Do Physics (Research) Related jobs exists for Bachelor's holders?

[sidinsky]

I graduated with a Bachelor's in Physics a few years back and have been working in the education field (Private Institute) for a few years now. Although I am making serious efforts to at least go for my Master's now, I am also looking for positions related to my degree outside the education field in the NYC area.

I have searched more general platforms such as Indeed and Glassdoor, as well as more specific platforms like PhysicsToday, Lensa and Jobrapido but could not find anything that would fit my criteria. Whenever I search for 'Entry-Level, Research Positions- no Master's required' I always get something that is completed not Physics related. I find postings related to the medical field to Data Science and everything in between (such as construction work, or admin positions).

So my question is that from now to until the time I have a Master's degree, what can I do to gain a position that is more closely related to my educational background and how do I go about finding it?

 

[Choppy]

As far as doing physics-related research goes, I think most often the people employed at the post BSc level are hired as temporary research assistants. Beyond that, if you're looking toward industry, the work available tends to have an engineering/programming/data handling slant. In medical physics we sometimes hire physics assistants at the BSc level.

You might want to check out some of the AIP publications. They tend to keep track of who hires physics graduates, even at the BSc level. For example, check out:
Who's Hiring Physics Bachelors

 

[sidinsky]

Thanks for your response. It was helpful. :)

 

[klotza]

There are jobs for physics majors to do physics research, but they are often not labelled as such. I had such a job after I graduated, where I was doing fluid dynamics simulations in a hospital research lab. These jobs are often not treated like potentially permanent positions, but rather as something to get experience before grad school. Lately I've been hearing the term "post-bac" thrown around as an anology to post-doc. You can check the job sites for "post-baccalaureate researcher" or something similar and see if anything jumps out at you.

However, most of the jobs that physics majors end up doing aren't directly advertised to them. Physics majors are a pretty small contingent and the jobs that they could do tend to be advertised to engineers or chemists are other related fields. A lot of the jobs that are more appropriate the physicists doing physics tend to require a graduate degree. That is the case for the emerging quantum computing industry jobs (e.g. with Amazon), which typically require a Ph.D.

It would be worth looking through entry-level engineering jobs and seeing which ones seem physicsy, oftentimes they don't require a professional engineering degree. The aerospace industry in the LA area hires a lot of physics grads, for example. This job for example in the New York area, lists chemistry, materials science "or a related discipline," which sounds up a physicists' alley but doesn't explicitly mention physics.

You might also be interested in checking out APS Local Links in New York, which is a monthly physics networking event, where there are a lot of people who understand how to break from physics into industry. I used to go to the Boston events.

 

[sidinsky]

Thank you, this is really helpful. The last advice proved to be very helpful and this really made things clear for me. I really appreciate everyone's input.