Master's Degrees: Are Physicists or Engineers more employable?

In summary: I am not sure what you think of lab work, but I loathe it and thus I'm not cut out for engineering. But if you like hands-on lab work, engineering might be okay for you.In summary, the conversation discusses the individual's dilemma after finishing their undergraduate degree in physics and mathematics. They are considering graduate school as a way to explore different career options and have narrowed it down to a master's in either physics or engineering. The conversation includes advice from others and the individual's own interests in alternative energy research, automotive and aerospace industries, and scientific support/field research. The consensus is that pursuing a master's in engineering
  • #1
Adventurer
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So, I've come to the end of my undergraduate education, and am a bit stuck on the next step to take. Quick background: I'm a physics major with a math minor, and have but one semester to go until I graduate in December 2013 (will be done with physics and math by spring 2013 but due to a technicality on my degree won't be graduating till December). My grades aren't stellar, but they aren't terrible either. I have a 3.1 GPA; should be in that neighborhood, (hopefully a little higher but we'll see) when I graduate.

After doing some research, I think going to graduate school for a master's is the track that best suits me for several reasons. One is that I really still have no clue what I want to do with my life, and this will give me a little more time to explore various options. Also, from the research I've done, it seems a Master's is required for entry into fields that interest me.

My main question is this: Would it be advisable for me to go for a master's in physics or engineering? My advisors (physics professors from a small liberal arts college) seem to hold the view that a master's in physics is an oddball degree that limits employability in all realms (industry, academia, etc.) and that the only thing you could do with it would be teach physics at a community college (which I have no intention of doing). I really don't have any insight into a master's of engineering degree. The college I attend has a very small physics department, and most of our graduating physics majors each year are on the physics PhD track, so this is what advisement is geared towards. Our engineering majors leave after their junior year to complete their degree at a nearby famous technical school. But I've had all (and more) of the classes that our engineering transfers take, so I should be able to go into an engineering track with little catchup to do.

Okay sorry I'm rambling, here are my interests:
Alternative energy research (solar, hydrogen, geothermal, anything really)
Automotive industry (design, mainly around vehicles that utilize new energy sources and making them practical)
Aerospace industry
Scientific support / field research (I found a position advertised for one of the antarctic bases that does physics, astronomy, and geology resarch, but of course they wanted at least a master's degree)
And my dream job, if I could do anything in the world, would be an astronaut of course :) (something at the intersection of aviation, research, and current exploration)

So, Physics or Engineering master's. Which do you think? (thanks in advance for all insight and suggestions!)
 
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  • #2
Engineering master's, hands down. A physics master's won't get you anywhere.
 
  • #3
I am not so sure that graduate school is a good option if the major reason is that one does not know what one wishes to do with one's life. Purely in my experience, one either drifts through, and does not get good grades, since they don't have a strong desire to be there for its own sake. Or one does focus and do well, but spends no time doing serious research into careers. So you end up in the same position, only with a master's that may or may not be relevant to what you still do not know you would like as a career.

Why not take a job, if possible, related to your areas of interest, while you try to figure out what you'd like - by doing serious research, rather than just by pondering (which I am not suggesting is all you are doing; after all, you're asking on here for advice!). If you then need graduate school, so be it.

Failing that, I would suggest engineering. Engineering is a well-respected degree across many fields. It is, like law and medicine, a profession. So part of what you will learn is how to do all those (post)graduate things needed in any professional job, and all the technical things required of engineers too, but you will learn to do them working within constraints of time, money, legal frameworks, ethical considerations, resource limitations, and client specifications. I.e. project management. In many industries, the variety, responsibility and money is at the level of project management (and above).

I am happy to be corrected, but I am not so sure many other degrees, including physics, place such an emphasis on those professional skills, since a professional physicist's industry is academia, which has a not identical set of requirements to what we might call 'industry'.

Good luck.
 
