Advice for an Aspiring Physicist?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Soon (within the next few months) college applications will be going out, and I’ve been thinking about my future careers. The one I’m most attracted to at the moment is physics, which suprised my family. It’s an area I’m highly interested in, and pretty good at (so far.)

What kinds of things should I consider in making my decision? What would I have in store for me in terms of math (I’m an overall excellent student with a slight weakness in math (as in, taking AB calculus next year instead of BC.))?

What kind of career would I have (ie: job security, salary, day at the office, etc.)?
What are some American colleges and universities (non-tech schools) with good physics programs?
What subdivisions are considered most promising?
How competetive is the field?

I’m sure I’ll think of more questions. I’ll post them as they come to me, assuming that I get some answers to these ones.

Note: I already looked at this site: http://stats.bls.gov/oco/ocos052.htm
but I want more in depth info.

2

In terms of career, don’t worry about it. With a physics degree there’s a huge range of jobs available, not all in physics. Many technical jobs look for people with physics degrees, even if they have no prior experience in the subject. Or at least that’s the way it is in Britain, I assume it’s similar in America. If you want to actually go into physics research my impression of it is that it’s not that well paid and somewhat difficult to get into initially. If you really want to do it don’t let that put you off - I want to go into physics research myself - but you should want to do it for the job, not for the benefits of the job (though obviously having sufficient money to live on is a plus. :))

A question for you. You say you have a slight weakness in math… How slight? Because, as a mathematician, the number of scientists I have to help out that “love physics, but can’t handle the maths” is infuriating (ok. To be honest I don’t know that many, though I do know more who can’t handle the math and thus can’t handle the physics). You don’t have to be a maths genius to do physics, but if you’re bad at math you can’t do the physics. General physical ideas can be explained without too much math, but you can’t do actual physics without it.

3

Yeah, I’d second what Kitarak said, and I am a physicist :).

Job security is good, as are prospects to begin with. Salary is probably dependant on your field - I can’t speak for the USA, being British.

Promising subdivisions (that I know of) are condensed matter physics and soft condensed matter physics (basically biological physics - very interesting at the moment, says the astronomer :)).

The weakness in maths may well be a problem, but only really if you want to do something highly theoretical. I’ve survived four years of a tough physics degree without being a mathematical genius. Though it does help to be good at maths, its not the biggest disadvantage, especially if you want to do experimental stuff (in which case do lots of statistics courses - they will help a great deal).

Like Kitarak says you can explain physical concepts without maths, but not do much without it. I’d invest in a really good maths textbook. I can only really reccomend UK books, but feel free to email/ICQ me if you want more info.

4

Well, I don’t know what this will mean to you Brits, but I got a 670 (out of 800) on the math part of the Scholastic Aptitude Test, which put me in the 91st percentile. Basically my weakness is not excelling in it to the same extent that I do in other subjects.

Next year I’ll be taking Advanced Placement AB Calculus (the second hardest math offered in my school.)
I’ll also be taking Advanced Placement Physics C, which is a college level calculus based physics class. So those will help me to guage if I can handle it.

What do biological phyicists do?

5

My advice to you is to do well in your AP class and still take the introductory physics courses offered at whatever university you go to. Why? First, if you’re really good in physics, then you should be able to do well in college-level intro classes, increasing your chances of getting an A in them (which are like manna from heaven when it’s your first year and you don’t know what the hell is going on).

Second, I don’t care what high school you go to, those AP classes typically don’t go into the same depth as a real college class. I hadn’t taken calculus in high school, so I was suprised to find myself doing much better than my college classmates who had taken AP calculus in high school. They thought they had that calc stuff in the bag, but they were sadly mistaken. So I recommend using the AP class just as a pre-introduction, just to get your feet wet. You’ll have an advantage over those students who won’t have taken an AP physics in high school, but you won’t be short-changing yourself either.

Physics is mathematical and very calculus-heavy. It seems like you have mathematicals skills but you’re just intimidated. Perhaps you will snap out of it once you see what it’s all about.

I went to a university where physics was taken very seriously. Engineering schools typically have very strong physics departments. I would look at places like these. Good luck!

6

Well, IANAP, but I know a buunch of PHD’s in the field and have talked to them about this issue. They all basically said that math drives physics and to be decent in physics you had to get the fundamentals of math down pat. At the same time this people thought that Calc was a pre-fundamental math subject.

As far as jobs go, it depends on how far you want to go in school. All the people I know got PHD’s with a 3.9 or 4.0 GPA[#1] and most of them worked for National Labs doing high level Nuclear or Astrophysics reseach. They made, and this was a while ago, 90,000 a year or so minumum. They worked 9 to 5, had good vaction time and did alot of traveling on the job[#2]. But they also spent a couple of hours a night working on job related stuff.

