Letters of Recommendation - Strictly Academic?

[ThereIam]

Hi all,

I got a BA in Physics, and am almost a year out of school. I have noticed whilst perusing graduate school websites that most emphasize that they want letters of recommendation from academic settings.

I landed an internship in R&D after school, and I was wondering how inappropriate it would be to request a letter from a senior scientist that I work with.

I was sort of hoping that the emphasis on "academic" recommendations would be to weed out people's bosses at totally non-physics type work.

What do you think/what have you experienced?

 

[Vanadium 50]

It depends on whether or not this prospective recommender has ever done this before - they are looking for certain things in these letters.

 

[ThereIam]

Hi, and thanks for the reply. The person in question is a former professor (though he has spent most of his time in industry, I believe) so I would not be surprised if he has written them before. I was more concerned that his experience with me a work setting wouldn't be what they were interested in, but perhaps that concern is ill-founded?