  • #4
note that engineering masters will not teach you the basics of engineering. Seems obvious but some forget that you won't be learning circuits anymore. You'll be learning upper division electives in more mathematical detail, which still won't give you the foundation knowledge you need.

Also you have to pay for a MS in engineering while many state universities will let you T.A. even as a MS student in physics. My undergrad school (top 50 big state) has a funded terminal MS program geared for physicists wanting to go to industry with the option of continuing for a PhD there. It is ALOT of work though; you need to teach for a year, write a publishable thesis while taking 10 required classes; typical time to graduation is 2-3 years.
 
  • #5
chill_factor said:
note that engineering masters will not teach you the basics of engineering.

To add to that: so far, you have spent your time in college learning to think like a physicist, not like an engineer. Given a choice between a physics and engineering applicant for an industry job, that can tip the balance.

What's the difference? A slightly tongue in cheek answer: if something isn't working, physicists want to set up a research project to find out why, and write papers about it. Engineers just want to fix it and move on to the next task in the in-box.
 
  • #6
I did physics undergrad, then tried electrical engineering masters for a while. I loathed it. Consistent with what Aleph is saying, I would ask questions about the nature of the phenomena that were brought up and the teacher would look a me like I was speaking in alien tongue.

I just didn't realize how much I was trained to ask different questions than engineers cared about.

I eventually (within one year) shifted to theoretical/computational neuroscience and have found everything I was ever looking for.
 
  • #7
chill_factor said:
note that engineering masters will not teach you the basics of engineering.
There are post-grad engineering conversion courses meant for science graduates. There are post graduate medicine, optometry, medical imaging, teaching courses too.
 
  • #8
I too have a BS in Physics with a Math minor. I moved into engineering, and for what I do, a degree called engineering on my resume would have made it easier to break into the field, but my physics education has been more than sufficient to teach me everything I needed to know to get started. I learned everything else I needed to know on the job.

Think about what you want to do. As an engineer, I've learned a lot of really interesting things, but I need to be concerned with getting things done and making money. There are interesting technical questions that I will never pursue because the payoff isn't there. I like doing this work, so I am OK with not knowing some things. Someone else may look into that. If you want to be that someone else, a career in science may be a better fit for you.
 
  • #9
As an aside, the choice between science and engineering isn't precisely a choice between academia and industry. I work in a high tech industry, and we employ scientists to gain a deep, fundamental knowledge of the materials we specialize in. However, these scientists are much fewer in number than the engineers that apply that knowledge to make products.
 
  • #10
daveyrocket said:
Engineering master's, hands down. A physics master's won't get you anywhere.

This is, of course, false. A physics masters can get you lots of places. An engineering masters is more likely to get you employed, by physics masters is a very diverse degree, so your domain of employment is more diverse.
 
  • #11
Adventurer said:
My advisors (physics professors from a small liberal arts college) seem to hold the view that a master's in physics is an oddball degree that limits employability in all realms (industry, academia, etc.) and that the only thing you could do with it would be teach physics at a community college (which I have no intention of doing).

Sounds about right to me. A masters in physics is generally a failed physics PhD. People don't often go for a masters in physics in the US, for the reasons you mentioned. I have seen professional science style, applied physics terminal masters degrees at some universities. They are generally geared towards internships and employment like an engineering degree is, they are about taking a science major and getting some industry marketability.

Otherwise, stick to engineering.
 
  • #12
Pythagorean said:
This is, of course, false. A physics masters can get you lots of places. An engineering masters is more likely to get you employed, by physics masters is a very diverse degree, so your domain of employment is more diverse.

I've never seen any evidence that a physics masters can get you anywhere a physics bachelor's or engineering master's can't. I've never seen a job listing that specifically said master's degree in physics. What exactly is this "diversity" of a physics masters? When I got my masters I was just from taking advanced mechanics, QM and E&M courses. I don't see any diversity there that would actually be useful for acquiring employment.
 
  • #13
daveyrocket said:
I've never seen any evidence that a physics masters can get you anywhere a physics bachelor's or engineering master's can't. I've never seen a job listing that specifically said master's degree in physics.