As far as the competion goes see #1. below.

Slee

#1. My Dad, PHD in Math who ran a nuclear reactor research division at the time, was looking over resumes in his study. There was a trashcan at his side filled with resumes and 4 or 5 sitting on his desk. I walked in and he tossed another into the can then picked up another resume for maybe 3 seconds then added it to the growing pile in the can. I asked him how he judged the resume so quickly. His answer was “He only had a 3.9 GPA”.

#2. My Dad traveled every other week or so for years. I remember one week when he flew to Washington from Albuquerque and back three times. A couple of years ago he and my Mom were going to Bali. I asked him why they chose Bali. My Dad responded “Well, the flight is free, the hotel is free and the rental car is free so we decided that the price is right”. Six years after he retired he was just spending the last of the frequent flier miles he got while on the job. Frequent flier miles can be your friend.

7

Hey, cool topic…I’m heading off in September to start my undergrad studies at university. Am strongly leaning towards physics as a major. Have really enjoyed my maths and physics in college so far (though my study habits could improve; can I blame SDMB for the time wasted? Nope, won’t fly, darn…)

I think I’ll check back into this thread and see what advice is given, especially if it has anything to do with what a person should take, specifically, when they like science/physics in general but aren’t sure what details specifically. (I note one similar post above.)

Oh, and Qwertyasdfg, what is it with (aspiring) physicists and keyboard screennames? My friend from phys this year who wants to go into engineering has “asdf” as one of his Net names. He’s one of the most insanely curious people I’ve ever met…a geek with a personality you might say. :slight_smile:

8

This is like an AA meeting.
My name is CalMeacham and I am a Physicist.
My $0.02 – Math is essential to good physics, innovative physics, and to any engineering you end up doing. OTOH, I know some physicists/engineers who have impressive intuitive skills and the ability to estimate with great accuracy in place of being very very good at math. But they’re all at least good at math.

Physics will serve you well in a lot of non-physics jobs – engineering, chemistry, analysis for business or other. Even the logical thinking and ability to research effectively will help if you go into a very non-physics career.

I’ve held research , teaching, and engineering jobs myself.

(CalMeacham, a graduate of the Barbizon School opf Physics – “Be a Physicist, or Look just like One.”)

9

I can only relate my own experience.

Background: Three years ago, I went back to school to finish my high school courses. I finished in the mid-90’s for all of my math and physics courses (actually, all of my courses, but I especially enjoyed physics, and found it effortless). And this is despite having a car accident, surgery, and giving birth while doing my courses.

I just finished my first - and only - year as a physics major. And it was the math courses that killed me. I wound up with a “B” in all of my math courses, but because the work was so consuming, I decided to quit.

I just don’t know. I had one math teacher call me “mathematically gifted”, and all of them seemed to think I did quite well (and two of the courses I did had a nearly 50% fail rate). I came to the conclusion that I can keep my 90% + average only if I take one math course at a time, which was impossible in my physics program.

I spent my entire first year totally freaked out, and studying math non-stop. I decided I did not want to spend my next three years doing the same. Somewhere in my second semester, I started internally screaming “NO MORE CALCULUS!!!”, and once I decided to change majors, I felt a tonne of weight off of my shoulders.

Of course, you also have to bear in mind that I am a 30 year mother of four. I felt like I could probably have managed it if I didn’t have so many other responsibilities in my life. I honestly enjoy physics, and strangely enough, I enjoy math. I would take those courses for fun once the kids are grown. But the pressure of doing the courses when math is a weak subject for me was too much.

YMMV

10

Very much agreed.

I struggled with the Math all the way through, finally maxing out at Fourier/Laplace transforms - I took the class twice, making no better than a D. Fortunately, it was enough for me to graduate with a physics B.A. Even though the math was maddening, I stuck it out so long because I couldn’t think of anything I’d rather learn than physics. :shrug:

May I strongly suggest taking a science writing class, if it’s offered? I found it very a valuable experience, and there’s always a need for people who can understand hard science and translate it into plain English.

11

B.S Physics here. The math was very difficult, but sometimes it’s just what happens to click correctly with your brain. I found entry level physics to be the easy as pie, but higher level mechanics were very tough for me. I even did well in Complex Calculus (the highest math I had to take), but other maths didn’t work well for me.

I found that I got into trouble when the answers to the problems became formulas rather than numbers. I couldn’t visualize the answer anymore, and it just killed me. Low level and high level Physics are very different animals.

I decided that higher level Physics was out of my league, so went to Finance in grad school. I tell ya, the problem solving and math skills I got in Physics have served me very well.

