I've heard so many horror stories....

[LunaFly]

Well first, the salary information is from 7 to 8 years ago so it could just be dated. Also your graph is from a survey which is a word I never like to hear when relying on a source for data. According to your information the starting salary of a BS in physics is roughly 64,000 while on here It's closer to 50,000 or 55,000.

Here is what I found (it's also from a survey which makes me cringe):

Annual pay for bachelor’s graduates without higher degrees. Typical starting graduates have two years of experience; mid-career graduates have 15 years. See http://www.payscale.com/college-salary-report-2014/methodology.

Source: http://www.payscale.com/college-salary-report-2014/majors-that-pay-you-back

http://www.payscale.com/chart/268/Top-10-Majors-by-Salary-Potential.2013-v1.0.png

It looks to me like the biggest factors are where you work as far as salary is concerned. Outside of petroleum engineering which I think most know is a gold mine right now.

You make some good points. The APS data is kind of dated.

As far as the "survey" aspect is concerned, I agree that that isn't a favorite word to hear about a data set. The APS data (at least, the one comparing bachelor degree starting salary) is from surveying campus recruiters while the data from payscale.com is from surveying employees themselves. It's up to debate which of these sources is a more accurate measure of what we are trying to discuss. It is also interesting that the payscale.com data specifies that those surveyed for "starting graduates" also have on average two years experience, so, in my humble opinion, that isn't really a starting wage; they already have experience at that point, making them worth more! This differs from the APS data which is from campus recruiters making offers to students soon to graduate, which may explain some of the difference in values.

Lastly, the APS data is a range of salaries, while the payscale.com data is a single (average) salary for each. You state that the APS data shows that the starting salary of someone with a physics BS is 64,000. Not so! The APS data only shows a range of salaries; the range goes from about 40,000 to 64,000, so 64,000 is the highest surveyed value of salary they found. The average of this salary range is about 52,000. This matches pretty closely the value posted on your plot, so I would venture to argue the data sets are consistent (at least for the physics major).

My point with posting the data was to show that the claim of the OP about everyone with a physics degree making low wages is incorrect. Though the data points to the fact that, on average, a person with an EE degree will make more that a person with a physics degree, the difference isn't huge (only about $10k according to your data set). Thus if in the OP's opinion all physicists make a low wage then so do most EE's.

 

[gregy521]

I was curious what your source is for this information? I am not saying whether or not it is valid, just that blanket statements are seldom true.

I am graduating this spring with a BS in Physics from a school with a top-tier undergrad physics program, and I will have less than $10k in debt, so you do not have to take years of student debt to do it (to be fair, I am in the US and from a lower-middle class family). Also, why would a physics degree incur more debt than an engineering or other degree? If your argument is that an EE degree will earn more than a Physics degree upon graduation, check this out:

http://www.aps.org/careers/statistics/bsalaryfield.cfm

As you notice, the high earners in the physics field make just as much as those in EE. If you want to make money in physics, look at something like this:

https://www.aip.org/statistics/physics-trends/starting-salaries-physics-bachelors

If money is your motivator, getting a graduate degree would boost your salary for sure:

https://www.aip.org/statistics/physics-trends/physics-phds-starting-salaries

I also wanted to say that you may be concerning yourself prematurely. You haven't even started college yet! While it is very important to take choosing a major seriously, you will still likely have a chance to change majors without big repercussions within your first year or so, especially between fields such as physics and engineering. It may be worth it to choose the major you feel most strongly about, and start on it, then see how it feels and go from there.

Part of what I love most about physics is its universal applications. Though my physics undergrad program hasn't taught me fluid dynamics, it has taught me differential equations, mechanics and, most importantly, the skills to piece things apart into understandable segments (as you put it, problem-solve); therefore I feel confident that fluid dynamics is something I could understand with some time and effort. To me, that is what makes physicists powerful; it's not that they know all the answers, it's that they can figure out a way to find the answer. "Figuring things out" through perseverance and struggle is what builds your skills and problem-solving power (ask anyone in research!). If you are the kind of person who sees no value in struggle, than perhaps physics is not the right subject for you.