They don’t.

However, you can get some good research experience while getting the masters that can sometimes put you ahead of those with a BS. As of a few years ago, you could get a 20 month masters degree, go to work for the government, and have a higher income potential than you would have with a PhD (starting early + raises made up for the initial income difference) or a BS. Something similar (but not so cut-and-dried) was true of some corporate shops. So I don’t think a masters degree in physics is any more hopeless than any other degree in physics.

I would agree, however, that a masters in engineering is superior in pretty much every way.
 
  • #14
Thank you very much for all of the responses and insight! Due to my limited exposure to engineering, and the fact that I have for the most part enjoyed my physics courses, I was simply assuming that a physics master's was the way to go. But now I think I am quickly changing my mind based on all of the research I have done into the matter. I certainly wouldn't want potential employers to simply see me as a failed PhD (unless something drastically changes I just don't want to stay in school long enough to obtain a PhD).

You are quite right, the engineering students and the physics students don't think the same way or see eye to eye on most issues. I can not classify myself as totally in one camp or the other though, so I suppose this is where some of the difficulty lies. Like the physicists, I enjoy seeing the broader picture of why things work or how to explain certain phenomena. But then like the engineers, I get bugged when we never actually do anything with the material. I wish there was a meeting point halfway between engineering and physics.

I understand that if I choose an engineering masters, there will be a little catchup to do, but I don't think it will be too bad and I'm motivated enough to go through it.

Ben Epsen, thank you especially for your comments since you have a very similar situation to mine. How hard was it for you to directly break into an engineering position with the physics major and math minor? How did the high tech industry see you as an applicant?

Again, thank you all for your help!
 
  • #15
daveyrocket said:
I've never seen any evidence that a physics masters can get you anywhere a physics bachelor's or engineering master's can't. I've never seen a job listing that specifically said master's degree in physics. What exactly is this "diversity" of a physics masters? When I got my masters I was just from taking advanced mechanics, QM and E&M courses. I don't see any diversity there that would actually be useful for acquiring employment.

Employment isn't really about waiting around for someone to ask for your degree, especially if you go education route. Education makes you your own product that you have to market yourself. Master's (Even a BS) in Physics is highly marketable for many quantitative occupations (including engineering).

Now I know some engineers are offended by this, but it's not like a physicist can just casually stroll into any engineering job. Different domains of engineering overlap with physics in different ways and the general quantitative training that exists in both are applicable to each other. But a physicist is definitely equipped to go down many different engineering routes, if they put in the time to learn about the specific branch.

Here are the employment statistics for Masters:

http://www.aps.org/careers/statistics/masterinitial.cfm

Notice only about 10% of them go to work outside of STEM-type jobs.

When looking for diversity, you're thinking too literally. It's the way of thinking, the quantitative approach. Having taken those classes, you should have a fairly directed idea of how to mathematically model just about any process you have sufficient data for or perform quantitative analysis on sets of data. Most physicists nowadays should know how to utilize scientific programming software too.

This is all helpful in a wide variety of jobs, from marketing and business analysis, to selling tech products, to actually doing research in a STEM field.
 
  • #16
http://www.aps.org/careers/statistics/masterinitial.cfm

Notice only about 10% of them go to work outside of STEM-type jobs.

Weirdly, if we are to believe the APS, substantially more phds leave STEM than masters. I don't know why engineering companies would be reluctant to hire phds but would take in masters.

I personally found after my phd that it was very, very difficult to get engineering companies to even interview me, and most of my cohort felt similarly. As a group, most of us couldn't find decent employment until we gave up on STEM.

EDIT: Wait, they've broken the data down funny. That graph is only the 49% of masters that got labeled as working in 'the private sector'. Also, if you read the methodology section, you'll see that their survey only accounts for 39% of degree recipients, and another 40% of that information didn't come from the students themselves so there are pretty big reporting problems.
 
