Physics Are physicists underpaid or is it a misconception?

[Choppy]

Many posts have been, demoralizing. So those of you who have qualifications in physics, do you regret going into physics? and would you advise someone with an interest in physics to study a physics in undergrad? or is it too limiting in terms of job prospects?

Physics for me was (and still is) a tough and challenging road, but it has definitely been worth it. Maybe I'm the exception to the rule, but I had a choice of good jobs when I finished my PhD. I now have a job that is stable, pays reasonably well, allows me a fair amount of intellectual freedom, and that I can take pride in. (It does tend to be quite stessful though.)

My advice is that if you're interested in it, study physics, but go in with your eyes open and think about your future. Physics is an academic subject, not a profession. When you graduate you'll have a toolbox and you'll have to put more effort into figuring out what to do with it than a graduate from a professional school such as engineering.

 

[StatGuy2000]

1. If you want to be scientist/engineer and do computional/experimental work double major in engineering and physics, both are important.

Your advice above may not work for those students outside of the US; for example, at the University of Toronto (my former alma mater), engineering majors are unable to double major in any subject, and are restricted in what minors are made available. This is quite common of engineering programs in many Canadian universities (in the University of Waterloo, engineering majors can pursue a list of various "options", i.e. course electives in various subject matters, including both math and physics, effectively the equivalent of a minor in that subject).

4. Don't bother with studying engineering physics. It's a **** - it's neither engineering nor physics.

I disagree with your assessment above; I've known many of those who graduated with an engineering physics degree who have subsequently pursued graduate degrees in engineering and are now working as engineers.

 

[twofish-quant]

(1) What is the perception (or awareness) of physics PhDs among employers outside of finance, defence, or oil firms (the three areas that have been known to hire physics graduates)?

As far as astrophysics graduates go, if they haven't already hired a Ph.D., then you are a "space alien" and if you are a "space alien" then you aren't getting the job.

I would guess that software and technology firms will tend to have a favourable view of those with physics backgrounds (particularly those with either computational or experimental backgrounds).

No. The issue here is some theoretical physics Ph.D.'s can't program. When I'm applying for a job outside of the "big three", I minimize the fact that I have a physics Ph.D., and focus on my programming skills. In these sorts of jobs, the critical thing is not that they have a positive impression of Ph.D.'s, is that they don't have a *negative* one and that they consider my Ph.D. to be irrelevant.

Also, it may hurt you if their view is too positive. You can be overqualified, and sometimes you *are* overqualified. For example, if you are selling X, you often don't want people that are too smart or think too much. If they are too smart, then might have think deeply about whether X is a good product and they may have moral issues if they conclude that it isn't.

One thing that employers wonder about Ph.D.'s is if they will get bored with the work. That's not an illegitimate worry. This goes to the point that many of the reasons that employers have for not hiring Ph.D.'s are valid ones, and maybe they *shouldn't* hire a physics Ph.D.

(2) What has the various physics departments, along with the professional societies for physicists, in the US have actually done to promote physics PhDs in non-academic employment?

Pretty much nothing that I can see. One thing that the professional societies could do is to have non-academic Ph.D.s in policy making positions. Talk is cheap. The problem is that if you want to actually change things, you have to change power structures and that can be messy.

(3) As a follow-up to question (2), does there exist a contemptuous attitude among the professional physics societies in the US regarding non-academic employment?

A professional society isn't a human being, so it's hard for me to say what it means for an organization to have an attitude. I do know that there are individual physicists that have a strongly negative attitude toward non-academic employment. But sometimes that doesn't matter. If you have Professor X that thinks that anyone that doesn't get tenure is a failure, but if Professor Y thinks otherwise and Y is your dissertation adviser, it doesn't matter what X thinks.

Also people have complicated motivations. There is a part of my brain that keeps telling me that I'm a failure because I'm not a professor, and part of the reason I behave in the way that I do is to tell that part of my brain to shut up.

If part of me views myself with contempt and loathing, then I'm pretty sure that lots of other people do it. Part of the reason that I've found philosophy to be useful is that it's useful to figure out where that voice comes from and what to do about it.

 

[Rika]

Your advice above may not work for those students outside of the US; for example, at the University of Toronto (my former alma mater), engineering majors are unable to double major in any subject, and are restricted in what minors are made available. This is quite common of engineering programs in many Canadian universities (in the University of Waterloo, engineering majors can pursue a list of various "options", i.e. course electives in various subject matters, including both math and physics, effectively the equivalent of a minor in that subject).

I think that major + minior (in either physics or engineering) is ok too. It depends on what you really want to do.