My sources are a variety of academic accounts and some people in the industry. Also, you have less than $10k usd in debt because your parents saved up for you to go to uni. We don't have that here, we have student loans. Sure some pay upfront but it's rare.

Also, Money isn't my motivator, I'd just like to earn at least a reasonable amount for my skill set. One wouldn't pay a lawyer minimum wage, why would a physics graduate be any different?

I do like everything to do with physics, but I'm still concerned because I don't want to go through Uni to find that I'll make bad pay for long hours at a job I won't have next year.

 

[LunaFly]

So your academic sources and industry sources all say that:

The field is high supply low demand
The pay is low for everything except the best positions
The hours are excruciating
You do more administration than actual physics
You have no free time for anything
There's no job security
You have to take years of student debt to be able to do it

? If you trust your sources, than I guess you've answered your own question. Run away from physics as fast as you can, because there is nothing but misery for you there, apparently.

I also wanted to point out that I did receive the equivalent of 1 year of tuition support from my parents. I paid for the rest with my job, scholarships, and loans. My school cost about $10k a year, so if I didn't have my parents support at all, I would have about $20k in loans. Still not huge.

 

[Boolean Boogey]

My point with posting the data was to show that the claim of the OP about everyone with a physics degree making low wages is incorrect. Though the data points to the fact that, on average, a person with an EE degree will make more that a person with a physics degree, the difference isn't huge (only about $10k according to your data set). Thus if in the OP's opinion all physicists make a low wage then so do most EE's.

I agree, it's what you do with your education combined with if you actually learned what your teachers were attempting to teach you.

 

[f95toli]

Also, Money isn't my motivator, I'd just like to earn at least a reasonable amount for my skill set. One wouldn't pay a lawyer minimum wage, why would a physics graduate be any different?

Again. who told you that physicists aren't well paid? How much you earn will obviously depend on what you end up doing and salaries in industry will vary quite a lot. However, even in academia people are actually quite well paid (have a look at the academic salary scale, it is available online); not nearly as much as a solicitor working in finance can make but that is -as I pointed out above- not a relevant comparison simply because people in that field make LOTS of money compared to 95% of the population in the UK, meaning using salaries in the finance/legal sector as a measuring stick makes no sense: there are virtually NO other jobs that pay that much (you would need to the the director of a reasonably large company to get even close).

It might be a good idea to have a look on a job site such as Monster; you will notice that there are actually relatively few jobs with a salary over £33K a year even in London and most of them will require several years of experience, and £33K is incidentally roughly what a post-doc is paid (in London you can make a bit more).

 

[Mark Harder]

All I can find about physics online is stories of how bad it is.
The field is high supply low demand
The pay is low for everything except the best positions
The pay is low
You do more administration than actual physics
You have no free time for anything
There's no job security
You have to take years of student debt to be able to do

High supply, low demand. = True, also true for all scientific/technical R&D type jobs I can think of. Medicine is a little better in this regard because medicine (excepting pathology) is practiced locally; i.e. it can't easily be outsourced to other countries like China or India. Law is another good career if you want a better competitive advantage; but I assume you would prefer to work in scientific R&D.

The pay is low... = Ill-defined. If you want to make beaucoup $$$ doing science, the best way is to start your own business and take it from there. Assuming you have developed a product (or service, like consulting) that commands a large market with $ to spend on you or your product. But if you will be satisfied with a comfortable lifestyle, then it all depends on where you land a job working for someone else. How important is earning lots of money to you?

Hours are excruciating = Ill-defined & exaggerated. If you're talking about Grad school, Ph.D. and all that, then yes, you will put in long hours learning the subject, picking up tools and picking up the habit of working hard. Later, things will probably seem easier. But "excruciating"? You have to stop listening to depressives. This is the sort of self-talk my therapist would be horrified to hear. Examine exactly what that word means to you, if it means anything. What do you think it means, hanging from a cross? Come on.

