year that the options in physics and jobs after graduation are pretty limited especially since the undergrad stuff isn't specialized enough. Currently, I don't even use much of what I learned. I'm a project estimator for a steel fabricator and the math used for that is simple geometry and a bit of algebra. If you do the physics degree you'll have a very strong math based degree and could easily go for your engineering degree later on or double major. My roomate (also physics) did the double major thing and kocked out both course requirements for the math at the same time since the requirements were the same. LOTS of hours per semester though. I was doing close to 20 hours and he had to on several occasions have the dean's permission for 22+hour loads.
It's a good major. You won't being living too terribly comfortably out of school, but you'll have a strong foundation of knowledge to work off of. Sidenote, I HATED my electronics class.
It's a good major. You won't being living too terribly comfortably out of school, but you'll have a strong foundation of knowledge to work off of. Sidenote, I HATED my electronics class.
I stated that I intend to go further than undergrad, so that isn't an issue. And I didn't mean things like stargazing. To give you an idea of the stuff I'm more interested in, I really enjoyed studying the fusion reactions in stars and things like that.
Not to be a pessimist, but you might want to look into a business degree with a math minor. You'll come out of undergrad and earn some decent money, enough so that you can afford to put yourself through grad school. I was a hard science major until I realized my options would be so limited and I'd be mostly broke, so I went the route of a BBA in Economics with a whole lot of math credits that didn't add up to a minor (too much statistics, didn't count). I'm a bit over a year out and am making enough that I can afford to live comfortably and go back to school at night. You could always minor in physics instead of math if that's what you like. It'll make your life a lot easier if you can come out of undergrad with good earning potential.
Or, take your second option, and go the engineering route. You'd see a good starting salary with mech/chem/electrical eng, once again enabling you to pursue a graduate degree of your choice.
I'm not trying to tell you what to do, nor am I trying to bash on programs/majors/careers. I'm just laying out my own situation and how it's working out so far.
By the way, career questions are often asked in the Fatwallet Finance forum. Check it out, there's a lot of good stuff there.
Or, take your second option, and go the engineering route. You'd see a good starting salary with mech/chem/electrical eng, once again enabling you to pursue a graduate degree of your choice.
I'm not trying to tell you what to do, nor am I trying to bash on programs/majors/careers. I'm just laying out my own situation and how it's working out so far.
By the way, career questions are often asked in the Fatwallet Finance forum. Check it out, there's a lot of good stuff there.
The problem with this reasoning is that in most sciences/engineering, if you are a reasonbly good student and willing to put out some effort you can get your graduate degree paid for by the school or some other entity (NSF, DOD, etc.) while earning enough to on live as a stipend. Anyway, you will earn more out of school as an engineer than as a business major.
There is a surprisingly small percentage of college graduates that are presently working in their field of study. What is more important than the knowledge you have garnered is what you can do with it. I know an archeologist that is the director of maintenance of an airline. Personally I advocate a complete change of your field of endeaver about every ten years and never stop learning.
What he said. I was BioChem major, and intended to go to grad school for toxicology or hit med school.
I was burned out after bustin my hump with the insane work load, and forgot about grad school for the time being. Now I'm an IT. Living comfortably, facing new challenges every day, and doing one of the things I love. I have a A+, CCNA, and MCSE certs now and am probably taking the Linux+ later this year.
My interneship also turned me off. You'll think computer geeks are cool after spending 8 hours a day in a lab with chemists.
i'm a physics major, switched to physics/math cause its actually an easier program at my university, its a nice degree, well rounded with a lot of math (only math majors take more maths), we had a course at the end on a variety of stuff, I know in Canada that physics grads entering the workplace make about 35-50k (CAN) starting, to continue in physics though you'll will have to do grad work, I'm thinking of just doing a law degree afterwords though I might need a masters for that
I myself am a Math/Physics double major.I have studied Combintorial Optimization as an undergrad and plan on continuing along that path during grad school.With this I could work on any number or scientific comptuing applications,high-performance databases, scheduling applications ( i.e predictions within the scalar pipeline of a cpu) or as a fall back I could work desiging scheduling software ( scheduling as in crew or nurses schedule).I plan on doing research and teaching however.A tenured professor makes more than enough money for me and consulting will provide extra.I also am thinking about learning more about biostatistics that way I can apply what I know about graph theory toward machine learning toward bioinformatics.
If you do go phyics consider looking at bio-physics with an emphasis toward healthcare.With the undergrad degree and two years of grad school you can pull in 90k.
I would consider developing skill that will allow you to do work outside of the field of phyics for instance if you learned a good deal of linux you could do computational physics but at the same time have a fallback.
I myself have no backup that way I have to succeed in my field
If you do go phyics consider looking at bio-physics with an emphasis toward healthcare.With the undergrad degree and two years of grad school you can pull in 90k.
I would consider developing skill that will allow you to do work outside of the field of phyics for instance if you learned a good deal of linux you could do computational physics but at the same time have a fallback.
I myself have no backup that way I have to succeed in my field
its also going to depend a lot on where you want to live.
One nice thing about engineering is that its very broad, you can work in many different kinds of places with just one kind of degree. Like most of said, to do anything with physics your going to have to go all the way, masters or heigher.
Where i live i just graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering and am making a little less than 50k a year
One nice thing about engineering is that its very broad, you can work in many different kinds of places with just one kind of degree. Like most of said, to do anything with physics your going to have to go all the way, masters or heigher.
Where i live i just graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering and am making a little less than 50k a year
agreed, physics and math are two fields that anyone can match if the physics major only has a bachelors. you get up to calc IV, algorithms, and statistics in math, and only some unified theories and junk in physics. It's the graduate works where you get the applied stuff in that sets you apart from the kid who took three years of math along with his theater degree. lol. GL
I've got a PhD in physics. My graduate school classmates ended up in a variety of areas, including some that are physics based like GPS systems while others went to Wall Street to work as quantitative analysts (go read Dermot's My Life as a Quant if this appeals to you as he did the physics PhD to quant transition and became one of the best known people in his new field.)
However, I want to second eigen's recommendations. Biology is the science of the 21st century; it's where most of the interesting discoveries and applications are going to come from. You can get a well paying job doing interesting science with a graduate degree in biophysics or medical physics.
at my university, there are 260 biology students, 20 chem, 15 physics, almost all of those biology majors don't do grad but still, there will always be demand for graduate-level physics students, seems like biology will have more compeitition
plus biology means having to do upper year chemistry usually, we have 4-5 courses with 6 hours labs and the rest are 3 hours
plus biology means having to do upper year chemistry usually, we have 4-5 courses with 6 hours labs and the rest are 3 hours
im in my seccond year as a physics major w/ math and comp sci minors. i was just wondering myself about jobs outside of college. so i went on monster.com (a job search site) and made a resume with exactly what i will have when im done with my undergrad degree. that was on thursday and i have gotten 7 emails 2 offering ~80k usd to start and 5 offering 100-150k to start. im not planning on using much of the physics i learn in my careers but i think the idea of walking into an interview and bringing a physics PhD to the table is a BIG plus. unless you want to teach tho i have been told there arnt many jobs that are purely physics.
Buddy of mine got his doctorate in Physics from UF a few years back. Working in OR for Intel now....
I know a guy who has a Bachelor's degree in physics, who has made a career in risk analysis is the credit card industry; He's doing very well at the VP level now. The discipline learned earning a math, science, or engineering degree can be beneficial in many fields. Don't neglect communications and social skills though.
You can scare pretty much anyone (except Math people) into giving you a big salary with a Degree in Physics.
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