Hi,
I’m a 17-year-old student and I’m deciding what degree to take. I’ve been into the Computer Science and programming world for about a couple of years now and I have always assumed that Computer Science was my go-to choice, however, now I’m considering Physics or Applied Physics for multiple reasons:
- First of all, it interests me.
- Now that I’m still young, I want to explore different fields of study, and Physics is perfect for this as it provides some flexible core foundations that can be applied to a lot of fields (e.g. Critical thinking, strong math, etc). I later can take a Master in something more specialized.
- Computer Science can be much more easily self-taught.
So, considering my situation, my question is if it’s really worth it to study Physics in the long term?
Comments
I am finishing my PhD in physics this semester and have changed my mind on how good a physics degree is in terms of career prospects over time. When I was a physics major in undergrad, I assumed I would be relatively employable by the time I finished my bachelor degree. However, two years into grad school, when I was thinking of doing out, I found that I wasn’t as employable as I had hoped. I knew some programming, but wasn’t nearly as good as a CS major. I had decent numeracy, but not as good as people who had pursued pure math or theoretical physics (I am an experimentalist), and I didn’t have particular data analysis or experimental technique skills to brag about due to the nature of the lab I had joined.
So I think that a physics degree can be great for job prospects if you spend your own effort making sure that you develope marketable skills. A physics curriculum will most likely provide good opportunities for this, but you have to be proactive in seeking these opportunities out and taking them. That being said, a major that aligns with your interests will go a long way to motivating you to do the extra work.
In my case, I switched labs to a more interesting lab that aligned more closely to my interests, developed specific experimental and data analysis skills, and those skills have recently gotten me a job offer that I am quite excited about!
It’s not a very employable degree, as most workplaces are not interested in experimentation and theorization — this is what you actually learn in any pure science discipline.
I’d recommend doing engineering instead. You’ll get to learn a lot of physics but it’ll get you a job on the other side.
You can find hard data here: https://ww3.aip.org/statistics/reports/employment
Anecdotally, my impression is that a physics degree supports a wide variety of jobs, but that you shouldn’t expect to be doing “physics” in them. Your analytical and problem solving skills are the big selling points.
No-one can predict the future. Do what interests you and go from there. You will learn programming in physics, but you won’t learn physics in programming.
Side note, mechanical engineering is basically applied physics, and is sort of the “engineering of everything.” And in a sense, physics is almost applied math.
I’m going to disagree with others and say this is a good idea. My undergrad was mostly physics and now I do ML. A lot of big names in ML/DL started out as physicists (Yann LeCunn, Max Welling…).
IMO physics teaches how to think about problems better than CS in general.
CS grads are ten a penny, and there are going to be fewer junior roles with AI getting better. Theoretical physics (maybe with a CS minor if you can manage it) would make you stand out from the crowd.
Physics in some sense is analogous to pre-med undergraduate degrees. Having only a bachelor’s in physics while not bad, and you can still be hired in industry, isn’t going to land you a job where you actually do physics. For that you will need a PhD and likely a postdoc afterwards.
I’ve heard stories of people with only a bachelor’s finding the job market difficult because employers don’t necessarily recognize their skill set compared to say an engineer. You therefore have a little bit of an uphill battle to “explain yourself” to employers even though your technical skills make you fully qualified.
Have you considered double majoring in computer science and physics? That kind of background gives you a wide range of directions to go after your undergraduate is complete. You then have a lot of options of whether to continue your education or head into industry.
The primary difference between applied physics and physics in programs I’m familiar with is that the applied physics folks don’t take some of the advanced theoretical courses like second semester of quantum mechanics. I think this is fine if you’re going more toward a practical engineering direction. But if you want to go into something like quantum computing then applied physics isn’t a good choice.
Anecdotes I know don’t count for much, but every person I’ve known who got a physics degree ended up working in random unrelated jobs and regretted pursuing it. This includes people who got their masters. I think it would be much more prudent to look at other majors that are more employable but still has physics classes as part of the curriculum.
>Computer Science can be much more easily self-taught.
As a computer science grad and professor, I’m not sure that’s true. Yes, you can learn programming on your own, but there is a lot more than the basics of programming in a CS degree, such as design, algorithms, complexity, team projects, mentoring, and research opportunities.
I’m not saying you should major in CS, just that you should make sure you understand what you would get from a CS degree before making a decision.
Getting an undergraduate degree in physics is a great option, as it will equip you with the computational and modeling skills needed to succeed in a huge variety of fields, including but not limited to mechanical, aerospace, civil, structural, geotechnical, electrical, electronic and computer engineering, economics, chemistry, and finance. But, transitioning into any of these fields from physics will require a little bit of additional effort on your part to learn the information not provided to you in your physics education.
I have a BS and PhD in physics. Anecdotally, all of my friends from my undergraduate and graduate programs are employed in what I would consider good jobs. Aside from academia (which is where I am), I have friends working at Google, Intel, Boeing, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, SpaceX, Tesla, Microsoft, Meta, as well as a few friends that are indepnedently wealthy due to some strategic investments in crypto.