1st Year Grad Student (need advice).

[inko1nsiderat]

I'm a 1st year graduate student, and until yesterday I was absolutely certain I wanted to do theoretical physics. After talking to the 1st year graduate advisor, I am not not so sure. While he didn't say anything I didn't know (3 postdocs minimum, few academic jobs, less industry jobs than experiment) he had a direct message of: Do not go into theoretical physics.

This was pretty upsetting to hear, but I figured I would take his warning seriously. One of my questions is then: If I do the route of theoretical physics is my only option the post-doc treadmill or quantitative finance? Are there any jobs were a theorist can work on science, but maybe not in theoretical physics (are the tools I develop as a theorist useful to any other field of science, and if they are would it get me a job)? Up until yesterday I was comfortable with the idea that I probably won't end up in theoretical physics in my career because theory jobs are hard to come by, but now I am uncertain if I would be happy doing something entirely unrelated to science. In that vein, are there any people who became quants who could tell me how they feel about their work (Is it challenging? Do you enjoy the work? What exactly does the work involve?).

I also have questions for experimentalists: what fields of experiment require the most mathematics? What is the majority of your time spent doing? Has anyone made the transition from experiment to theory, or theory to experiment? Are there fields that sit at an interface between theory and experiment but have a better job outlook compared to theory?

Since this is a pretty big decision I want as much input as I can get, so I will definitely be talking to other professors, other graduate students etc., so I welcome your input.

 

[kanato]

I have a PhD in theoretical condensed matter physics, am coming to the end of my first postdoc and looking for jobs in industry. And I'm not very happy with the prospects. In the interest of full disclosure, a major part of that is because I have geographical restrictions I'm trying very hard to fit within (and this is the type of thing I couldn't have foreseen when I was starting grad school). Very few industry jobs will look specifically for someone with a PhD in physics, and most of the ones that do that I'm finding want people with specific experimental condensed matter skills. Because of the geographical restrictions I am not pursuing positions in quantitative finance, since those jobs are mostly in New York or outside the US.

You should take some time and think about what kind of career you might want. Also look at job listings and see what kinds of skills employers are looking for and what interests you. You might find that a PhD in something like ME or EE may be very interesting to you, and you will find direct job paths to industry with those degrees (check Intel's job listings). For the most part, a PhD in physics does not give you direct job path to industry. I've been told by interviewers in fields outside physics that they have no doubt that I am smart enough to do the job they have, but they don't want to spend the extra time it would take to train me on it.

Certainly a lot of the skills you pick up as a grad student in physics are transferable to other areas. But if you want to have a career doing something different from physics, you're better off working directly on developing the skills to get those jobs. A lot of people leave theoretical physics and go to be software engineers. There's nothing wrong with that, although you could save yourself four years by getting a master's in CS.

Personally, even though I sort of wish I hadn't gotten a PhD in physics, I know that if I hadn't I would have spent my life wondering 'what if.' But that's for reasons that aren't related to the career prospects.

 

[hadsed]

Kanato, I'm interested in your experience a bit. I've been thinking that condensed matter physics has some pretty good prospects in industry, though I'm mainly a theoretical/computational guy so that's what I was thinking about. If it weren't for your geographic restrictions, are there, in your experience, jobs for theoretical CM physicists in industry?

 

[ParticleGrl]

I'm a high energy theorist who is running into the same wall Kanato is- no one doubts I'm intelligent enough to do work, but no one wants to spend time training me. I too have a geographical constraint.

A lot of people will tell you the phd is not about career, do what you love,etc. This is nonsense- ask yourself what your longterm goals are. Do you want to work doing some kind of research? Would you be happy if you devoted these years to extremely difficult work only to end up working in insurance or finance? Would you be happy with a standard programming job?

If your goal is to work doing traditional honest-to-god technical research, you should probably be looking at engineering or the most applied fields of physics you can find.

 

[twofish-quant]

While he didn't say anything I didn't know (3 postdocs minimum, few academic jobs, less industry jobs than experiment) he had a direct message of: Do not go into theoretical physics.

I hate to be the voice of optimism here, but if you like theoretical physics then do it. As long as you don't limit yourself and you get some computational experience, the job market is pretty decent.

If I do the route of theoretical physics is my only option the post-doc treadmill or quantitative finance?

The other two big ones are oil and gas and defense. Also there are decent jobs as application programmers.

Up until yesterday I was comfortable with the idea that I probably won't end up in theoretical physics in my career because theory jobs are hard to come by, but now I am uncertain if I would be happy doing something entirely unrelated to science.

Oil and gas and finance are all pretty "science-ish." Stare at market, figure out how it works, write equations to describe how market works, code those into computer, make money.

In that vein, are there any people who became quants who could tell me how they feel about their work (Is it challenging? Do you enjoy the work? What exactly does the work involve?).

The problem is that there is no one "quant" job, and there are about a dozen different jobs in finance that involves numbers. Mine involves babysitting supercomputers and it's more or less what I was doing in graduate school.

Since this is a pretty big decision I want as much input as I can get, so I will definitely be talking to other professors, other graduate students etc., so I welcome your input.

One problem that I've found is that professors are some of the worst people to talk to when it comes to career advice.

 

[twofish-quant]

I too have a geographical constraint.

I had a geographical constraint, but I gave it up when I found out that it was getting in the way.

This is nonsense- ask yourself what your longterm goals are. Do you want to work doing some kind of research? Would you be happy if you devoted these years to extremely difficult work only to end up working in insurance or finance?

Before you answer that you probably should talk to someone that is doing finance. :-) :-)

Most of the work that I do is applied mathematics and physical modelling. I'm crunching more or less the same equations and doing the same sort of work that I did in astrophysics in graduate school.

 

[Delong]

You can work in theoretical ecology :D The field is getting very quantitative and it's important to understanding how nature works so we can address environmental issues and live sustain-ably! It's something I think is super fascinating and am passionate about. THey need very mathematical people like Physicists and Applied mathematicians. See: http://scholarshipdb.com/phd-either-in-physics-applied-mathematics-or-theoretical-ecology.html
!

 

[kanato]

Kanato, I'm interested in your experience a bit. I've been thinking that condensed matter physics has some pretty good prospects in industry, though I'm mainly a theoretical/computational guy so that's what I was thinking about. If it weren't for your geographic restrictions, are there, in your experience, jobs for theoretical CM physicists in industry?

Yes, it opens up somewhat. But there is still a lot more available for experimental CM physicists. If you do theory, you should spend time studying things like semiconductors, interfaces, or magnetic nanoparticles/quantum dots. Also, there are engineering professors that do research on this stuff, so a program like that might prepare someone to be more versatile and enter industry more easily, although I don't really know. I spent most of my PhD studying correlated materials, which was rather hard, very specific and not very useful in industry.

 

[astroperson99]

Wow, I can't believe I missed this post. I am having similar problems with the OP, and after reading these posts I am edging more and more away from theoretical physics...

I do agree though that jobs/earning potential is a very important factor in the long run.

 

[twofish-quant]

Wow, I can't believe I missed this post. I am having similar problems with the OP, and after reading these posts I am edging more and more away from theoretical physics...

I do agree though that jobs/earning potential is a very important factor in the long run.

I really don't think that this should be a huge consideration, since I haven't seen theoretical physicists having a long term problem getting gainful employment. The difficulty is getting a particular job in a particular location with a particular amount of stress, but that's something rather different.

As long as you have decent programming skills, you'll be able to get a decent paying job somewhere.