Jobs You Can Get With A Master's in Physics

[metacervin]

I hold a MS in physics. I have been out of school for three years and half years now. I want to move on from my current job as a full-time tutor. Most jobs I have seen required either a Ph.D, postdoctoral experience or work experience in fields I have no experience in. I am interested in getting a Ph.D. but I also interested in making a living. Getting a Ph.D. means several more years of having little money and even though there jobs listed requiring a Ph.D., these jobs are few in number. My question is, where are the jobs for physicists who have a Master's? Now, I know teaching at a high school or community college is an option and so is the military. I want to know are there other options besides those two.

 

[metacervin]

I should also add that I have little industrial experience.

 

[Choppy]

Okay, but what experience DO you have?

Jobs available to someone with a graduate physics degree aren't always advertised as such. You could consider for example looking for work with medical technology companies like Varian, Siemens, or Phillips doing technical sales, product testing or development. What about work in the risk management field, or product quality assurance and/or testing? What about rather than going back to school for several more years to get a Ph.D., doing a year or two of technical training to become say, a pilot or a radiation therapist?

 

[fasterthanjoao]

There are obviously many jobs available to physicists. I'm not sure where you're from but a good UK site:

http://www.prospects.ac.uk/cms/ShowPage/Home_page/Options_with_your_subject/Your_degree_in_physics/Job_options/p!eklipag

just describes the sorts of skills you can market yourself as having. Being a graduate I'm sure you're already aware of all of this, but there we go, maybe someone viewing the thread will also find this useful. Otherwise, what kind of work do you want to do? Maybe you could approach it from that angle.

 

[metacervin]

Thanks for the replies. I really appreciated your suggestions. As far as my experience, my work experience thus far have been research internships, mostly nuclear physics research and teaching. I am not interested in nuclear physics research anymore. For my thesis, my research was in astrochemistry. It is a good field but I am interested in something can be readily applied to everyday issues and concerns. I thought about medical physics as a possible option. Perhaps I can pursue another Master's, in medical physics. Or maybe concentrate on teaching.

 

[ExactlySolved]

I would say to look at going to graduate school to earn a PhD as itself being a job. Go somewhere where you can work as an research assistant, getting paid a decent bachelor's salary to do research for ~5 years is pretty sweet. It pays better than being a tutor!