Finding the Perfect PhD Program for Multi-Interest Researchers

[Searcher83]

PhD for multi-interests-?

Hi,

Dear participants,could you tell me,please,which PhD program is the best fit for someone who has a wide spectrum of interests(physics,maths,electronics,chemistry,etc) and really wants to use all of them in his research work?What kind of field could it be?

I guess,this question interests many guys who thinks of pursuing PhD.

 

[Dr Transport]

Experimental Physics or Materials Science come to mind

 

[Timo]

You are certainly right that the answer to your question interests a lot of people. There is one nasty thought that always comes to my mind when I read about people who consider themselves so multi-interested that they cannot decide what to do (and no offense meant by that): Doing a PhD in some sense is the anti-thesis of not wanting to focus on something - even when "not wanting to focus on something" is described with the euphemism "wide range of interests". The good news is that unless you want to stay in university research, your PhD topic does not dictate the rest of your career (and possibly not even if you stay in university).

 

[chill_factor]

You are certainly right that the answer to your question interests a lot of people. There is one nasty thought that always comes to my mind when I read about people who consider themselves so multi-interested that they cannot decide what to do (and no offense meant by that): Doing a PhD in some sense is the anti-thesis of not wanting to focus on something - even when "not wanting to focus on something" is described with the euphemism "wide range of interests". The good news is that unless you want to stay in university research, your PhD topic does not dictate the rest of your career (and possibly not even if you stay in university).

he means interdisciplinary fields and those certainly exist.

 

[Timo]

he means interdisciplinary fields and those certainly exist.

I do not doubt the existence of "interdisciplinary fields". What I am not so convinced of is that working on the "interdisciplinary" biophysics topic "flurescence microscopy measurements of leukocyte motility on porous substances" necessarily has a less narrow focus than the "heavily specialized" theoretical solild state physics topic "electronic properties of quantum transistors in the Hubbard Model approximation". Not having done more than one PhD, that is of course speculative to a large extent.
I'd prefer leaving it to Searcher83 to judge if that seems a useful contribution to him, not to you.