Oh, and horror stories. Yeah. Have you noticed that horror stories/movies are not exactly your typical everyday real-world experiences? Theatre-goers don't watch thrillers because they want to understand how the real world works (well, there are exceptions. Some folks mistake TV and movies for the real thing. Don't be one of those people.) The masters of the horror genre, like Stephen King, have a talent for creating a mundane reality, then having it slip into another dimension or some such - opening the back door of a diner and stepping into the days immediately preceding Kennedy's assassination. Perhaps he should write a story where an unsuspecting grad student opens his apartment door before midnight for the first night in months and finds, instead of his BBTheory nerds, a sleeper cell of terrorists fawning over the thermonuclear weapon they just completed in the attic on the mornings while he was sleeping. Now, THAT"S a horror story. Reminds me of a dream I had once.

You have no free time for anything. = Depends on you. If you can't find time for a life, it'll happen in grad school, if not before. In that case, change course. There are alternatives. Working hard does not exclude playing hard. Hang with the right crowd and you can have an enjoyable life on and off the job.

no job security, lots of student debt = Welcome to the real world. Used to be scientists were told their future was assured because of Sputnik, plastics new drugs, whatever. We were spoiled back then. It's not the '60s anymore. And as a result, the gov. has been awfully slow picking up the tab as a result. These 2 things are true for anybody, except as I said above, lawyers. This is like saying no one will hire you once you reach 50 y.o. Age discrimination is universal, or almost. Besides, if you didn't have to put in long hours and really learn and apply yourself to a profession, anybody could and would do so. Job security used to be the rule working for the government. Hard to say where that's going. The homeland security biz is booming. I have an acquaintance who works for a big gov. contractor with a long history in weapons development issues. He has a technical background, I don't know if it's physics exactly, and works in cybersecurity. My guess is it also has to do with the nukes. He's getting a new security clearance as we speak. Read "Command & Control" by Eric Schlosser about the subject of nuclear weapons security. It's pretty overwhelming; and as long as there are nuclear weapons, people will be working on this problem. It's really impossible to have weapons that will work 100% of the time and be 100% safe from accidents, but we absolutely have to get better at it. I'm sure there are still physicists at work on it.

Again, I think the very best situation is self-employment, if you can swing it. Job security is strictly up to you. Not likely you'll fire yourself because your hair turned gray. I wouldn't know, but I guess this path will entail lots of debt, failures too. (I heard somewhere that Trump went into bankruptcy at least once.) If the administration/business stuff is unbearable, hire the appropriate suits to do this stuff. Or sell it to someone who doesn't mind that stuff. There are types of security you'll have to take care of yourself though, like health insurance and retirement.

On the other hand, are you're looking for a career for lazy people? In which case, you're in the wrong place. Go to your guidance counsellor and tell her you're really lazy and wonder what career is perfect for you. No. Don't. I'm only kidding. I hope you realize I'm trying to be entertaining here. Don't take it personally. Lighten the mood, you see?

I think that about covers it.

 

[StatGuy2000]

High supply, low demand. = True, also true for all scientific/technical R&D type jobs I can think of. Medicine is a little better in this regard because medicine (excepting pathology) is practiced locally; i.e. it can't easily be outsourced to other countries like China or India. Law is another good career if you want a better competitive advantage; but I assume you would prefer to work in scientific R&D.

The pay is low... = Ill-defined. If you want to make beaucoup $$$ doing science, the best way is to start your own business and take it from there. Assuming you have developed a product (or service, like consulting) that commands a large market with $ to spend on you or your product. But if you will be satisfied with a comfortable lifestyle, then it all depends on where you land a job working for someone else. How important is earning lots of money to you?

