Programs So you want to get a PhD in physics? The video

Click For Summary
The discussion revolves around a humorous video mocking the experiences of PhD students in physics and the humanities, highlighting the challenges and realities of pursuing advanced degrees. Participants express a mix of amusement and sadness regarding the portrayal of academia, particularly the bleak job prospects for physics PhDs, often leading to a cycle of postdoctoral positions without tenure-track opportunities. The dialogue touches on the misconception that a PhD in physics guarantees a career in academia, with many successful graduates finding employment in industry instead. There is a debate about the feasibility of achieving prestigious academic positions, such as professorships at renowned institutions, with some participants emphasizing the difficulty of securing postdoctoral roles and the competitive nature of theoretical fields like string theory and cosmology. The conversation also acknowledges the employability of physics PhDs in high-tech industries, while cautioning that the academic landscape is challenging and often disheartening.
  • #31
We'll see who will be eating their words after you try and tackle in one semester with an A in each:
-Electromagnetic Theory II
-Statistical Mechanics II
-High Energy Astrophysics & Cosmology
-Quantum Mechanics II
-Mathematical Methods in Physics
-Introduction to History and Philosophy of Science
 
Physics news on Phys.org
  • #32
That sounds so awesome! I honestly wouldn't care if I had to study twenty hours a day for those subjects. How is Alberta's physics program? I'm thinking about going to Waterloo as it's close to home and is pretty amazing for physics in general.
 
  • #33
Yeah, studying 10 to 12 hours a day is manageable if it's something you like and are really interested in... which I am. But 20 hours a day as you were saying I honestly had to do some weekends, it's not fun at all.

University of Alberta has a great Geophysics and Astrophysics program with Honours specializations, in general it is a top notch physics program. I wouldn't recommend University of Calgary, bad professors, high tuition, horrible campus, and huge class sizes. I purposely left Calgary (even though I grew up there) to come to Edmonton so I could go to University of Alberta, I'm really glad I did!

Waterloo is also excellent though, I would generally recommend UBC, University of Alberta, McGill, Waterloo, and Dalhousie. What are you planning on majoring in? Those courses I took were during my third year at the Honours Astrophysics program at University of Alberta.
 
  • #34
I'm looking at majoring with an Honours Physics degree. I'm not sure what I'll get into, I'm thinking about going into Condensed Matter Physics, or Astrophysics. I've always wanted to study string theory, LQG and the like but obviously these positions aren't as desired as the former list.
 
Last edited:
  • #35
Well, if you plan on studying any of those fields you better be prepared to go to Grad school! Any of the Universities I recommended would prepare you for attending an excellent graduate school in the states, or somewhere in Canada (U of T and UBC offer excellent astrophysics PhD programs).

EDIT: I forgot University of Western Ontario, they have an awesome program also where you can minor in planetary science!
 
  • #36
I'm not really interested in UWO, mostly for "social" reasons. I have a lot of time, I'm only 16. It's probably bad that I'm admitting this because I was just arguing with an undergraduate about the consequences of String Theory and now I appear ignorant.
 
  • #37
May I ask what your average was when applying to University?
 
  • #38
I had 99% in AP Math 31, 92% in Pure Math 30, 91% in Social 30, 88% in English 30, 94% in Physics 30, and 85% in Chemistry 30.
 
  • #39
I have an 86 in chemistry right now, I've gotten a 97 and 94 on the last two tests, it's the stupid labs that he marks so subjectively.
 
  • #40
That was my downfall with English and Social! I hate opinion-based marking. Just study harder and you'll be fine. I found High school harder in the sense that the environment sucked and the majority of the class is full of retards so it is really an impediment to your learning (not to be self-centered, but it's true).

The whole University environment really stimulates you to grow in intelligence and think more analytically and overall to just mature as a human being.

Sorry, my writing is horrible I've had no sleep.
 
  • #41
Yes, English... I could speak about the prose and poems of Shakespeare and the fallacies of human imagination, but what have I achieved. Merely a rendition of someone else's ideas. Not very original, is it?
 