12

Physics postdoc checking in. Physics can be a great career, but only if you (duh) really like physics. The average work day is very interesting and challenging, the hours are flexible but can be long, the pay is often lower than other jobs with equivalent training, and the people are often badly dressed.

There are multiple avenues:

  1. Academia: after your PhD, you complete one or two postdoc positions (research positions lasting 2-3 years), then a professorship at a university, where you spend the next 5-7 years working to get tenure. It’s a lot of work (it takes many days of long hours to get tenure), but probably the best work environment, for the worst pay.

  2. National lab: similar to academia, except you don’t teach. A permanent career may be easier than tenure, but your research has to be compatible with the lab’s mission and funding. The pay is much higher than academia, almost at industry levels. (This is my current career goal.)

  3. Industry research: after your PhD, you do research for a company. The pay is great, but you work for a company, with all the bullshit that entails. You have much less control over what you research, but the pay is usually very good.

  4. Something else: there are fields (e.g. finance, consulting) which will hire physics PhDs with no background in their area and train them. Having a PhD in physics usually means you have learned to pick up new things quickly and are good at solving problems. I know several people who have left physics to make big bucks on Wall St.

Some of these paths are very competitive, but you will definitely get a good job in at least one of them, once you have a PhD.

But, this is all very premature. First, you should take some college physics and see if that’s what you like. Typically, the first two years are not representative, as they are required for other fields and/or used a weed-out courses. They may not be as well-taught as the upper level classes for physics majors. As already mentioned, being good at math is important. You sound worried about your math skills based on your high school AP courses. Don’t stress about it yet – take college calculus classes and see how you do.

If you decide to study physics, and plan to go to graduate school, let me offer the single most important advice: learn as much physics as you can in undergrad. This sounds dumb but it isn’t. Typically, in undergrad, trying to get good grades takes up so much of your time that you don’t have extra to really understand the physics. You learn how to solve problems, which is useful but not the same thing. Also, undergrads are often too intimidated to ask questions in class. Ask questions, no matter how dumb. Go to office hours and ask more questions. Read the book. Try to understand what is going on physically, as well as how to do calculations. The sooner you do this, the easier things will get and you will quickly distinguish yourself from your classmates.

Finally, don’t get discouraged. If you don’t feel like you know anything, you’re OK. Most early grad students still don’t know anything, really. It takes time to understand.

What schools are you considering? There are many good schools for physics, depending on what part of the country you want to be in.

13

Just a lousy first year grad student here, but I’ll throw in my bit…

As others have already amply said, while you don’t have to like math (I personally hated pretty much all of my pure math courses), you do have to be very good at it. I wouldn’t worry too much about things yet, though; it’s a little too early for you to be making decisions about your major based on the math you’ve had. Also, you shouldn’t be too worried if you don’t “understand” things in your early (college-level) math and physics classes. Most people who do well in those classes have just learned the tricks and don’t necessarily have any intuitive understanding of the material (as I’ve observed quite a bit with students I’ve taught in intro classes). I did well in my first few calculus classes, but I only felt like I was beginning to “understand” derivatives and integrals and so on after using the material in my physics classes. Similarly, one tends to “get” the material of a physics class when one sees it in the next level class or in a research application (e.g. things from introductory E&M didn’t really fall into place for me until I took the intermediate classes; I only began to see quantum mechanics cohesively and intuitively when I took the graduate QM sequence; and so on).

Also, as Giraffe said, the first few physics courses really aren’t going to tell you what it’s like to “do” physics. Hence, my personal number one piece of advice to everyone starting college and considering the sciences (a little early for Qwertyasdfg perhaps, but not for Nenya_Elizabeth) is to get involved in research as early as possible, and to feel free to switch around between research groups and areas. Even if you’re just doing rote data crunching to begin with, it’ll give you a much better feel for doing science than any of your classes will. Also, there’s the benefit of building up contacts and potential graduate school recommenders.

Other than that, I’ll second Giraffe’s suggestion about taking as much undergrad physics as possible; the more chances you get to practice those analytical skills, the better.

14

Reaches: Columbia University, Swarthmore College, University of Chicago
Mid-range: Tufts University, Brandeis, Boston University, UC Berkley (maybe)
Safes: State University of New York at (SUNY) Binghamton, SUNY Stony Brook
Of course, this is subject to change.

Note, there are no tech schools on there because if I were to change my mind about science (I’ve heard that like 50% do nowadays), I want to be able to just change my major, not my school.

Drewbert: I’m a good writer. Thanks for the tip; I’ll look into that.
Nenya_Elizabeth: I picked this name before I knew I wanted to be a physicist, and before I even realized how addictive the SDMB is.

