Grad School or Other Options: What's the Best Choice?

[feathermoon]

Hey all,

I basically am at a crossroads. I recently received my undergraduate degree in physics, and now I'm looking at either attending graduate school or some other unknown. To me graduate school is the preference, but my GPA is quite low at 2.759. I will apply to two different medical physics programs that I know of that have stipulations that they might take students with a GPA this low.

I guess I'm just wondering about alternatives, because I'm [rightly] worried about ever getting into a grad school. I bought into the whole do anything with a physics degree, but became dispirited by the actual coursework. Its not that I'm disinterested, but my professor was awkward to speak to so I sought little help for harder material, and was never really self motivated. Are there many possibilities still open to me?

Locally I can get a job as a physical scientist in the coal mines probably, but that's frankly quite low on my list of jobs. Currently I'm a high school teacher at a private school, and just got my substitute license for public schools. I can already tell its not really for me, though.

 

[Choppy]

Medical physics graduate programs tend to be rather competative to get into these days, so unless you have some stronger points to offset your GPA the chances of getting in are very low.

If you really have a strong interest in medical physics and don't get in as a graduate student, what about training as a radiation therapist? Depending on the program you could start working in ~ 2 years and/or go on to become a dosimetrist. Salary-wise they do quite well and you won't spent the next 7+ years of your life as a student/resident.

 

[feathermoon]

That sounds like a good option I hadn't thought of. Thanks. I have done undergraduate research for two summers. But yea, I don't really expect to be accepted into a medical physics program, given my GPA. I can tell its competitive; one school that's been sending me invitations to open houses and such also said they accepted ~14 out of ~80 apps last year, with avg GPA of 3.8. That's unfortunately not me, haha.

Do you know of any other sub fields of physics, or other fields where I would more likely be accepted into a graduate program? I'm open to suggestions at this point; I think I knew more about what I wanted to be when I came into college than when I left.

My current backup backup plan is trying to get an officers commission as a physical scientist for the U.S. armed forces. Anyone have any experience with that? Is it a good/bad choice if it comes to that or remaining a part time teacher?