Hours are excruciating = Ill-defined & exaggerated. If you're talking about Grad school, Ph.D. and all that, then yes, you will put in long hours learning the subject, picking up tools and picking up the habit of working hard. Later, things will probably seem easier. But "excruciating"? You have to stop listening to depressives. This is the sort of self-talk my therapist would be horrified to hear. Examine exactly what that word means to you, if it means anything. What do you think it means, hanging from a cross? Come on.

Oh, and horror stories. Yeah. Have you noticed that horror stories/movies are not exactly your typical everyday real-world experiences? Theatre-goers don't watch thrillers because they want to understand how the real world works (well, there are exceptions. Some folks mistake TV and movies for the real thing. Don't be one of those people.) The masters of the horror genre, like Stephen King, have a talent for creating a mundane reality, then having it slip into another dimension or some such - opening the back door of a diner and stepping into the days immediately preceding Kennedy's assassination. Perhaps he should write a story where an unsuspecting grad student opens his apartment door before midnight for the first night in months and finds, instead of his BBTheory nerds, a sleeper cell of terrorists fawning over the thermonuclear weapon they just completed in the attic on the mornings while he was sleeping. Now, THAT"S a horror story. Reminds me of a dream I had once.

You have no free time for anything. = Depends on you. If you can't find time for a life, it'll happen in grad school, if not before. In that case, change course. There are alternatives. Working hard does not exclude playing hard. Hang with the right crowd and you can have an enjoyable life on and off the job.

no job security, lots of student debt = Welcome to the real world. Used to be scientists were told their future was assured because of Sputnik, plastics new drugs, whatever. We were spoiled back then. It's not the '60s anymore. And as a result, the gov. has been awfully slow picking up the tab as a result. These 2 things are true for anybody, except as I said above, lawyers. This is like saying no one will hire you once you reach 50 y.o. Age discrimination is universal, or almost. Besides, if you didn't have to put in long hours and really learn and apply yourself to a profession, anybody could and would do so. Job security used to be the rule working for the government. Hard to say where that's going. The homeland security biz is booming. I have an acquaintance who works for a big gov. contractor with a long history in weapons development issues. He has a technical background, I don't know if it's physics exactly, and works in cybersecurity. My guess is it also has to do with the nukes. He's getting a new security clearance as we speak. Read "Command & Control" by Eric Schlosser about the subject of nuclear weapons security. It's pretty overwhelming; and as long as there are nuclear weapons, people will be working on this problem. It's really impossible to have weapons that will work 100% of the time and be 100% safe from accidents, but we absolutely have to get better at it. I'm sure there are still physicists at work on it.

Again, I think the very best situation is self-employment, if you can swing it. Job security is strictly up to you. Not likely you'll fire yourself because your hair turned gray. I wouldn't know, but I guess this path will entail lots of debt, failures too. (I heard somewhere that Trump went into bankruptcy at least once.) If the administration/business stuff is unbearable, hire the appropriate suits to do this stuff. Or sell it to someone who doesn't mind that stuff. There are types of security you'll have to take care of yourself though, like health insurance and retirement.

On the other hand, are you're looking for a career for lazy people? In which case, you're in the wrong place. Go to your guidance counsellor and tell her you're really lazy and wonder what career is perfect for you. No. Don't. I'm only kidding. I hope you realize I'm trying to be entertaining here. Don't take it personally. Lighten the mood, you see?

I think that about covers it.

What you state above for "High supply, low demand" may be true for physics PhDs wanting to work in R&D jobs in academia, but the situation is not universally true for all scientific/technical areas. In the US and Canada, there is still high demand for numerous specific engineering fields (chemical engineering, mechanical engineering), and there is high demand for those working in the areas of "data science" (i.e. statisticians, computer scientists specializing in machine learning, physicists who've retrained to work in that field).

And you are wrong about law being a good career path, at least in the US -- I have read countless reports in news programs describing the oversupply of law school graduates versus positions available in law firms, and the high unemployment of recent law school graduates. See the following link below from the Wall Street Journal as reference (the article is a few years old, but I have not read anything indicating that the situation has changed dramatically recently).