I’ve heard that particle physicists are the “rockstars of physics.” True?

And again, what to bio-physicists do?

Thanks for the great advice everyone, keep it coming!

15

As far as I’m aware, and I am not a bio-physicist (Won’t touch the stuff with a barge pole, give me good old astrophysics any day of the week!!), bio-physics deals with a lot of the “hot topics” in physics at the moment. Its basically working at the physics/biology interface, with lots of stuff on applying condensed matter physics to biological systems. Take a look at this for more information (shameless plug of own school :slight_smile: )

Hope that’s useful. Sounds like you’ll be OK on the maths, I don’t know a lot about how the American grading/school system works, but if you can do the college level calculus class, you’ll be sailing, since I dout if it’ll get any harder. I learnt 90% of all the maths I needed for my degree in the two maths courses I had to do in my first and 2nd year. The other 10% was basic differential geometry, which I was taught just this year (in my final year), for an optional course on general relativity (which I did farily well on, despite my professed lack of mathematical ability!!)

Hope its all useful

16

:wally “dout” should be doubt… I blame my SO, he spilt water on my keyboard this morning… :rolleyes:

17

Of all the schools you listed, U.C. Berkeley probably has the best physics department. Other highly ranked schools for physics are MIT, Stanford, Caltech, Princeton, Harvard, Cornell, and more that I’ve probably forgotten. Columbia and University of Chicago are also very good. I don’t know much about any of the others. I think Stony Brook is good as well.

Particle physicists are not the rock stars of physics. Some of them think they are, though.

In my opinion, the most exciting and upcoming fields are condensed matter (my field) and biological physics. Condensed matter concerns itself with matter in the liquid and solid states, usually in regimes where quantum mechanics plays a dominant role, e.g. superconductivity, superfluidity, Bose condensates, semiconductors. Biological physics is mostly the physics of organic molecules and proteins, and how they interact with each other and with their environment. It’s sort of a hybrid between chemistry, biology and physics.

I personally find high energy and astrophysics somewhat dull. Also, if you do experimental physics, those fields tend toward much larger scale projects, which limits the degree to which you can just tinker around. (I do theory, so I can’t actually use that as an excuse – I just think they’re boring.)

Also, to clarify my earlier post: my advice is not necessarily to take as many physics courses as possible, but instead to prioritize (as much as possible) learning the concepts and developing physical intuition over simply doing the problems and getting good grades. For the record, I only focused on getting my work done in undergrad, and sometimes not even that. But later I only wished I’d learned more, not that I got better grades. Once you get accepted to grad school, your undergraduate grades never matter again.

18

I’ve heard that particle physicists are the “rockstars of physics.” True?
In the sense that they often get more credit than equally or more talented studio musicians, yeah. There are some fields that just sound better. You have to admit, Astrophysicist sounds way cool. But as Giraffe says, you cannot judge from the titles. I have known people doing graduate studies in these fields and their physics was pretty simple-minded. That of course is not true of everyone, I’m still pretty impressed with someone who’s good at GR.

You are still some time away from choosing a field, but now is probably a good time to start thinking about it. An important consideration is to choose a field that has the type of physics you are interested in - QM, GR, Stat Mech or a combination rather than solely what sounds cool. I wish I had been more open-minded like this in undergrad, I would have learned a lot more. You can find some excellent physics in unlikely sounding work, eg. computational fluid dynamics.

I am a couple months away from a Phd in physics. I also do theoretical condensed matter. It is basically all advanced QM so if you find you like that kind of stuff, it is a great field. There are also lots of jobs in it.

I did my Msc in biophysics. To give you an idea of what they do, I was modelling Ion Channels - pores in membranes that allow ions to travel between cells - a very important research field for cystic fibrosis. I was mainly doing Stat Mech. A number of my friends on the more experimental side were doing NMR studies of these channels.

There have been some excellent recommendations on how to approach your undergrad studies, I’ll add another one:

Develop your computer skills. I’m not sure how good your generation is with them, mine was still pretty shaky, but learn a couple of programming languages and some mathematical software such as Maple or Mathematica. You will find these very valuble for assignments and future research.

Much of the physics done now is very computer intensive, I spend half my time coding various equations I derive. My personal preference is FORTRAN, it is still the best language for number crunching. Though industry looks more favourably on C++.

19

Balduran: I’m not sure what some of your abbreviations are.
GR = general research?
Stat Mech = static mechanics?
NMR = ?

Just FTR, I wasn’t planning to become a particle physicist just because it sounds good. I still don’t know what I’d specialize in.

20

AHHH! UNPLEASANT MEMORIES!!!