Which Field Prepares Best for "Doing Whatever I Want"?

[Mobusaki]

"Do what ever I want"

I don't think this has been asked before. Or if it has, I was unable to find it. So here's my question:

Which field, EE or Physics, would better prepare me to "do whatever I want" once I am done with school (having obtained a PhD)? By "do whatever I want," I mean whatever I want that uses math and science. So I may want to be a professor, start my own toy company, start a high-tech industry company, do consulting, do research, work for NASA (dare to dream! hehe), lock myself in my garage and try to invent things, etc. and so on. Who knows? That's the point.

In this discussion, upon graduation I may or may not want to do what I went to school for, but it will definitely involve math and science. Also, the choices are PhD in Physics and PhD in EE. Also assume that the change in path is being made by choice, not circumstance. Those are the only constraints. Again, the question is: Which field better prepares one to go in any direction as long as it involves math and science, and be successful at it?

My thoughts are that Physics better prepares one to go in any direction intellectually - to change directions and become capable at something else. I also think that the way a physicist thinks may help with the obvious creative process required to change one's direction in life and do something unexpected, new, and likely daunting.

Electrical Engineering provides a much broader area of things you can do because of the word "Engineering" at the end. A lot of doors are opened because of it. However, I think that may not be the case anymore once you get a PhD and are therefore ultra-specialized. So maybe they break even. I also think that the application focus of the education may help with "getting things done" when trying to go in a new and unanticipated direction with math and science.

What are your thoughts? It would be helpful if background was provided, so I know where people are coming from. Are you a physicist? An engineer? Student? Do you work in academia or industry? etc.

So you know where I am coming from: I am a 2nd year EE student who plans to go on and get a PhD. As you've likely surmised by now, I'm trying to decide between staying EE, or switching to Physics. ;) I love and am good at math and science, and I have a deep desire to understand how and why things work. I enjoy solving problems, making things, fixing things, and learning new things. I think I would enjoy either discipline.

Thanks in advance. And try to have fun in this thread! :)

 

[bogarts21]

"what ever" is really vague. I mean, there are some things you can/cannot do with a PhD in physics, and the same goes for EE. Or it depends, you might be the next Tesla. Another thing, I think that once you go for that which you really like, you would only "want" to do things that is within that particular subject. I'm not sure. I'm just a freshman, never been there.

 

[Mobusaki]

Right, a PhD is so specialized that getting one and then doing something different, even if it does still involve math and science, seems a bit silly. Still, I wonder whether generic person x would be better prepared to "do whatever" with a physics phd or an engineering phd.

In the end, if you get a physics or engineering phd, you are likely capable of doing whatever you want to do. What I want to know is which body of knowledge would, in general, make a transition from x to y easier. Certainly there are specific cases where one would be better than the other, but I'm wondering if overall one would be much better equipped to "go another direction."

Maybe such a determination can't be made! lol It doesn't help that I'm being extremely vague, but that's the whole point. :)

I also wonder if one degree, in general, be taken more seriously than another in trying to do something "different." Take the toy company for example. Would investors, banks, whatever, take the physicists or the ee more seriously? What about an EE PhD who decides he wants to be a physicist? Is that possible? Visa versa? Now I'm getting specific, and that's not what I was aiming for in this thread. lol

In general, which would find more options open to him outside of the normal realms of his field?

 

[Headacheguy]

This may or may not answer your inquiry.

In my experience, I was torn between philosophy and physics. I chose the latter. It's because real philosophers think about interesting ways to view the world, they don't get a PhD so they can think. On the other hand, doing physics requires training that you won't get by doing independent study. Pick that which you think would give you more freedom on the future.

 

[nlsherrill]

Right, a PhD is so specialized that getting one and then doing something different, even if it does still involve math and science, seems a bit silly. Still, I wonder whether generic person x would be better prepared to "do whatever" with a physics phd or an engineering phd.

In the end, if you get a physics or engineering phd, you are likely capable of doing whatever you want to do. What I want to know is which body of knowledge would, in general, make a transition from x to y easier. Certainly there are specific cases where one would be better than the other, but I'm wondering if overall one would be much better equipped to "go another direction."

Maybe such a determination can't be made! lol It doesn't help that I'm being extremely vague, but that's the whole point. :)

I also wonder if one degree, in general, be taken more seriously than another in trying to do something "different." Take the toy company for example. Would investors, banks, whatever, take the physicists or the ee more seriously? What about an EE PhD who decides he wants to be a physicist? Is that possible? Visa versa? Now I'm getting specific, and that's not what I was aiming for in this thread. lol

In general, which would find more options open to him outside of the normal realms of his field?

