Passion vs Practicality: Navigating Career Choices in Physics and Engineering

[confusedinMA]

I've talk to many people about this and as much as I don't think I should rely on internet people for advice I need some perspective.

I've been in college too long. Not that I was going full time or even for a degree the whole time but still. After HS I went to a kind of crappy state university and flunked out. I then over a few years converted my childhood interests of physics and astronomy to adult interests and sort of "found myself." Now I'm a few years past when I should have graduated and still a few years off.

My dream in life is to be a research astronomer/physics but I worry that my mounting debt will hinder me. I worry that I won't be able to get a good job with only a physics B.Sc. and I worry that my shoddy past will keep me out of graduate school for physics.

So I think of Electrical Engineering as a good compromise that can get me a good career but I'm not inspired by it after a few months of classes. However, I will have good opportunities if I continue on in EE job wise.

But I only live once AFAIK and I love Physics and doubt my circumstance would give me a chance to go back to it later in life. I have the option of going to a school rated top 50 or so in physics to finish my undergrad in 4-5 semesters or to finish an EE degree in the same time at my current "no-name" school.


Questions:

1. How bad is the situation with only a B.Sc. in physics? Can I get a job? Can I get a good job? Can I do EE jobs for example?

2.If I absolutely "destroy" for the next 5 semesters of physics classes will I be able to get into a graduate program? But this I mean I: get As, do research, study really hard for PGRE.

3. Some older folks have told me they would do their passion and at their age the regret not doing what they loved. How do this match up to your experience?

4. Is it better to have tried at your dream job and failed then to not have tried at all? I feel like EE is "giving in' or the "easy way out".

 

[Choppy]

1. How bad is the situation with only a B.Sc. in physics? Can I get a job? Can I get a good job? Can I do EE jobs for example?

From the statistics I've seen, people with physics degrees generally do only slightly worse than electrical engineers - at least so far as post degree starting salary. The major difference is that engineering is an established profession. Companies will hire engineers for engineer-specific tasks. Physics is an academic subject, not a profession, and so undergraduates have to figure how to market themselves and may need additional training (or at least have to do some formal hoop jumping) for career-specific employment. Physicists can get jobs as engineers, but depending on the particular area and company there are restrictions in that some jobs may only be held by engineers.

2.If I absolutely "destroy" for the next 5 semesters of physics classes will I be able to get into a graduate program? But this I mean I: get As, do research, study really hard for PGRE.

Yes. If you want to get into graduate school bad enough, and prove that you can be successful in senior undergraduate physics courses you'll be able to get in somewhere. Of course, you may not get your first choice, but sometimes even the golden kids don't get their first choices either.

3. Some older folks have told me they would do their passion and at their age the regret not doing what they loved. How do this match up to your experience?

I followed my passions for the most part and it's been very rewarding.

4. Is it better to have tried at your dream job and failed then to not have tried at all? I feel like EE is "giving in' or the "easy way out".

This depends on how dire the consequences are for failing I suppose. It's one thing to follow your dreams on your own, but if you've got a family to support as you rack up the debt you might want to think twice about taking them along for the ride.

The lives of most researchers are tough - long hours, minimal pay, and often there's a lack of intellectual freedom in that even though you'd really like to be pondering fundamental questions of the universe, you spend most of your time pondering why line 12378 of your code keeps crashing simulations that you're performing to further someone else's idea that you're really not all that interested in.

 

[confusedinMA]

Thanks Choppy,

Do you think that EE jobs are slightly easier to get for a Physics major since most work doesn't require a PE or anything like that?

 

[G037H3]

Physics majors can go from Physics to Engineering

Engineering majors would have a harder time going from Engineering to Physics

if you're so worried about an income, take some applied physics classes that will make you more widely employable

 

[confusedinMA]

Physics majors can go from Physics to Engineering

Engineering majors would have a harder time going from Engineering to Physics

if you're so worried about an income, take some applied physics classes that will make you more widely employable

I'm not too worried about income but I do have a nice back catalog of loans. I fully hope and plan to go to a physics phd and make a good salary either in academia or r&d but just incase I want a backup plan.

 

[confusedinMA]

I'm very interested to see more feelings on the core question. Passion V Practical?

 

[Newtime]

I'm very interested to see more feelings on the core question. Passion V Practical?

"Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life."
-- Confucius

 

[confusedinMA]

Still hoping for more responses

 

[Dembadon]

Still hoping for more responses

Are you waiting to hear something specific?

There have been quite a few lengthly, and informative, discussions on this forum that address your questions. If you aren't having any luck with the search tool, I'm sure you won't have to parse very many pages before you find one, as this topic is quite common.

You can also use Google to index the site:

site:www.physicsforums.com <your query>

You should also take a look at the http://www.aip.org/" website (specifically the resources menu).