I choosing a career in physics to pursue

[Klashta Neali]

I am only in grade 10 but stupid Careers course says I have to choose a career to do a summative study on. I want to choose something that I might go into but I can't choose. The NOC list for "Physics and Astronomy" is very long--I deleted the ones I am not interested in:

• aerophysicist
• aerospace research scientist
• astronomer
• astrophysicist
• chemical physicist
• cosmic ray physicist
• cosmologist
• cryogenics physicist
• electricity and magnetism physicist
• elementary particle physicist
• elementary particle theorist
• high-temperature physicist
• laser physicist
• low-temperature physicist
• magnetism physicist
• molecular biophysicist
• nanotechnology physicist
• nuclear physicist
• nuclear reactor physicist
• particle accelerator physicist
• particle physicist
• photonics physicist
• physicist
• physicist, elementary particles
• physics research scientist
• plasma physicist
• reactor physicist
• research scientist, aerospace
• research scientist, physics
• space physicist
• theoretical nuclear physicist
• theorist, elementary particles
• thermal physicist
• X-ray physicist

I know it's a long list but I don't know what to choose... I like theoretical work, research, and stuff that mostly requires thinking. A lot of thinking and pondering and philosophy stuff. I think a lot.
I am fairly skilled with computers and partway through my first computer science course.
I already know a lot about cosmology and quantum mechanics.
Please help; this is due on Friday (Nov, 6).
Something that is at least some positions/job offerings is preferable.

 

[jedishrfu]

I think you made this unnecessarily complicated. How did you come to develop this list? I would have listed the fields of physics and not the experimental vs theoretical instead I'd use it as a criteria doing this cuts your list in half.

Why not design some criteria and score each type and then look at the high scoring ones?

Since you mentioned your interest in computers then simulation work makes sense which means theoretical physics so scratch all the experimental stuff.

Since you mention jobs then most cosmology / particle physics / cutting edge stuff is removed leaving nanotech,

You never mentioned Biology and physics perhaps that would be something you'd like for example proteomics or genomics.

 

[Vanadium 50]

Why not pick one at random? It's for a report, for heaven's sake, not your life.

 

[Klashta Neali]

I think you made this unnecessarily complicated. How did you come to develop this list? I would have listed the fields of physics and not the experimental vs theoretical instead I'd use it as a criteria doing this cuts your list in half.

Why not design some criteria and score each type and then look at the high scoring ones?

Since you mentioned your interest in computers then simulation work makes sense which means theoretical physics so scratch all the experimental stuff.

Since you mention jobs then most cosmology / particle physics / cutting edge stuff is removed leaving nanotech,

You never mentioned Biology and physics perhaps that would be something you'd like for example proteomics or genomics.

I appreciate the time you took in writing your post but clearly you didn't pay much attention to what I wrote. If you did, maybe it would have been more helpful, but it isn't.

Criteria? Really? That doesn't work. First of all I am not going to research each and every one of those; secondly, one of the career assignments was to develop a bunch of criteria and it was the dumbest thing ever. I don't choose careers like that.
I think it would make more sense if I told you I copy-pasted the list from the NOC website (which I mentioned, but since you didn't read it, you asked how I "developed" the list...). http://www5.hrsdc.gc.ca/NOC/English/NOC/2011/ViewAllTitles.aspx?val=2&val1=2111
I had also stated that I had copy-pasted and then deleted the ones I didn't think I'd be interested in. I don't know the others very well. That's why I'm asking on here. What are the others like? Which ones are experimental? Which ones can I delete? What careers are practically obsolete in job searching?

 

[jedishrfu]

I'm sorry my post didn't help. It's true I didn't notice that you got your list from the NOC list as your post doesn't explicitly state ithat that's where you got it from but upon rereading I can see what you meant.

However, you misunderstood my criteria suggestion. The criteria could be based on anything that comes to mind what you like more or what you imagine is required or what you may think you need to know because basically you just want to choose one career to write about. Its a variant of the classic way of making an informed decision using pros and cons then picking the one with the most favorable pros and least hated cons.

You could also try flipping coins to choose one career.

Please remember we are volunteers here at PF and we try to help students with their questions, we aren't here to be told how worthless our posts are even if they are less than helpful to your particular problem.