I don't think this question is answerable. Both EE and physics have a wide range of applications. You would probably be better off doing something you actually liked versus going to graduate school to make sure you can get a job anywhere doing anything.

 

[twofish-quant]

Which field, EE or Physics, would better prepare me to "do whatever I want" once I am done with school (having obtained a PhD)? By "do whatever I want," I mean whatever I want that uses math and science. So I may want to be a professor, start my own toy company, start a high-tech industry company, do consulting, do research, work for NASA (dare to dream! hehe), lock myself in my garage and try to invent things, etc. and so on. Who knows? That's the point.

If you want to do physics type stuff a Ph.D. in physics will help. If you want to do EE-type stuff, a Ph.D. in EE will help.

Also, you absolutely need to read and learn stuff outside the Ph.D. If you want to figure out what to do, it's a good idea to read history, politics, and philosophy. If you want a job in NASA, then something you've got to do is to figure out a way of increasing funding and fixing the mess there, and that means learning politics, economics, and public administration. If you want to start a company, then you are going to have to learn about business, finance, management, marketing allow with technology stuff.

Just learn stuff and create your own degree.

Also, the choices are PhD in Physics and PhD in EE. Also assume that the change in path is being made by choice, not circumstance. Those are the only constraints. Again, the question is: Which field better prepares one to go in any direction as long as it involves math and science, and be successful at it?

I don't think it matters. What *does* matter is that you be willing and able to learn stuff outside of your field. If you just do the assignments that the teachers give you, and be a good student and get 'A's in all of your courses, you aren't going to get anywhere.

Ph.D.'s in general are good for "doing stuff" because unlike any other degree, they just basically dump you in a river and see if you can swim out. Something that is very different is that as an undergraduate, you basically have to accept the world as they it is. As you get older, you'll find that you can end up changing the world.

What are your thoughts?

A lot depends on the people you meet, and semi-random things. One thing that I once tried to figure out is how I ended up where I was, and when I traced through why I was so interested in physics, I ended up with a lot of family and world history, and if you want me to tell the story, I'd start in northern China in 1644 when a certain general named Wu San-Gui decided to turn traitor. Also, a lot of why I am what I am is the result of a high school Latin teacher, and I'm sure there is an interesting story about why he ended up where he was.

So you know where I am coming from: I am a 2nd year EE student who plans to go on and get a PhD.

I think the most important thing is for you to figure out why you want the Ph.D. It's likely to be something personal and even silly. Usually it involves having the people in your life think that it's important, but what ends up being an interesting story is to figure out why *they* find it important.

 

[twofish-quant]

In the end, if you get a physics or engineering phd, you are likely capable of doing whatever you want to do.

This curiously is *NOT* true.

When you do your Ph.D., you will become the worlds expert on a tiny topic which is your dissertation. You'll very quickly figure out that this knowledge will *NOT* be directly applicable to any problem that comes up. In every day work and research, you'll find yourself constantly bombarded by new questions and issues that you know *NOTHING* about.

The cool thing about a Ph.D. is that it shows that you can go into a situation where you know NOTHING, and then get something useful done. It's really quite fun. The reason my employer pays me is that they know that they can give me a complex mathematical problem that I have no clue what to do with, and instead of giving up, I'll be trying to figure out what to do with it. Two weeks ago, I knew absolutely nothing about algorithms for representing sparse matrices. I know something about it now.

What I want to know is which body of knowledge would, in general, make a transition from x to y easier.

Neither or both. The Ph.D. is a research degree, and that means that you are dealing with knowledge that doesn't exist. For example, lots of people have done sparse matrices. No one that I can find has done exactly what I'm trying to do with sparse matrices. Oh well.

I also wonder if one degree, in general, be taken more seriously than another in trying to do something "different." Take the toy company for example. Would investors, banks, whatever, take the physicists or the ee more seriously? What about an EE PhD who decides he wants to be a physicist? Is that possible? Visa versa? Now I'm getting specific, and that's not what I was aiming for in this thread.

That's not how you should look at it.

For example, if you are trying to raise money from investors, you'll be a bad shape if you walk, talk, and act like a physics Ph.D. or EE Ph.D. What will get you taken seriously is if you can do a chameleon, learn the language and social customs of investors, and then figure out what you need to do to get money. Also one of the things that Ph.D.'s tend to do is to ask lots of questions and make use of the answers. So why do I need to dress the way that I do. What does that *mean*?