  • #42
English Literature is a dead end, as these videos suggest! Haha.
 
  • #43
I have this problem, signs contain braille underneath the lettering, for instance, washrooms signs. Now I once asked someone, how does a blind person find the sign? They said they feel the walls. Do you have any idea, it's off topic but I'm so very bored.
 
  • #44
If the opposite of pro is con, then what is the opposite of progress?
 
  • #45
HAHAHA, that's a good one.
 
  • #46
It's the philosophy of a dinosaur, a raptor to be specific.
 
  • #47
Lol us three should catch up some time in 20 years. See who actually made it where.

Ill tell you what i will host the get up at Princeton and even pay for your air fairs :)
 
  • #48
So what is it you want to do Philosopher_k? To be exact, what is it you want to study/research?
 
  • #49
Mathematical physics/Cosmology or maybe even pure mathematics.

Don't take my posts about working at princeton seriously, i am nowhere near that good.
 
  • #50
Interesting, I'm debating between Condensed Matter Physics and High Energy Physics/Astrophysics but I have a long way to go.
 
  • #51
Phyisab**** said:
What I mean is that I personally know many successful physics PhD's who are employed in industry.

So do I. Me for example. :-) :-) :-)

I'm pretty sure most of them didn't do more than one post-doc

A lot of people who end up in industry such as myself, didn't do any post-docs. I didn't think that I was likely to get a post-doc, and I didn't see much point in trying. People that try to go into industry after getting two post-doc tend to find it much harder than going in after just getting the Ph.D. The trouble is that in order to be successful at business, you have to "unlearn" a lot of academic habits, and the longer you are in academia, the harder it is.

Physics PhD's are very employable at high tech Fortune 500 companies. If I were to do a PhD it would be in hopes of getting a job like that, not with some pipe dream of being a professor at Princeton.

There is a pretty big caveat there. The reason physics Ph.D.'s are employable is that employers assume that you *liked* graduate school and are some odd freak of nature that happens to have this masochistic fetish at having equations tossed at you for twelve hours a day, which they can exploit to make themselves filthy rich.

Great if it happens to be true. Total hell if it is not.

The other thing is that there is a reasonable chance that all of the jobs that Ph.D.'s are currently doing will self-destruct by the time you get out. I honestly don't know if my job will still exist in five years. Personally, I think the challenge of figuring out what to do with your degree is part of the fun of the game, but other people have different priorities.

Personally, I think that anyone that thinks of physics as a *career* you are thinking about things in the wrong way. Getting a physics Ph.D. is in a real sense like joining the priesthood or enlisting in the military.
 
  • #52
Kevin_Axion said:
If the opposite of pro is con, then what is the opposite of progress?

getting brain damaged and losing all intelligence is loss of progression. Or if you consider "stagnant" it could mean tyhe opposite of progress.
 
  • #53
All those people who just started their undergrad in Physics, or are still in high school and know exactly what field they want to research are depressing me. I'm a freshmen studying Physics and I have NO IDEA what field in Physics is interesting me, and I don't even know if I want to go to gradschool. Sure, it sounds cool to be a scientist and work your brain hard, but I don't even know what it takes.
Luckily, I think that my way of thinking and uncertainty about what I'll want to do with a BS in Physics is what should be normal. Sometimes I don't even tell people that I'm a Physics major, because it makes me feel like one of these guys who say they want to research string theory. It's only my first year of it! I'm sure it's very different than upper division classes, and I might not want to do a BS in Physics then.
 
  • #54
eliya said:
All those people who just started their undergrad in Physics, or are still in high school and know exactly what field they want to research are depressing me. I'm a freshmen studying Physics and I have NO IDEA what field in Physics is interesting me, and I don't even know if I want to go to gradschool. Sure, it sounds cool to be a scientist and work your brain hard, but I don't even know what it takes.
Luckily, I think that my way of thinking and uncertainty about what I'll want to do with a BS in Physics is what should be normal. Sometimes I don't even tell people that I'm a Physics major, because it makes me feel like one of these guys who say they want to research string theory. It's only my first year of it! I'm sure it's very different than upper division classes, and I might not want to do a BS in Physics then.