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  • #17
Well, presumably the other 51% (of the 61%) are in government or academia, right? So they didn't leave STEM.

As for the reporting method, that is kind of strange, but really my only task was to refute that the MS was "worthless".

As for PhDs, don't they tend to be overqualified for ship jumping? You can pay an MS less and still probably takes just as much training for the new kind of work (of course this will vary from position to position).
 
  • #18
Pythagorean said:
Well, presumably the other 51% (of the 61%) are in government or academia, right? So they didn't leave STEM.

I haven't checked the graph, but they could well be unemployed, back in school or flipping burgers. If not, then 51% of *MS* grads in academia or government is pretty awesome.

As for PhDs, don't they tend to be overqualified for ship jumping? You can pay an MS less and still probably takes just as much training for the new kind of work (of course this will vary from position to position).

I don't know about "overqualified."

Can people not just offer jobs to people they think can do it, and then the person can decide if they'd want to work for that much? I understand how colleges reject people they can't offer financial aid to (happens to many international students at need-aware colleges), and the main reason - other than they don't have the money to spare - is to protect their yield.

While I am no authority on the subject, I reckon engineering jobs pay more than post-docs. For a fresh PhD, the "I have to pay this guy more because he has a PhD" argument doesn't really fly, as just paying slightly more than a postdoc (is the average salary of postdocs not 35k-ish?), as people with engineering BS degrees start with that much, if not more.
 
  • #19
"Flipping burgers" would be private sector, non-stem, don't you think?
 
  • #20
And yes, engineering is better for employment, I never disputed that! I think I even explicitly said it. I was replying to a post that called physics MS worthless.
 
  • #21
Where I said that a physics MS is worthless is a bit of an exaggeration, but it's also a statement to be taken within the context, which is in comparison with an engineering MS.

You can't just look at the employment statistics of people with a physics MS, or any degree for that matter, and say "see, they're not unemployed!" You have to compare with other situations. If someone's thinking about getting an MS you have to answer the question "how will that improve their options?" The person looking at an MS probably has a BS in physics (which is the perspective the OP is asking from). How does an MS in physics *improve* their career prospects over having just a BS in physics? How much different would that pie chart look for someone with just a physics BS? If it's not much different, then how does an MS change things?

To really get a complete picture, you have to look at the opportunity cost of the MS in physics as well. If getting an MS in physics doesn't improve one's job prospects much from having a BS, and getting an MS in engineering is superior for employment, than we might as well say that having the MS in physics is worthless.
 
  • #22
There's bs statistic there too if you're interested in the comparison.
 
  • #23
Pythagorean said:
Employment isn't really about waiting around for someone to ask for your degree, especially if you go education route. Education makes you your own product that you have to market yourself. Master's (Even a BS) in Physics is highly marketable for many quantitative occupations (including engineering).

Of course it's not "about waiting around for someone to ask for your degree"... You always have to market yourself. But there are some serious problems that put physics degrees at a disadvantage.

For one, many employers have no idea what a physics degree is good for. So to these employers, you are mostly on your own when it comes to marketing yourself. Most other technical degrees have some built-in marketing to them already. Computer and engineering degrees are way ahead of physics in this respect.

And second, there's this attitude among physics students that they can just walk onto an engineering job if physics doesn't work out. Engineers have heard of this, and hiring managers know that if they hire someone who looks down on engineers to work on a team of engineers, then that team won't function very well. This is a kind of built-in marketing to physics degrees that works against you, and I think it's something that gets worse the more advanced your degrees get. You actively have to market yourself against this perception of people with physics degrees.

I had something else to say about this but I forgot what it was.
 
  • #24
Daveyrocket, a while back, you made a thread about employment for physics PhDs. I don't recall ever seeing a follow-up, and I'd be curious to know how things turned out for you. Would you be willing to share your experience, if not in this thread, in the original thread?

Thank you!
 
  • #25
Well, presumably the other 51% (of the 61%) are in government or academia, right?

