Alternative careers for a physics PhD?

nobelium102

I just don't know if i should continue for physics anymore

kanato

Well if you want advice on that, you should make a post on this forum or the academic guidance forum describing your situation and feelings, and asking for advice that is relevant to you.

nobelium102

My only wish in life is that I have just enough money to support myself and my dog
and may be help my parents a bit

Another big wish is that I want to study something big like what Einstein, Newton, Stephen Hawkings...I am only high school student right now, so I don't really know technical terms like quantum physics but I really wanted to research about dark matter, cosmology, origin of universe and parallel universe

The thing is whenever I look up some careers related to physics, all i see is people not being able to make it to research, telling people not to do pure science
just go to engineering to make more money

I don't know what to do now
because if i don't earn enough money, then I can't continue studying
my parents can't afford my tuitions
I am doing my best for scholarships but I don't know if they have scholarships in graduate school or to get phd

...yeah i don't really know about anything so there...
*sad face* ..lol

kanato

well the first thing you should start doing is to stop hijacking threads :P

nobelium102

wow thx so much for the advice ;/

twofish-quant

Because I find physics more interesting than financial engineering or math.

twofish-quant

I don't think that's going to be much of a problem with physics. I don't know of any physics majors that ended without some middle class lifestyle.

I like asking big deep questions. What is space? What is time?

It so happens that I get paid to think about one really deep question which is "What is money?" Figuring out how the world economic system works and how I can help prevent another world economic collapse and make some money in the mean time strikes me as "something big."

One hint. When people talk about what physicists do, people mention Stephen Hawking, but while he is a good physicist, I think he isn't a good example of your typical physicist, or
even your typical astrophysicist.

I'm doing research.

Physics Ph.D.'s are fully funded. You get to work as a serf grading papers.

Also, one good thing about a physics Ph.D.'s is that once you get a physics Ph.D., you can be a truck driver, bartender, or whatever you want to make money. This sounds weird, but it's not true for all graduate programs. If you go to law school, and you figure out that you hate law, you are stuck, because you are going to have $100,000 in debt that you are going to pay off assuming that you can get a job as a lawyer.

One of the cool things about getting a physics Ph.D. is that if you want to be a bartender or janitor, you can, because you aren't up to your nose in debt.

nobelium102

oh, at least I don't have to worry about money!!
THanks for the informations Twofish-quant

Mobusaki

He's right, don't worry about the money. You won't get rich off of graduate school pay or post-doc pay, but if you manage your money wisely you won't starve, either. That's what I've gathered, anyways.

In college, just focus on your grades and trying to get some undergraduate research experience. Then you'll have more choices of graduate programs when you are done with undergraduate. And if you find by then that you either don't want to continue your education or you aren't getting accepted into the graduate programs you're applying to (that probably just means you're applying to the wrong graduate programs (ie, shooting too high)), then you have a ton of things you can do with your undergraduate degree in physics. Everything I've read and everyone I've talked to tells me that you actually have more options open to you if you have the physics bachelor's degree *without* the physics phd. Research just won't be one of those options, is all.

So, long story short, don't worry, be happy, and study hard. Do your best in all things and the rest will fall into place.

twofish-quant

That's not altogether true. There's no rule that says that if you have a physics Ph.D., that you can apply only to jobs that require a physics Ph.D., and you are tying your hands unnecessarily if you impose that rule on yourself. There's no reason that you can't get a physics Ph.D., learn to drive trucks, and make a living that way.

Mobusaki

I don't disagree with you, but I wasn't talking about driving trucks. I was referring to the jobs where you'll be told "you're overqualified." Then if you just don't put that you have a phd on your resume, they'll want to know why you did nothing for 6 years.

The PhD opens up opportunities you wouldn't have otherwise, but it also closes more than it opens. Maybe this doesn't apply to physics phd's, but in engineering for example I believe it certainly does.

I do, however, think it's pretty inconsequential. The doors it opens may be fewer, but a) there are far fewer people to fill them, b) they pay more, and c) the jobs are (in my view) a lot more fun!

twofish-quant

There are ways of dealing with that. It involves some skill at resume writing and marketing, but if you can figure out quantum field theory, then you can likely learn how to write the resume.

One problem is that for most Ph.D.'s, getting the Ph.D. is the most important thing in their life for the previous six years, so it's just hard to write a resume in which the Ph.D. is not that important, but again, if you survived graduate school, you can deal with that.

I don't think that it does. One thing that is true with physics Ph.D.'s, is that there is a pretty good chance that you will get a job that does not absolutely require a Ph.D.