Programs Non-Physics Major Pursuing a Physics PhD: How to Prove Qualifications?

[uglybachelor]

Here's some background about me. I'm a senior undergraduate student in china, majoring EE. I'm about to graduate in about half a month. I got a job offer as an engineer which starts in July.
But I am planning on applying for a physics PHD in US in a year or two. What I have been wondering is that how does a prof decide if a non-physics major student is qualified to join his program?
Even if I have been studying physics in my spare time in college, there's no way of proving it. Some say that the GRE physics subject can be a qualification, but physics major students take it too. If a physics major undergraduate and a non-physics undergraduate get the some score, there's no doubt that the physics major undergraduate has the advantage.
How can I prove that I am qualified without a bachelor's degree in physics?

 

[ilhan8]

try to get an MS degree of physics in China. then you can apply for a PhD in US.

 

[Vanadium 50]

Let's start with a simpler question - what makes you think you are qualified? Once we know the answer, we can go the next step and figure out how to convince someone else you are qualified.

 

[uglybachelor]

try to get an MS degree of physics in China. then you can apply for a PhD in US.

Here's the problem, it takes a full year's preparation to take the tests that allow you to apply for a MS in china. Which means I have to quit my job, stay at my parents' and study for a whole year. This is kinda unacceptable to me.

 

[uglybachelor]

Let's start with a simpler question - what makes you think you are qualified? Once we know the answer, we can go the next step and figure out how to convince someone else you are qualified.

This is exactly my point - if I don't know how an admission committee decides, I can't even know if I am qualified. But I get your point. I self-studied physics for about 2 years in college, mostly basic mechanics, Quantum Mechanics, some GR or more advanced stuff. I know that I'm not ready yet, that's why I didn't apply in my senior year. Because I know I have to continue self-studying for several years.
What I am concerned is that if there's standard for me to meet?

 

[Vanadium 50]

There is a standard. It's called an undergraduate degree in physics. You have not met it.

Given that, you will need a good reason for the committee to let you in. Those reasons exist ("I've done the equivalent work" being the most common), but if you can't articulate one, there's little chance the committee will figure it out for you.

 

[uglybachelor]

There is a standard. It's called an undergraduate degree in physics. You have not met it.

Given that, you will need a good reason for the committee to let you in. Those reasons exist ("I've done the equivalent work" being the most common), but if you can't articulate one, there's little chance the committee will figure it out for you.

Thank you very much for your help, but there are people who got into physics grad-school without a BS in physics, right? What did they do to achieve that? I mean, besides publishing valuable papers on their own like Einstein did...

 

[Vanadium 50]

Most of them had done the equivalent work, or close to it. In my entering class we had two: one was one class short, and one was about three classes short.

 

[uglybachelor]

Most of them had done the equivalent work, or close to it. In my entering class we had two: one was one class short, and one was about three classes short.

By "equivalent work", you mean?

 

[Clever-Name]

By "equivalent work", you mean?

Self-studying all the same material and mastering (or becoming proficient in,) all the same textbooks as a typical undergrad student would have.

 

[denjay]

I imagine if you score in the 80+ percentile on the Physics subject GRE they will have some idea of your Physics knowledge. No research or courses will hurt slightly but I wouldn't say it's impossible.

ZapperZ's sticky post is particularly useful here.

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=64966

 

[uglybachelor]

Self-studying all the same material and mastering (or becoming proficient in,) all the same textbooks as a typical undergrad student would have.

Thank you, but not being able to prove any of my self-studying is my concern here.

 

[Jorriss]

Thank you, but not being able to prove any of my self-studying is my concern here.

You need to find a way to prove yourself then.

The obvious one is by doing very well on the GRE.

Perhaps you could talk to some physics professors and see if any have time to do an independent study on a topic and get a LoR from a physics professor.

 

[Vanadium 50]

I'm afraid to say that this doesn't have an easy answer.

You are right - there are essentially an infinite number of Chinese students who want to come to the US to study physics in graduate school. Even if you ace the GRE, there are plenty of other students who also aced it, but got a physics degree, and will not require some 'catch-up'. They will also have letters of recommendation from physicists who can attest to how well they will do.

You can toss your hat in the ring, but there are a lot of seemingly better-qualified applicants. If you think you deserve a spot that one of them would otherwise take, it would be good to articulate the reason why.

 

[uglybachelor]

You need to find a way to prove yourself then.

The obvious one is by doing very well on the GRE.

Perhaps you could talk to some physics professors and see if any have time to do an independent study on a topic and get a LoR from a physics professor.

Thanks for the advice~

 

[uglybachelor]

I'm afraid to say that this doesn't have an easy answer.

