Third Year in Physics BS, What to do Next?

[AstroK]

I am almost done with my BS in physics now, but I am seriously concerning and even panicking about my future career. Before I entered college, I thought I will be able to pick up everything I needed career-wise and is confident in my decision-making ability, so I haven’t worried too much about my career path. But now I ended up just realizing how many bad decisions I had made and how many opportunities I had missed…

Feel free to scroll to the end for the actual questions if you don’t have time to read the whole thing.

Some background:

(1) I am quite sure from day-1 that academia is probably not for me because financial stability is important for me and a PhD is a bit too large of an investment (in term of time and opportunity costs) than I am able to afford. But obtaining a Master’s degree (I haven’t done enough research on this yet) is still an option for me.

(2) My initial plan was therefore to study physics for undergrad (because I love physics) and then switch to a more marketable field for my Master’s. But honestly, after 2.5 years of studies, I still have no idea what field I should switch to and how.

(3) I think my problem is that I am too ambivalent about what I really want to do. While I decided I will not go to grad school for physics, I somehow just ended up doing things that a perspective grad school applicant would do: Taking as much physics courses as possible, taking honors physics courses, doing research, …

(4) But all these come with opportunity costs, I could have involved in different projects / activities instead of spending all my free time reading physics textbooks (although I love to) and preparing for difficult exams. Even worse, the research project that I had spent >1.5 year on had yielded basically nothing: no publication, little learned except some very basic programming, and not even a good friend because I followed a theorist and most of the project was just individual work. As a result, my CV is basically empty, except maybe a part-time job or two and a 3.85 GPA.

(5) I suddenly awoke to all this in my junior Winter and strongly realize that if I continue like this, I will not be heading anywhere. I therefore start to consider CS, because it seems to be the most popular alternative path for physics majors who are not into experiments and I am moderately interested in it.

(6) My school had offered a double major option and a minor program in CS. For the double major, it is a bit too late to add it, unless I am willing to take more than a full-load of CS courses for the next three semesters. For the minor, I would need to fit in six courses over three semesters, which is doable but if I choose to do that I have basically no any free credits left. Problem is, while I am somewhat interested in CS, honestly there are many other courses above CS on my list that I wanted to take.
So here are the questions I would like to ask:

(1) Given that I am planning to switch to CS, is it worth to complete a whole CS minor at the expanse of not able to take courses that I am more interested in but may not immediately contribute to my career?

(2) I also have the option to take more courses on computational physics instead of CS courses, but I guess it will not help me much in switching to CS right?

(3) Is it really important to have relevant courses on my transcript if I want to switch field (either applying for jobs or MS program)? Again, I could have learned everything I needed on my own given the rich resource available today for CS, and I just feel bad to have to take courses on something I am not that highly interested.

(4) Since my goal is not really in academia, should I stop taking more upper-level physics courses (I will basically have finished the physics degree after this semester)?

(5) Other than CS, another possible option is environmental science, which is actually much closer to what I am interested in. But I am unsure how a minor in environmental science could help? Because a physics major is already “unstable” in terms of employability, I am kind of afraid adding a second minor in pure science will just make thing even worse.

(6) So really, all my questions really boils down to this: is it worth to study something just for employability over things that I truly interested in? I had already talked with my advisor about all my concerns and am trying to discuss with more people in my school. I had also searched over the internet for quite some days already, but all I can conclude is that I need more inputs for my specific questions. So just freely share your opinion, and I will do the thinking myself.

Any comment not directly releated to the questions are also highly welcomed.

Thank you very much.

 

[Dr. Courtney]

A lot comes down to your financial needs. If you have accumulated six figure debt or the need to support a family, your options are usually more limited in terms of bringing home the bacon vs. pursuing your passions and giving the path to better earning possibilities more time to come into focus.

For now, my main encouragement would be to continue to keep working hard and doing a great job on whatever path you choose for the next year and a half. CS skills will increase your employability, but I gained most of mine pursuing my passion for physics in research groups rather than in CS courses. CS employers (more than other STEM employers) tend to value actual skills and other ways of demonstrating them more than credits on transcripts and degrees in a discipline. Do some real work, put together a decent portfolio of completed projects, and don't worry so much about a minor in CS.

But most young people find it much easier to work hard on their passions. If Physics is your passion, you'll gain skills much more quickly on Physics related programming projects than much of what they teach and assign in many CS classes.