Advice Needed: Last Year of College, Physics Degree, Grad School

[Whowowwow]

I am 36 and enrolled in my last year at a small community college. I am pursuing an undergraduate degree in Physics with an intent on studying EE or ChemE in grad school. Is that rational? or Does anyone have a better idea?

 

[Andy Resnick]

It's perfectly rational if that's how you want to spend the next (approximately) decade of your life; there is no age limit on being a scientist or engineer.

 

[Whowowwow]

Decade? Really??

 

[Maxwhale]

take your time, everything's rational as long as you really want it. Good luck !

 

[physics girl phd]

Decade? Really??

You'll have to look at the requirements to get into your desired possibilities for graduate graduate school and see if you will meet them via your present degree program... although I'm not as familiar about EE/ChemE programs, most programs have a set of recommended undergraduate courses so that you can succeed in their core coursework (which usually takes 1-2 years); if you don't have these courses or their equivalent, you'll have to take an extra year of prerequisites to catch up, even if you are conditionally excepted.

In addition, most programs look for research experience. Do you have any applicable research or work experience?

Typically even if you are well prepared to do research, finish your core classes and qualifying exams and comprehensive exams early... if you're looking to get a Ph.D., expect it to take at least 5-7 years (WATCH OUT for it taking longer! sometimes universities have required graduation deadlines and you'll need to petition for early core courses to still count!). Often along the way you'll have to build equipment, things will break and you'll need to fix them, etc. Typically there's only about 3 times that everything is working, and that's what gives you the data to write publications and your dissertation. The only people I knew that finished in less than five years from my program were a few theorists were very good at coding computer simulations and complex calculations...