It looks like 13% are high school teachers, 20% are back in graduate school (probably for a phd), 7% are "other", a small percentage are active duty military, and the rest are civilian government. But the survey response rate is small, and the population of masters recipients is also very small, so I'm highly skeptical of all these numbers. It could very well be, for instance, that advisers know less about what happened to those students that leave STEM (and advisers are responsible for more than half of the returned surveys!)

The bachelors numbers are similarly poorly reported- the first line of the study tells us that less than 40% of the survey respondents were employed (presumably most of the rest were in graduate school). Coupled with the awful response rate, that means they have initial employment data from ~15% of the graduates.

One signal that there might be a problem is that (in the BS graduate data) the high school teachers report higher job satisfaction then those employed in STEM fields, despite the fact that 30% of the high school teachers aren't teaching any physics courses (I'm not suggesting that high school teachers don't have high job satisfaction, just that it seems unlikely a physics graduate who can't teach physics will be satisfied).
 
  • #26
Mépris said:
I don't know about "overqualified."

Can people not just offer jobs to people they think can do it, and then the person can decide if they'd want to work for that much? I understand how colleges reject people they can't offer financial aid to (happens to many international students at need-aware colleges), and the main reason - other than they don't have the money to spare - is to protect their yield.

While I am no authority on the subject, I reckon engineering jobs pay more than post-docs. For a fresh PhD, the "I have to pay this guy more because he has a PhD" argument doesn't really fly, as just paying slightly more than a postdoc (is the average salary of postdocs not 35k-ish?), as people with engineering BS degrees start with that much, if not more.

That argument does fly, and here's why (haha that rhymes). People who are considering hiring someone with a PhD in physics don't come onto internet message boards to have an in depth debate about the topic. Their personal perceptions and prejudices can play a significant role in the hiring decision. There is often a prejudice that a person with a PhD getting a non-PhD job is just waiting for an academic position to open up and as soon as it does, he will leave for that job, even if the salary is lower. And sometimes it's true. A detailed discussion of why that argument doesn't fly is irrelevant - the only useful information is how to convince a prospective employer that you're not going to do that. Which is sort of silly in some sense, because anyone is going to leave if a better job comes along, but you have to work extra hard to convince them that you want the job they have to offer instead of the job you've spent years training for.

Mépris said:
Daveyrocket, a while back, you made a thread about employment for physics PhDs. I don't recall ever seeing a follow-up, and I'd be curious to know how things turned out for you. Would you be willing to share your experience, if not in this thread, in the original thread?

Thank you!

I am currently unemployed. Thanks to my previous employment as a postdoc I qualify for unemployment which is just under enough money to support myself. I supplement my income a little bit by teaching dance lessons.

Right now I'm not looking for work very aggressively. After spending so many years doing physics and being unhappy with it I decided I need to change my paradigm on life from "I live to work" to "I work to live." On top of that I've had a few people in my life pass away, some of which I was close to so right now I have a very hard time motivating myself to go after work, because no one lies on their deathbed saying they wish they would have worked more and spent less time with friends and family. So right now I'm enjoying the free-ish money and spending time with the people I care about.
 
  • #27
I've addressed most of your points already in a previous post, so I don't disagree. After admitting your disparaging remarks were an exaggeration, there's really not much more to discuss. Education is a luxury and very few people in the population have higher degrees. Part of marketing yourself is demonstrating your specific skillet that came from your education, not the title of the degree. On the north slope (a major job source in Alaska), they had trouble hiring electrical engineers. All the kids out of college with degrees had no communication or social skills, and none of them were making it past the interview process. They ended up hiring an applied mathematician.

Also, recognize that we speak in generalities. Engineering and physics are two very broad categories. Some domains within them are more employable than others.
 
  • #28
ParticleGrl said:
It looks like 13% are high school teachers, 20% are back in graduate school (probably for a phd), 7% are "other", a small percentage are active duty military, and the rest are civilian government. But the survey response rate is small, and the population of masters recipients is also very small, so I'm highly skeptical of all these numbers. It could very well be, for instance, that advisers know less about what happened to those students that leave STEM (and advisers are responsible for more than half of the returned surveys!)

