Physics Career after Computer Science and Physics double major

[hades]

I am currently still a high school student but i will be going to university next year. I've long decided to take a double major of physics and computer science. I can get a scholarship for undergrad. But my question is about after I get my Bachelors Degrees in both computer science and physics. What kind of jobs can I get then to pay for grad school? More specifically, I would like whatever I do then to be related to science, so are there any science related jobs i can do after just my bachelors to pay for grad school or am I going to have to work in a non-scientific job until I get at least my Masters Degrees (again, in both CS and physics) ?

Thank you in advance and I would appreciate any advice

 

[johnnyrev]

Hello hades,

I worked for several years in the Career Services department at a major private university you would certainly recognize. There will be scholarship and graduate assistant opportunities for post-graduate education but you must remember they are dependent on your grade point average in college.

Internships during your baccalaureate years are also very important, and will bring experience that university researchers are looking for in their graduate assistants. With the right internships you may even land a job after college that will offer educational opportunities as part of their benefits packages, but you may need to be prepared in such instances to work in a field that is not necessarily related to your ultimate career goals.

For instance, you may find yourself working in a more CS focused field when you want to really work at NASA. However, with excellent grades, you may be able to land a highly competitive and coveted internship at a NASA contractor while still an undergraduate that would allow you to use you post graduation "grunt" job as a place holder while you seek bigger and better opportunities.

The average person nowadays changes jobs several times during their adult lifetime. You will not necessarily land your dream job as soon as you graduate nor when you gain your hood, but you will get there eventually.

I hope this is encouraging and helpful. I will post more advice when I can.

John

 

[johnnyrev]

One thing you will want to do on your college tours is insist on a visit to the career counseling/services department. At the university where I worked we had a career counseling section that helped you figure out what you wanted to do and a career services section that helped you find internships and employment, with some overlap in between. So be sure to ask the admissions rep specifically if this is the case, when you visit that/those department(s) ask specifically about their reciprocal relationships with other universities.

Reciprocity between career service/counseling departments allows for students from the college they are attending to utilize the same resources at a geographic area near a college or university where they are interested in employment. It also opens up possible opportunities for internships or temporary employment at places that only think to offer openings at that university, since it is local to them.

For instance, and this is a very general one, since it involves a place that would certainly look nationwide: Say JPL only thinks to look locally for internships, and goes to Rice for all its candidates. You go to Baylor, and want to work at JPL. You go to Baylor's career counseling, and find out there are no openings for internships with JPL. What do you do?

You research JPL, and find out they are hiring through Rice. You then ask Baylor's career counseling to form a reciprocal relationship with Rice so you can use their application process to submit a resume to JPL. Because you are at Baylor, your resume stands out among the loads of Rice resumes that JPL receives, and you just may land one of their coveted spots, along with the other Rice students they hire. No guarantees of course, and this does in no way denigrate Rice applicants. I'm just using the two universities for an example.

BUT, you may miss the application window if Baylor doesn't already have a reciprocal relationship with Rice. See what I mean by checking first?