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304858104579264730376317914

And regarding Trump, he is not an entrepreneur who founded his own business -- he inherited both his wealth and much of the original real-estate business from his father, Fred Trump. And Trump declared bankruptcy 4 times in total.

 

[Boolean Boogey]

What you state above for "High supply, low demand" may be true for physics PhDs wanting to work in R&D jobs in academia, but the situation is not universally true for all scientific/technical areas. In the US and Canada, there is still high demand for numerous specific engineering fields (chemical engineering, mechanical engineering), and there is high demand for those working in the areas of "data science" (i.e. statisticians, computer scientists specializing in machine learning, physicists who've retrained to work in that field).

Doesn't this support the idea that physics is not a great career field?

 

[StatGuy2000]

Doesn't this support the idea that physics is not a great career field?

Not necessarily. The point I was trying to make was that people with physics degrees (in particular, those who have pursued graduate studies in physics) often possesses a broad range of skills (problem-solving and technical skills) which can readily be applied to a wide range of careers, including the latest field of data science, similar to those with math degrees (of which a physics degree has much in common). Of course, a lot depends on what skills the physics or math student acquires during his/her education, and how broadly or narrowly the student is looking into for possible careers.

If someone is dead set on pursuing a career in academia, then yes, the probability is fairly good that the career prospects may not be so positive, given how competitive tenure-track positions are (not impossible, but difficult). But academia is not the only career path that is open to physics or math graduates, so long as you acquire important technical skills which are applicable in a wide range of fields (e.g. programming skills, quantitative skills, simulation, data analysis, etc.).

It is also worth pointing out that different areas of physics or math may be more or less employable. I have often read that those specializing in condensed matter physics or AMO (atomic, molecular, and optical) physics are often highly employable -- perhaps those specializing in those fields can speak more about this. And those specializing in applied math (in particular, those with background in numerical analysis, statistics, or operations research) may be more employable than those in say, pure math.

 

[-Dragoon-]

I'm a recent physics BS graduate now several months into a full-time engineering position. Here's my take on this issue: disregard practically everything anyone here says that isn't backed up by official statistics and studies. At one point in time, I used to eat up all of the bad things people were saying about the degree on here and how it would lead to perpetual unemployment. Just one month after graduating I received 5 interviews and 2 job offers in the end. Some people will undoubtedly claim I must be the exception looking at my post history. But I've even helped a few friends with no prior research and internship experience secure work in the engineering field. From most of my graduating class, the majority went into graduate school, and then in the engineering industry, and lastly finance/data/programming. In hindsight, some of the stuff written here that I used to hold as the absolute truth is so ridiculous that I actually wish I had more time to refute. Things like you absolutely do need an engineering degree for an engineering job. For a job that probably requires someone who can qualify at some point qualify for the p.eng this is correct, but these jobs are very few and far between. In my experience, many employers now realize just how incompetent many engineering graduates are. My experience and the experience of many my colleagues would suggest they now prefer people with technical backgrounds that have a good grasp on the fundamental knowledge that they can later train rather than waiting for someone they believe can hit the ground running. I don't mean to come off as snide, but as a physics graduate I'd say you are at least guaranteed to be as competent as the average engineer but will be lacking mainly in the design aspects of the job that you should have no issue picking up.

Despite the above, I will say there are certain ways you need to tailor your resume and cover letter to go about looking for work. It helps tremendously taking a few engineering electives and doing research in areas of applied physics along with internship experience, but this is not completely necessary even if it puts you at a disadvantage. If any of you on here are having issues and need further tips with resume writing and other things I won't elaborate on here, feel free to PM me.

 

[radium]

I have talked with quite a few physic/math PhDs who have gone on to careers in engineering/tech positions. Many say that their extensive math background gives them a leg up on engineers. People often talk about engineers having math skills, but on average these skills don't compare to those of someone from physics. When employers see you have studied physics, they know you have great quantitative/analytical skills and flexible ways of thinking. Even if you don't currently have the exact skills they are looking for, they know that your background will allow you to learn them quickly and keep up to date on the latest things you need to know. Google actually visits physics departments for info sessions (not sure how many departments though).

