Do I have better (reliable) earning potential in grad school or direct into industry?

ParticleGrl

In the US, we do our best to hide the realities of the science/math market so that people who COULD have done engineering, medicine, finance or law INSTEAD chose science or math. Which is probably to their long-term detriment.

I've heard countless professors tell math/science students that "there is always a job in industry" and "you can always find work doing engineering." No one says "hey, what do you hope to do with this degree?" and "if you want to be a liberal arts college professor, getting a phd in CS or econ will be a much better approach than a phd in physics," "if you want to work in a technical field, you're much better off with an engineering degree",etc.

twofish-quant

I suppose one reason I view things a bit differently is that I don't think that I was ever strongly misled about job prospects. Yes, you had the bogus NSF projections, but I think I got pretty good information from the people around me that they thought those projections were wishes more than anything else.

One other bit of good advice that I got was not to focus exclusively on physics.

twofish-quant

I don't think it's been to my detriment. Also, things can change very quickly. One thing that I remember was talking to someone in the class of 1957. In 1957, the US was in recession, and they were seriously worried about getting jobs. Then Sputnik got launched and the world changed. The big thing that impacted hiring in my college career was the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. In 1987, when I was a freshman, people assumed that the Cold War would continue indefinitely, and as the Soviet Union fell, it became increasingly obvious that all of the hiring projections that assumed Cold War were bogus. And then someone came up with this thing called the World Wide Web.

I remember the first time I ftp'ed the source packages from CERN, and thought to myself, this could be interesting. So I spent the next few weeks teaching myself web programming, and I had to teach it to myself, because there were no courses or books on the topic. Turned out to be useful.

I don't think it is. If you get a Ph.D. in economics your chances are getting a tenure track position is quite high, but it's extremely hard to get into an economics program, and there is a "tier structure" that's vastly worse than anything I've ever seen in physics. Also, with some rare exceptions, as far as this "finding out how the world works" thing, economics academia is a lot more broken than physics is.

The other thing is that all of this involves projecting ahead ten years ahead with all of the attendant risk and feedback mechanisms. If physics becomes a totally dead letter, then there *will* be a shortage in a decade and a half. Something like that happened with petroleum engineering.

I'm not.

pi-r8

Argh... look at the misleading advice that people on this forum are giving out right now!
No one is going to hire physics grad for an engineering position, and definitely not to be manager of an engineering group straight out of school. No one is going to hire you to "do math" because for the most part those jobs don't exist anymore thanks to computers. No one is going to hire you to program said computers unless you've specifically been learning programming on your own, and in that case why not just major in CS and make your life easier?

This idea that there's a huge wide range of technical careers available and that a physics major is qualified for any of them is incredibly misleading, and I can't believe it's still being taught. The fact is that there's basically 3 main career choices for physics majors. In order:

1) graduate student (not really a "career" but you'll get a stipend and health insurance at least)
2) computer programmer (only if you've learned programming)
3) high school math/science teacher (only with a further education degree)

twofish-quant

I think "don't focus too much on physics" was pretty good advice for me. One thing that I did a lot in college was short story writing. Comes in handy when you are drafting a resume or a corporate memo. "Study history and politics" was also pretty useful.

My first job was in oil and gas. Also no one is going to hire you to be a manager since you don't have any management experience, but I was promoted to development lead with two years of experience.

Someone has to program those computers.

1) because I like to do things the hard way.

2) because computational physics teaches you (or more accurately gives you the chance to teach yourself) numerical programming skills that they don't teach in CS class

3) because being a CS major doesn't mean that you can program. Programming is like writing, and a CS major is like an English major. There are lots of great writers that aren't English majors, and there are a ton of English majors that can't write. Just as there are professors of English literature that are incompetent writers, there are CS professors that can't program. If you just take the standard CS curriculum and do nothing else, then you are just not going to be a competent programmer.

Depends on the state of the economy. If you have a good economy, then people will be looking for general skills. If you have a bad economy, then people won't hire you even if you have the necessary technical skills.

You are in a bad economy. It helps when you are in a bad economy to read about what other people have done in a bad economy (hence the "read about the great depression" part).

I think there are more than that. Many of the physics bachelors that didn't go into graduate school, went into business consulting. Also, there are a ton of jobs that are available that have nothing obviously to do with physics.

pi-r8

uh... bootleg liquor? That was the most profitable industry during the depression. Don't think that will work so well anymore. Apparently growing marijuana is a fast-growing industry now thanks to the recession though.

More seriously, here are what seem to be the main careers that use physics now:

Programming liquid flow models for the oil/gas industry: Current projections are that we'll warm the earth up 10 degree C this century, but I'm sure with enough physics nerds working on the problem we'll be able to get up to at least 15 degrees C!
Programming bomb models for the military: We need a way to kill as many Iranian children as possible for the minimum cost, and someone needs to program all those smart bombs. Better a pure nerd than someone who might have accidentally taken an ethics class.
Programming finance models: I guess that's your job now? There's still a few unions that have managed to protect their pension funds, and still a few middle-class families that own a home. I'm sure if enough nerds work on this problem you'll find a way to transfer their all their wealth into the hands of rich bankers.