Also you usually need a mix of people. Diversity is really important. If I was putting together a team of five people, and we had three physics Ph.D.'s I'd make sure that the next person was not a physics Ph.D. Something that I try very hard to do when interviewing is to pick people that are competent but are very different from me.

In investment banking, for example, physicists tend to have more training in partial differential equation methods whereas EE people tend to have a lot more training in time series analysis, so you really need both skill sets. And then you'll find the need for heavy duty statistics that most physicists and EE or physics Ph.D.'s don't have. And then there is direct knowledge of the markets. And then there is the ability to just sell stuff.

 

[twofish-quant]

One more thing. You'll find that the fundamental limits on what you can and can't do involve time and money. In grad school, I did a lot of thinking about "what is time?" I still haven't completely figured that out. One reason that I like my work is because I spend a lot of time thinking "what is money?"

Something that happens a lot when you try to get things done is that the standard answer is "we can't do this because of budget" or "we can't do this because of policy." At this point you are expected to go quietly away and not bother the bureaucrat. This annoyed me a lot, so I decided to learn a lot about budgets and policy. Personally, I'm a Marxist (although not a Leninist or a Trotskyite) since I've found that a lot of what Karl Marx wrote about class structures is really, really useful in getting stuff done in the corporate world.

So now when I get the standard answer "we can't do this because of budget" My reply is "Oh really? We'll it so happens that I have this business plan, and I have about a dozen investors that have signed on and are willing to put money in this project. Also I have this signed letter from person X who is in charge of policy in this area, and then think it's a good idea."

 

[Mobusaki]

I don't think this question is answerable. Both EE and physics have a wide range of applications. You would probably be better off doing something you actually liked versus going to graduate school to make sure you can get a job anywhere doing anything.

Oops! I forgot to make an important distinction. I don't mean which degree will help me easily land jobs. I mean which better prepares a person to *be* anything they want to be. I guess I'm talking about method of thinking, approaching problems, overcoming obstacles, learning. And yes, how applicable the undergrad knowledge is to things that aren't EE or Physics.

I'm most likely going to stick with my double major in EE/Physics because I love them both so much - but the reason I'm asking so many questions is because I'd like to probe and see if one or the other is "me" and "what I want" while the other may just be "something I think is interesting." You know? If Physics is my passion, and EE is an interest, then I want to throw myself headfirst into Physics and not worry about getting a 2nd degree. And visa versa.

As of right now, though, I'm finding that I love the pursuit of knowledge and understanding how things work just as much as I love the application of that knowledge to solve problems. The former is physics, the latter engineering. So I just can't choose. That may change as time goes on. I may find that nothing makes me happier than doing research to find out something new, or that nothing makes me happier than designing a new product, for example.

I know both can and do go outside of those definitions all the time, but you can definitely make the generalization that scientists pursue new knowledge while engineers apply it to solve real-world problems. I do, however, agree 100% with whoever in this thread said that you're limited mainly but what you choose to do with yourself. I think it was Two-Fish, saying to pursue the knowledge you need to accomplish your goals.

BTW Two-Fish, I'm an "A" student who pretty much just does what the teachers assign! Oops! haha I want to do more, to go above and beyond, to learn things I'm not required to learn. And I do sometimes. But usually I find myself just so busy with the required things, or so tired from doing the required things when I'm not busy doing them, that I don't read those random textbooks I so excitedly order off of ebay. :(

 

[Mobusaki]

This curiously is *NOT* true.

When you do your Ph.D., you will become the worlds expert on a tiny topic which is your dissertation. You'll very quickly figure out that this knowledge will *NOT* be directly applicable to any problem that comes up. In every day work and research, you'll find yourself constantly bombarded by new questions and issues that you know *NOTHING* about.

The cool thing about a Ph.D. is that it shows that you can go into a situation where you know NOTHING, and then get something useful done. It's really quite fun. The reason my employer pays me is that they know that they can give me a complex mathematical problem that I have no clue what to do with, and instead of giving up, I'll be trying to figure out what to do with it. Two weeks ago, I knew absolutely nothing about algorithms for representing sparse matrices. I know something about it now.

The underlined part is not what I meant. Sorry for not being more clear! The bold part is exactly what I meant. If you've gotten a PhD, you've proven that you can "sink or swim," that you can do pretty much anything you set your mind to. Not to say it can always be done easily! I think a PhD shows not that you're super-intelligent, but rather that you can work really hard (with yo' brain) and not give up. lol :)

 

[twofish-quant]

I guess I'm talking about method of thinking, approaching problems, overcoming obstacles, learning. And yes, how applicable the undergrad knowledge is to things that aren't EE or Physics.

There isn't one since those things aren't about degrees.