The bachelors numbers are similarly poorly reported- the first line of the study tells us that less than 40% of the survey respondents were employed (presumably most of the rest were in graduate school). Coupled with the awful response rate, that means they have initial employment data from ~15% of the graduates.

One signal that there might be a problem is that (in the BS graduate data) the high school teachers report higher job satisfaction then those employed in STEM fields, despite the fact that 30% of the high school teachers aren't teaching any physics courses (I'm not suggesting that high school teachers don't have high job satisfaction, just that it seems unlikely a physics graduate who can't teach physics will be satisfied).


I accept the statistics are somewhat questionable, but they have to be better than personal anecdotes.
 
  • #29
I accept the statistics are somewhat questionable, but they have to be better than personal anecdotes.

I'm not so sure. In my job, we often say bad data is worse than no data.

Also, I'd estimate that a phd student would teach roughly as many physics bachelors over the 6 years of a phd as responded to the APS survey. Similarly, the phd student probably knows about as many recent phds from schools and conferences as responded to the APS survey. Its not quite the same sample (one school, probably biased towards one subfield of physics, spread over a few extra years, etc), but it wouldn't suffer from the likely systematic effects the APS survey suffers from. I wouldn't be surprised if averaging their impressions of the job market puts together a more complete story than the APS surveys.
 
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  • #30
ParticleGrl said:
I'm not so sure. In my job, we often say bad data is worse than no data.

I agree, I just think personal anecdote is worse data!
 
  • #31
physicists are much more employable if they did some sort of experimental condensed matter, medical physics or optics (solid state optics). this is of course completely irrelevant information for those who don't want to do these.

the other thing is you don't have to go into debt for a MS physics since many state schools still fund MS students through TA ships.
 
  • #32
In the end, engineering is a profession along with nursing, doctors, lawyers, etc. They have barriers to entry but anyone can all themselves a scientist or IT consultant.

This is extremely relevant to people over 35 who have employability problems. For engineering jobs you need relevant qualification. For IT jobs anybody can apply.

In the end you have to play the numbers game, work out where the jobs are & barriers to entry. For every tenured physics professor there would be thousands of engineers.
 
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  • #33
ParticleGrl said:
I don't know why engineering companies would be reluctant to hire phds but would take in masters.

Because masters graduates have less unlearning to do than PhDs.
 
  • #34
daveyrocket said:
That argument does fly, and here's why (haha that rhymes). People who are considering hiring someone with a PhD in physics don't come onto internet message boards to have an in depth debate about the topic. Their personal perceptions and prejudices can play a significant role in the hiring decision. There is often a prejudice that a person with a PhD getting a non-PhD job is just waiting for an academic position to open up and as soon as it does, he will leave for that job, even if the salary is lower. And sometimes it's true. A detailed discussion of why that argument doesn't fly is irrelevant - the only useful information is how to convince a prospective employer that you're not going to do that. Which is sort of silly in some sense, because anyone is going to leave if a better job comes along, but you have to work extra hard to convince them that you want the job they have to offer instead of the job you've spent years training for.

Second this. A large report was carried out in the UK (it's on Google, can't be bothered to find it) about industry employer-perceptions of hiring PhDs. It was virtually uniform in its conclusion: they are reluctant to even interview PhDs. Overqualified (you'll get bored). Over specialised (you'll get bored). Not interested in industry (you'll get bored). Bottom line - you'll leave.

Similarly uniform was the fact that, when companies did bother to interview and hire PhDs, they had nothing but praise for them. Turns out it's almost all prejudice on the employers' part.

But, as pointed out above, you have a hell of a job to do to market yourself. Think of it this way: if you had the equivalent number of years in law or medical school, and came out with a JD or medical degree, wouldn't an employer wonder why you're applying outside that industry?
 