Define what is it to be normal?
To be like you?
 
  • #55
eliya said:
All those people who just started their undergrad in Physics, or are still in high school and know exactly what field they want to research are depressing me. I'm a freshmen studying Physics and I have NO IDEA what field in Physics is interesting me, and I don't even know if I want to go to gradschool. Sure, it sounds cool to be a scientist and work your brain hard, but I don't even know what it takes.
Luckily, I think that my way of thinking and uncertainty about what I'll want to do with a BS in Physics is what should be normal. Sometimes I don't even tell people that I'm a Physics major, because it makes me feel like one of these guys who say they want to research string theory. It's only my first year of it! I'm sure it's very different than upper division classes, and I might not want to do a BS in Physics then.

I wanted to be a firefighter when I was a kid. Then a teacher. Then an ice cream truck driver. Then a CFO. Younger people don't really have a clue what their fields are about or the implications of choosing that field until they're a bit more grown up. Like the video says, people read stephen hawkings books and think they want to be an astrophysicist without having really a clue what physics is about. It's the same with people who watch CSI and want to be a forensic psychologist.
 
  • #56
eliya said:
All those people who just started their undergrad in Physics, or are still in high school and know exactly what field they want to research are depressing me. I'm a freshmen studying Physics and I have NO IDEA what field in Physics is interesting me, and I don't even know if I want to go to gradschool. Sure, it sounds cool to be a scientist and work your brain hard, but I don't even know what it takes.

Don't worry. It's probably better for you that you don't know what you are going to do. Experiment with a few things, and see how it goes for you.
 
  • #57
Outside of finance, what types of industry jobs are available for a physics phd?
 
  • #58
cdotter said:
Outside of finance, what types of industry jobs are available for a physics phd?

The video went through the three big ones. Defense, oil/gas, and finance.
 
  • #59
twofish-quant said:
The video went through the three big ones. Defense, oil/gas, and finance.

Is that really it? :smile: I thought they were kidding.

What would a physics phd be qualified to do in a defense setting? Engineering?
 
  • #60
twofish-quant said:
The video went through the three big ones. Defense, oil/gas, and finance.
They missed civilian government: NASA, NIST, NOAA, ... They also missed industry not related to defense, oil, and gas. The stats at AIP to me that the number of physics PhDs who completely switch gears and become quants is a smallish percentage.
cdotter said:
What would a physics phd be qualified to do in a defense setting? Engineering?
A lot of engineering is applied physics. Physicists still work on things that go boom, and on making those things that go boom do so in the right place.
 

Similar threads

Admissions Want a PhD in math, but stuck in a physics degree. What to do?
  • · Replies 4 ·
Replies
4
Views
2K
Admissions Getting into a top tier Physics PhD Program with a Masters Degree
  • · Replies 50 ·
2
Replies
50
Views
10K
Other Need advice on the Physics Programs I can realistically apply to
  • · Replies 6 ·
Replies
6
Views
2K
Admissions Curious about my grad school prospects
  • · Replies 3 ·
Replies
3
Views
3K
Admissions Minimum GPA & GPA-Importance for Top PhD Programs
  • · Replies 4 ·
Replies
4
Views
5K
Programs Electrical Engineering PhD or Applied Physics PhD?
  • · Replies 3 ·
Replies
3
Views
633
Admissions I plan to apply for PhD program on 2025 Fall. What do you think?
  • · Replies 3 ·
Replies
3
Views
2K
2nd BSc or MSc in physics for physics-PhD in top program in USA
  • · Replies 28 ·
Replies
28
Views
3K
Admissions Direct Entry to PhD Program -- Advice Please
  • · Replies 36 ·
2
Replies
36
Views
5K
Admissions What are my chances of getting into a competitive physics PhD program?
  • · Replies 7 ·
Replies
7
Views
3K