JDGates

Since I like data (something I picked up during my graduate school years that were, according to certain embittered individuals on this site, otherwise wasted), I checked my undergrad alma mater's alumni directory for the years around my own graduation. I looked for people who majored only in physics (no CS or engineering double majors), who had reported on their employment, and who didn't have any other degrees reported (generally people who update their profile with jobs will also update their further education). I also did a quick Google search to try to make sure (generally via LinkedIn profiles) that they had no other degree; plus I knew most of these people and whether they went to grad school (immediately out of undergrad, at least).

I found 15 people, whose most recently reported jobs break down as:

Six programmers
Four engineers of other stripes
Two defense analysts
One consultant
One technician/facilities manager at a national lab
One active duty military


And, by the way, teaching high school generally requires an additional credential, but not another degree, and for high-demand subjects some states and private schools will let one pick up that creditional after being conditionally hired.

JDGates

So underlying this:

And this:

I take it you've got some data that you're hiding from us?

I mean, points for trying to be funny, or trying to be provocative, or whatever it is you're trying to be, but do you have something to add that will be helpful to the questioners?

Rika

In my country education is free so I don't regret doing physics degree (especially when it's
not my only degree). But if I had to pay for my education, stick to 1 major and do it for career I would never study physics.

Still I don't get it. Are you guys idiots or sth? You have the best schools out there and still can't figure out that 2+2=4 ? How the hell (when you have internet access) can you not know that you won't get job in physics after physics degree? In my country even kindergarden kid knows that doing physics degree and PhD for career reasons gets you nowhere. So how come you didn't manage to figure this out?

Locrian

I bet it isn't.

For instance, it could be paid for through taxation.

twofish-quant

I know people that are working in carbon sequestration and ethanol production.

Ethics becomes complicated once you realize that surrender is a bad policy. Would you rather than Iran have the ability to produce nuclear weapons while the US doesn't? I know lots of people in the military, and soldiers hate war more than most people. I happen to believe that you can't have peace unless you prepare for war. Some people disagree, but there is no need to get insulting about it.

Some of us were involved in keeping a bad situation from getting a lot worse. Also, I know a lot of people that are working on risk analysis and trying to figure out what happened and how to keep from having it happen again.

I'm trying not to get annoyed here, but some of us are trying to use our skills to make the world a better place and to improve our own lives.

What the heck have you done? What do you want?

twofish-quant

Also, if you bite into the apple and learn about the mysteries of the universe, you find out how tiny the planet is, and it's not surprising that you'll find yourself in "world destroying" careers. But what can destroy the world can also save it, and what can save the world can also destroy it.

The statement "there are no jobs for people that study physics" is different from the statement "the jobs in physics tend to have serious ethical consequences that you have to think deeply about." Once you realize that, then those courses in philosophy and literature no longer look quite "useless."

Furthermore, it helps if you think early about who is giving you the money and encouragement to study science, and why they are doing it. US physics is a product of the Cold War, and the reason money goes to physics departments is precisely to build better bombs and toasters.

atyy

I think most agree, so that's not the question. It's about whether the deployment is just. I suspect most soldiers would rather lose a just war than win an unjust one.

twofish-quant

Also a lot of the people that went into programming did so because of the internet boom of the 1990's. When I started university, I'd never heard of the internet, and neither had 99% of the people in the world. I *couldn't* take any classes on web programming, because the web hadn't been invented.

One exercise would be to put yourself in 1987, and try to give career advice for the next thirty years out to 2017. You'll realize what an impossible task this is. Think of every historical event that happened between 1987 and 2012 and all of them radically changed the job outlook.

One problem with being a high school teacher is that if you are bitter about science, then it's probably better for everyone involved if you don't take the job. Also, if you are mainly concerned about money (and there is nothing wrong with that), then it's also probably better if you don't take the job.

Rika

Ofc it is but you need to pay taxes anyway. Ppl in Us also pay taxes and yet they are in massive debt because they need to pay like 100k $ extra for their higher education.

If you want to do hobby which cost you 100k you must be very rich, otherwise it's stupid to put yourself into massive debt only to do some hobby. Especially when you have internet full of physics knowledge - books, online lectures etc.

Most ppl aren't "life - smart" enough to put their physics degree into good use. They don't have any good plan for their life either. In this situation "trade school degree" such as cs, medicine, law, engineering or being plumber is much better for them because they will end up in mcjob or IT anyway.

Locrian

Yes, but not the same amount.

So, just to be clear, the education is not free.

Rika

Ok it's not free but not as expensive as in US. For me it's better to pay taxes rather than being in debt.

Which makes me wonder - if you pay low taxes you should have huge amount of money to save. If that's the case why your parents don't save for your education? 17 years is enough to collect 100k (it's like 500$ monthly).

Sorry for OT.