  • #35
The three suggestions I've posted in the past for PhD holders seeking employment outside their field (or outside of science) are as follows:

1) Be positive. Say nothing negative about your degree or your future prospects. Negativity is a big strike against you.

2) Be firm about your commitment to change careers. ("I enjoyed my time in academia as a student. However, I will not be continuing my career there.")

3) Have a good reason for switching; bonus points if you educate them. For instance, I enjoyed research, but research can be a surprisingly small portion of a professor's time. I then might say that I enjoyed the field as a student, but there's a big difference between what I was doing in grad school and what I would be doing afterwards.

Someone I respect on another board once stated they didn't hire a newly minted astrophysics PhD for an actuarial job because they assumed they would be taking a big pay cut to switch careers. That's pure comedy, of course; starting pay was probably 50% higher than an astro postdoc.

If you can get into an interview and someone asks you why you're switching, that's your chance to knock down several huge barriers. The thing about PhD's is that many (but not all) of publicly perceived downsides to hiring a PhD are myth, but most of the positives are true.
 
<h2>1. What is the difference between a Master's degree in Physics and a Master's degree in Engineering?</h2><p>A Master's degree in Physics focuses on the study of matter, energy, and their interactions, while a Master's degree in Engineering focuses on the application of scientific and mathematical principles to design, develop, and improve structures, machines, and processes.</p><h2>2. Which degree is more in demand in the job market?</h2><p>Both Master's degrees in Physics and Engineering are highly sought after in the job market. However, the demand for engineers is typically higher due to their skills in problem-solving, critical thinking, and practical application of knowledge.</p><h2>3. Are there any specific industries that favor physicists over engineers or vice versa?</h2><p>Both physicists and engineers can find employment in a wide range of industries, including research and development, technology, aerospace, energy, and healthcare. However, engineers may have more opportunities in industries that require specific engineering skills, such as construction, manufacturing, and transportation.</p><h2>4. How do the salaries of physicists and engineers compare?</h2><p>The salaries for both physicists and engineers can vary depending on their specific job roles, industries, and experience levels. However, on average, engineers tend to earn higher salaries than physicists due to the demand for their specialized skills and expertise.</p><h2>5. Can a physicist with a Master's degree work as an engineer and vice versa?</h2><p>While a Master's degree in Physics may not provide the same level of technical knowledge and skills as a Master's degree in Engineering, physicists can still work in engineering roles that require problem-solving, analytical thinking, and mathematical abilities. Similarly, engineers can also work in physics-related roles that require an understanding of scientific principles and research methods.</p>

1. What is the difference between a Master's degree in Physics and a Master's degree in Engineering?

A Master's degree in Physics focuses on the study of matter, energy, and their interactions, while a Master's degree in Engineering focuses on the application of scientific and mathematical principles to design, develop, and improve structures, machines, and processes.

2. Which degree is more in demand in the job market?

Both Master's degrees in Physics and Engineering are highly sought after in the job market. However, the demand for engineers is typically higher due to their skills in problem-solving, critical thinking, and practical application of knowledge.

3. Are there any specific industries that favor physicists over engineers or vice versa?

Both physicists and engineers can find employment in a wide range of industries, including research and development, technology, aerospace, energy, and healthcare. However, engineers may have more opportunities in industries that require specific engineering skills, such as construction, manufacturing, and transportation.

4. How do the salaries of physicists and engineers compare?

The salaries for both physicists and engineers can vary depending on their specific job roles, industries, and experience levels. However, on average, engineers tend to earn higher salaries than physicists due to the demand for their specialized skills and expertise.

5. Can a physicist with a Master's degree work as an engineer and vice versa?

While a Master's degree in Physics may not provide the same level of technical knowledge and skills as a Master's degree in Engineering, physicists can still work in engineering roles that require problem-solving, analytical thinking, and mathematical abilities. Similarly, engineers can also work in physics-related roles that require an understanding of scientific principles and research methods.

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