You are right - there are essentially an infinite number of Chinese students who want to come to the US to study physics in graduate school. Even if you ace the GRE, there are plenty of other students who also aced it, but got a physics degree, and will not require some 'catch-up'. They will also have letters of recommendation from physicists who can attest to how well they will do.

You can toss your hat in the ring, but there are a lot of seemingly better-qualified applicants. If you think you deserve a spot that one of them would otherwise take, it would be good to articulate the reason why.

Thank you so much for helping me, I'm sure I will figure it out eventually~

 

[Mute]

One thing the universities will care about subject-wise is the core subjects, typically classical mechanics, electricity and magnetism, quantum mechanics and statistical mechanics. If you majored in Electrical Engineering (which is what you mean by EE, yes?), then presumably you should have most of the mathematical skills that physics students are expected to have, and you hopefully are pretty familiar with Maxwell's Equations and how to solve them, which means you should have Electricity and Magnetism pretty covered. I'm not sure how EE programs are structured, but I assume you also learned quantum mechanics (and its application to semiconductors). If so, that will help too. I would think that even EE's have to take intro physics, so you should have some basic classical mechanics covered. If you know the math behind LRC circuits very well, then you should have the harmonic oscillator in classical mechanics pretty much covered, because it's the same math. If these assumptions are all correct, then off the top of my head, the main topics you will be lacking in degree-wise are special relativity, the lagrangian formulation of classical mechanics, and statistical mechanics. If you have taken thermodynamics, then that may be a sufficient prerequisite to take an upper-undergraduate stat-mech class, but otherwise, these are all topics you should be self-studying and you should probably point out you have studied all the topics you are lacking in your application. Note that unless you want to go to grad school to study general relativity or string theory, no committee will care if you haven't studied it at all.

The other, and perhaps more important, thing that admission committees tend to look at is your research aptitude. They want to make sure you will be a successful researcher, so if you can prove that you have done good research work, it maygive more weight to your application versus and application with a physics bachelors and slightly better GRE scores, but no research experience. (This is not a guarantee). So, if you can demonstrate that you have excellent research abilities, this will really help your application. Depending on what you will be doing on your job, you may be able to use that experience. I suppose it will help if the research you want to be doing during your Ph.D. is related to EE or will use a lot of the knowledge you acquired in your EE degree (but if not, don't lie - that's not going to be beneficial to anybody).

Also, as mentioned in that last paragraph there, the committees will want to know what you can do for them better than what a physics bachelors student can do, so if you can convince them that your EE experience will give you an edge in some way over another candidate with a physics bachelors, that can't hurt your application (presumably). Heck, on the one hand, you are competing with a bunch of other Chinese physics B.Sc. applicants, which may lower your chances, but on the other hand, you are probably not competing with so many EE applicants, so who knows, maybe your EE degree can help you stand out from the crowd of Physics B.Sc. applicants - but, you'll still have to convince the committee that you deserve a spot.

 

[uglybachelor]

One thing the universities will care about subject-wise is the core subjects, typically classical mechanics, electricity and magnetism, quantum mechanics and statistical mechanics. If you majored in Electrical Engineering (which is what you mean by EE, yes?), then presumably you should have most of the mathematical skills that physics students are expected to have, and you hopefully are pretty familiar with Maxwell's Equations and how to solve them, which means you should have Electricity and Magnetism pretty covered. I'm not sure how EE programs are structured, but I assume you also learned quantum mechanics (and its application to semiconductors). If so, that will help too. I would think that even EE's have to take intro physics, so you should have some basic classical mechanics covered. If you know the math behind LRC circuits very well, then you should have the harmonic oscillator in classical mechanics pretty much covered, because it's the same math. If these assumptions are all correct, then off the top of my head, the main topics you will be lacking in degree-wise are special relativity, the lagrangian formulation of classical mechanics, and statistical mechanics. If you have taken thermodynamics, then that may be a sufficient prerequisite to take an upper-undergraduate stat-mech class, but otherwise, these are all topics you should be self-studying and you should probably point out you have studied all the topics you are lacking in your application. Note that unless you want to go to grad school to study general relativity or string theory, no committee will care if you haven't studied it at all.

The other, and perhaps more important, thing that admission committees tend to look at is your research aptitude. They want to make sure you will be a successful researcher, so if you can prove that you have done good research work, it maygive more weight to your application versus and application with a physics bachelors and slightly better GRE scores, but no research experience. (This is not a guarantee). So, if you can demonstrate that you have excellent research abilities, this will really help your application. Depending on what you will be doing on your job, you may be able to use that experience. I suppose it will help if the research you want to be doing during your Ph.D. is related to EE or will use a lot of the knowledge you acquired in your EE degree (but if not, don't lie - that's not going to be beneficial to anybody).