I disagree with your assessment above; I've known many of those who graduated with an engineering physics degree who have subsequently pursued graduate degrees in engineering and are now working as engineers.

I've heard about med school graduate who makes his living as illusionist but that's not the point.

I've studied engineering physics myself so that I could get engineering degree which is much more valuable and respected in my country than science degree. And yes - I can do master and then PhD in both physics and engineering but it doesn't change the fact that I'm not prepared as well as "pure" majors. I've taken all physics courses which weren't included in my major so you could say I have double major in both physics and engineering physics (in my country you don't have majors at all but you can study two subjects)

So I think that if you don't want waste your time you shouldn't bother with some strange hybrids.

 

[StatGuy2000]

No. The issue here is some theoretical physics Ph.D.'s can't program. When I'm applying for a job outside of the "big three", I minimize the fact that I have a physics Ph.D., and focus on my programming skills. In these sorts of jobs, the critical thing is not that they have a positive impression of Ph.D.'s, is that they don't have a *negative* one and that they consider my Ph.D. to be irrelevant.

Also, it may hurt you if their view is too positive. You can be overqualified, and sometimes you *are* overqualified. For example, if you are selling X, you often don't want people that are too smart or think too much. If they are too smart, then might have think deeply about whether X is a good product and they may have moral issues if they conclude that it isn't.

One thing that employers wonder about Ph.D.'s is if they will get bored with the work. That's not an illegitimate worry. This goes to the point that many of the reasons that employers have for not hiring Ph.D.'s are valid ones, and maybe they *shouldn't* hire a physics Ph.D.

In my earlier post, I had specifically stated that software and technology companies may have a positive view of those who come from a computational or experimental physics background. You are absolutely correct that some theoretical physics PhDs can't program, and for those people, their employment prospects outside of academia is extremely limited unless they're able or willing to pick up these skills quickly.

Now as far as your other points, I would like to note the following:

(1) PhD's being bored with their unique -- this is not unique to physics. Someone with a PhD in say, psychology, will face similar hurdles.

(2) Employers in the "big three" industries you have identified (finance, defence, oil & gas) do not seem to be concerned that the PhDs they hire will be bored with the work. Is there something unique about these industries in terms of their willingness to hire "smart" people?

(3) As far as a concern that "smart" employees may start to think too deeply about product X, and the ethical concerns resulting from this -- I would somehow think that this would be of much greater concern in finance, defence, or oil & gas than in many other industries, given the nature of the work involved.

 

[twofish-quant]

(1) PhD's being bored with their unique -- this is not unique to physics. Someone with a PhD in say, psychology, will face similar hurdles.

Sure.

(2) Employers in the "big three" industries you have identified (finance, defence, oil & gas) do not seem to be concerned that the PhDs they hire will be bored with the work. Is there something unique about these industries in terms of their willingness to hire "smart" people?

1) Building things that could destroy the planet tends not to be boring.

2) Also, a lot depends on the type of work. Most jobs in finance involve typing numbers into spreadsheets, and for those types of jobs, Ph.D.'s are usually considered vastly overqualified.

(3) As far as a concern that "smart" employees may start to think too deeply about product X, and the ethical concerns resulting from this -- I would somehow think that this would be of much greater concern in finance, defence, or oil & gas than in many other industries, given the nature of the work involved.

We live in an imperfect world. There are very large and real pressures for employers to hire people that aren't "too smart" and "don't ask too many questions." The fact that these pressures may result in very bad things happening, but that's the world for you.

In practice if you interviewing for a company that wants you to shut your brain off, there isn't that much you can do. That's why it's important not to get hired by that company in the first place. One of the best decisions that I made was to tell my recruiter that I didn't want to work for group Y in company X because I had a bad feeling about them from the interview.

The good news was that when company X fell apart and destroyed the world, I wasn't part of the mess, but rather I found myself part of the crew cleaning up the mess. The bad news was that my not working for company X was "selfish" in the sense that it made me feel better, but they hired someone else, and blew up the world anyway.

There's actually a reverse Darwin effect I've seen. Company X does stupid things. The things are so stupid that no one with brains or conscience will work for them. Which means that they hire stupid people, and they do even more stupid things.

I'm more afraid of stupidity than I am of evil. If I give a machine gun or an atomic bomb to say a Mafia hitman or Josef Stalin, I can reason with him. As long as I'm in the same room as Josef Stalin, he won't blow up the bomb because it will kill him, and someone who is evil but rational can be reasoned with. Now if the person doesn't understand that the button is connected to the atomic bomb, then I'm sunk.