You can still get many of these jobs as a theorist. From what I have heard, as long as you have a good working knowledge of Python or Matlab, you are very hireable in areas such as data science, various positions at IBM, Intel, Google, Facebook, etc.

 

[Boolean Boogey]

I have talked with quite a few physic/math PhDs who have gone on to careers in engineering/tech positions. Many say that their extensive math background gives them a leg up on engineers. People often talk about engineers having math skills, but on average these skills don't compare to those of someone from physics.

In what ways are those that major in physics superior to engineering students, mathematically speaking?

 

[George Jones]

A typical physics major is exposed to a wider variety of mathematics than is a typical engineering major. (Of course, here are exceptions to this general statement.) This difference in exposures (not necessarily differences in mathematical abilities) allows physics majors to develop different mathematical skills. Of course, engineering majors are exposed to things to which physics majors are not exposed, so ...

 

[Boolean Boogey]

A typical physics major is exposed to a wider variety of mathematics than is a typical engineering major. (Of course, here are exceptions to this general statement.) This difference in exposures (not necessarily differences in mathematical abilities) allows physics majors to develop different mathematical skills. Of course, engineering majors are exposed to things to which physics majors are not exposed, so ...

Which mathematics are physics majors exposed to that engineering majors are not exposed to?

 

[George Jones]

For example, more stuff on solving partial differential equations, on special functions, on calculus of variations.

 

[Jano L.]

Which mathematics are physics majors exposed to that engineering majors are not exposed to?

I think the mathematics where you wade through the infinite sequence of definition, statement, proof, remark, definition, ...

 

[George Jones]

I think the mathematics where you wade through the infinite sequence of definition, statement, proof, remark, definition, ...

I think that a physics student's exposure to this is dependent on the student's geographical location.

 

[Boolean Boogey]

Alright fair enough.

I think that a physics student's exposure to this is dependent on the student's geographical location.

Why is location a determining factor?

 

[clope023]

Which mathematics are physics majors exposed to that engineering majors are not exposed to?

Depends, some of my fellow physics major cohort did partial differential equations, real analysis, functional analysis, did research on lie algebras, among other more theoretical topics due to their own interest. Engineers in general aren't very rigorous when it comes to math versus physicists and their proficiency tends to weaken the more abstraction packs on to the subject at hand.

 

[radium]

Well I think the biggest thing is that physics requires you to understand math at a higher level conceptually.

 

[clope023]

Well I think the biggest thing is that physics requires you to understand math at a higher level conceptually.

Still the purview of the mathematicians, plenty of physicists are the shut up and calculate type so not as much higher level conceptual understanding as you might think.

 

[radium]

Of course mathematicians will think most physicists don't do math rigorously. In the most abstract areas of math they never calculate anything. For things like the quantum Hall effect, mathematicians could tell you that the system in topologically nontrivial. However, if you asked them about calculating the hall conductance using this, many would not be interested at all. In fact, I highly suspect that my friend doing his math PhD may not even know how to use Mathematica.

Physicists use math by balancing of rigor and physical intuition in a way that allows us to both use math to understand physics and physics to understand math, which I think is a very useful advantage.

 

[George Jones]

I think the mathematics where you wade through the infinite sequence of definition, statement, proof, remark, definition, ...

I think that a physics student's exposure to this is dependent on the student's geographical location.

Why is location a determining factor?

Program details vary from country to country. For example, physics programs in continental Europe tend to place more emphasis on abstract/pure mathematics than do programs in Britain, which in turn tend to have more emphasis than do programs in North America. Again, these are generalizations, and there can differences at different schools in the same country.

Another difference in mathematics exposure for physics and engineering students in North America is that physics students do a double major or major/minor in mathematics than engineering students do. I took courses in real analysis, measure theory, functional analysis, topology, and abstract algebra, even though my physics program did not require me to do this.