Also, as mentioned in that last paragraph there, the committees will want to know what you can do for them better than what a physics bachelors student can do, so if you can convince them that your EE experience will give you an edge in some way over another candidate with a physics bachelors, that can't hurt your application (presumably). Heck, on the one hand, you are competing with a bunch of other Chinese physics B.Sc. applicants, which may lower your chances, but on the other hand, you are probably not competing with so many EE applicants, so who knows, maybe your EE degree can help you stand out from the crowd of Physics B.Sc. applicants - but, you'll still have to convince the committee that you deserve a spot.

Thank you for such detailed advice~ It helps a lot. You are correct about my curriculum. Seems that I have to work on the subjects you mentioned which weren't in my curriculum, like statistic mechanism. Thanks a lot~

 

[Mute]

Thank you for such detailed advice~ It helps a lot. You are correct about my curriculum. Seems that I have to work on the subjects you mentioned which weren't in my curriculum, like statistic mechanism. Thanks a lot~

You should also look at the webpages of the schools you are interested in applying to and look for information about their qualifying exams and/or preliminary exams. (One of these will be an oral exam and the other will be a written test; which one is called which depends on the school). Take a look at what subjects the written tests will cover. These are the subjects you should know very well if you want to go that school.

 

[uglybachelor]

You should also look at the webpages of the schools you are interested in applying to and look for information about their qualifying exams and/or preliminary exams. (One of these will be an oral exam and the other will be a written test; which one is called which depends on the school). Take a look at what subjects the written tests will cover. These are the subjects you should know very well if you want to go that school.

Thank you again~ Here's a thought, since it's very unlikely for me to go back to school for a MS or BS in physics. Would one of those online classes help? I'm not talking about something like MIT's OWC, but the programs that some universities offer online with videos, tests and certifications. Would it help a lot if I manage to join them and get certificates for courses like quantum mechanics etc.?

 

[Vanadium 50]

If the online work is accredited in the US, it will be taken seriously. Most are not, and will not.

Also, be careful about overestimating what you learned. While you might have seen some QM and some E&M, that's not the same as saying you have had the equivalent of one or more upper division classes in that topic.

 

[uglybachelor]

If the online work is accredited in the US, it will be taken seriously. Most are not, and will not.

Also, be careful about overestimating what you learned. While you might have seen some QM and some E&M, that's not the same as saying you have had the equivalent of one or more upper division classes in that topic.

I'll try to get test papers of those classes and test myself.

 

[chill_factor]

I was in your exact situation, in fact I was more disadvantaged. I graduated from a US university with a borderline GPA not in physics or EE, above average GRE and wanted to do Physics. I am currently doing my MS in physics. Here is what I did:

Pick a physics specialization that you realistically can do. Since you are doing EE the best bet is condensed matter experiment since everything else is useless, hard and we don't have the background. There's more funding for that too. There is more funding for experiment than theory.

However, if you do condensed matter experiment, why not just get graduate degree in EE? Anyhow, you should ask yourself what is there in physics that you want to do that you cannot in EE, can you get that without doing physics, and if physics is the only choice, are you willing to sacrifice for it?

Study by yourself as much as you can and take the PGRE. Yes you will be at a disadvantage but so what? If this is what you want, then accept the disadvantage. Otherwise if you don't, your choice is to not do this.

Emphasize how you have a proven track record, upward trend, strong interest, research experience, programming or instrumentation skills, anything that might help. There are 5 main courses in physics: math methods, quantum mechanics, classical mechanics, statistical thermodynamics, electromagnetism. I was missing 2 classes out of the 5. You will be missing 3.

Do not look for top ranked schools. Top ranked schools have no reason to accept you. Anything above about rank 30 will just be tossing your application money in the trash, except for schools with free application like Minnesota. Minnesota is a good school anyways. It's not the school name, it is what you personally learn. Apply to every school that has free application because there's no cost to doing so, and for the rest, apply to lower ranked schools that have research directions which interest you. If your interests are in theoretical early universe cosmology or experimental particle physics, sorry, then it is harder, but if you are interested in things even small departments can do on a small budget, then you have a chance.

Do not listen to anyone that says negative things. One person here said the same thing to me, I said "no that's bullsh*t i don't accept that" and now I'm in a MS program.

One more thing: if you find a school and have a choice, pick one with many Chinese students over one with few. I have some other things that would like to say but this is taking up too much room so you may message me.