Pursuing Graduate School in Physics After English & Music Major

[optforfirst]

I am currently at a high ranking liberal arts undergraduate school finishing a major in English and Music, but have always had a pine for theoretical physics. I've always loved string theory, big bang, reading Hawking, Einstein, Newton, math (when I get it) and would like to go into that field if possible as a career. Is it possible to go to a grad school after taking some courses for theoretical physics? (obviously not a great one)

 

[Norman]

I am currently at a high ranking liberal arts undergraduate school finishing a major in English and Music, but have always had a pine for theoretical physics. I've always loved string theory, big bang, reading Hawking, Einstein, Newton, math (when I get it) and would like to go into that field if possible as a career. Is it possible to go to a grad school after taking some courses for theoretical physics? (obviously not a great one)

You need to read this post by ZapperZ:
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=64966

It will answer your questions.

 

[CPL.Luke]

it really depends on you, if you work really hard, then you might be able to get into grad school, in one or two years. The thing about it is that physics is a very involved field, and an undergraduate education in physics usually includes about 80-100 credits worth of math and physics classes which usually takes 4 years to get through. and more than that all of that stuff builds off of the previous stuff so that it is very difficult to get through it in a brief period of time, or even understand the stuff that comes later ie. in grad school.

So you might be able to go to a physics grad school, if you worked really hard and were willing to teach yourself this stuff day in and day out (although I can't say that's a good way to learn it). Alternatively you could stop working on your english major and start working on a physics one.

Its not impossible to do, a very prominent string theorist Ed Witten got his bachelors in history.

EDIT: it just occurred to me t ask this, but do you enjoy math? because as a physics major you'd be doing lots of math, and more than that all of physics is written in math, an all the really meaningfull work involves a lot of math.

its always possible to become a science columnist or something along those lines