Physics Why do some think that the job market for physics majors is terrible?

[ParticleGrl]

Quant and ParticleGrl dominate every possible thread about the employment of physics that has ever been posted on this website.

I've only been posting here about 18 months, and I'm unlikely to be here in another year or so (or even another 6 months). Clearly, I'm not going to dominate 'every possible thread...that has ever been posted."

Just know that hearing about ParticleGrl's graduating class is in no way a representation of the entire field of physics, nor will it give you a good idea of what to look forward to in the future.

Do you have a phd in physics? Tell your story! Do you know phds who have had dramatically different tales than our? Get them on here! Also, look at threads where Davey Rocket posted- he tells a similar story. At least one poster in high energy experiment (Gbeagle, I think) has suggested a similar picture (all the HEP experimentalists he/she knows went into software development.)

I believe Locrian has a similar transition out-of-the-field background (condensed matter -> actuarial work, I think? Please correct me if I'm not remembering correctly).

I don't think anyone who has been involved in the phd process actually disputes the idea that most physics phds leave physics? (Except perhaps for twofish, who seems to think finance is physics). If someone does, speak up!

Basing your future, your approach to academia, and your career off of the same two people who frequently voice their opinion is not healthy, nor do I see the reasoning behind their doing so.

I want people to have the information I wished I had when I was deciding on my future path. If I knew then what I know now, and all that. I honestly think that sharing my story is a service because most of the physics phds who left the field aren't sharing their stories, and so students mainly get advice from the small minority who got academic positions.

And finally- no one should take my word for it, and they should be wary of statistics like "low unemployment rate." What generally matters to you, if you are getting a phd, is the out-of-the-field-rate, and that's harder to quantify. As DaveyRocket points out, the BLS numbers from this thread tell us that most physics phds can't be working as physicists.

Contact your physics department and find out if they maintain statistics on where graduates end up, talk to the older postdocs ask them what happened to their colleagues from graduate school, find out what happened to the students from your lab who graduated.

And also remember I'm not disputing the premise of the original poster- physics students DO get jobs, I've never been unemployed! HOWEVER, the reason people say the market is bad is that they look at the out-of-the-field rate instead of the unemployment rate (after grad school, I've never been employed doing physics)- its an important distinction that solves the paradox he/she posed.

 

[twofish-quant]

I want people to have the information I wished I had when I was deciding on my future path. If I knew then what I know now, and all that.

Same here. Curiously I would have made most of the same decisions. I just would have felt less bad about them.

As it was, I felt like a big failure for not getting a faculty position, and something of a "traitor" for going into industry. Had I known that this was "normal", I would have felt better. I also would have likely gotten more science done. There were about five years in which I couldn't set foot in the astronomy department out of a weird mix of shame and bitterness. Had things been different, then I would not have let my research networks go cold.

Something that I still wonder is that there was an entire generation of physics Ph.D.'s that "disappeared from the radar" circa 1975. I don't know what happened to them.

The other thing is that physics is cool, and I still try to do as much as I can to get young people interested in science and mathematics. However, rather than trying to promise some sort of heaven in the future, I have to be honest and tell people that by marching into science and mathematics, they are marching into the unknown, and I haven't got a clue what's going to happen to them career-wise.

I *do* think that science and technology is critical for economic growth, and if we can't produce a ton of physics Ph.D.'s and then figure out how to get them employed, then something is really, really wrong. I'm not sure what to do, but that's part of the "challenge" that people getting into the field have to face.

I honestly think that sharing my story is a service because most of the physics phds who left the field aren't sharing their stories, and so students mainly get advice from the small minority who got academic positions.

And sometimes the best advice is no advice. This is what I've seen. This is what I think is going on. I have no clue what you should do. One of the things that the professors in my department gave that was useful was "non-advice" (i.e. we have no idea what you should do, good luck)? Getting "non-advice" can be liberating. If someone tells you to do X, and you do Y, and it blows up, then you feel bad. If someone tells you that they have no idea what you should do, this gives you encouragement to do something really risky.

The other thing is that I'm very, very interested in what life is like for people trying to get jobs now. The sense I get is that life is much, much tougher for 25 year olds today then it was when I was 25. I remember that I emailed out my resume out in 1998. The next day, I got five calls, and I was hired in a week. Part of the reason I'm interested in this is that I *don't* want to be out of touch with what's happening on the ground..

Something that worries me is that any day, I'm expecting an e-mail from someone that has made a serious effort to get a job on Wall Street, and can't because no one is hiring.

Contact your physics department and find out if they maintain statistics on where graduates end up, talk to the older postdocs ask them what happened to their colleagues from graduate school, find out what happened to the students from your lab who graduated.

Also, be *very* worried if it seems like people don't want to know what's going on. It take a non-trivial effort to gather these statistics.

HOWEVER, the reason people say the market is bad is that they look at the out-of-the-field rate instead of the unemployment rate (after grad school, I've never been employed doing physics)- its an important distinction that solves the paradox he/she posed.

The economic term for this is "underemployment"

Also

http://www.econ.yale.edu/smith/econ116a/keynes1.pdf

http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2012/08/28/1134571/ahhhh-no-robots/

 

[StatGuy2000]

And sometimes the best advice is no advice. This is what I've seen. This is what I think is going on. I have no clue what you should do. One of the things that the professors in my department gave that was useful was "non-advice" (i.e. we have no idea what you should do, good luck)? Getting "non-advice" can be liberating. If someone tells you to do X, and you do Y, and it blows up, then you feel bad. If someone tells you that they have no idea what you should do, this gives you encouragement to do something really risky.

I have made precisely that argument with regards to career advice in universities. Colleges and universities should either not give any advice on potential career aspects for their field of endeavour, or should be more honest about the advice you can give ("in my experience, I find the situation to be so-and-so, but things could change so be flexible and expect the unexpected...")

The economic term for this is "underemployment"

Also

http://www.econ.yale.edu/smith/econ116a/keynes1.pdf

http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2012/08/28/1134571/ahhhh-no-robots/

[/QUOTE] My understanding is that "underemployment" covers not just out-of-field rates but also the rate of full-time vs part-time employment as well. Someone who is employed in a part-time job who otherwise is able to work full-time could be considered to be "underemployed" compared to a full-time employee.

Also, it's tricky to talk about what it means for someone to be "out-of-field" because one could make the argument that those who have studied, say, a specific discipline would possesses the broad base of skills to be employed in a wide range of careers. The fact that the individual possesses and is actively using these skills gained in their study could mean that these individuals may be employed in an "in-field" sector.

For example, one of my classmates in the undergraduate math program eventually finished his PhD in the field, and is currently working as a consulting financial engineer/quant. I would consider him to be working "in-field" since he is actively using the skills he gained in the math program as a quant, but others may feel differently.

Likewise, both twofish-quant and ParticleGrl (and those in similar situations to them) could be considered working "in-field" because while they are not specifically employed as "physicists", they are at the current moment using the analytical skills they have developed from their time in physics research.

 

[Locrian]

Likewise, both twofish-quant and ParticleGrl (and those in similar situations to them) could be considered working "in-field" because while they are not specifically employed as "physicists", they are at the current moment using the analytical skills they have developed from their time in physics research.

I disagree. Physics isn't defined just by a set of skills it provides or tools it uses. It's primarily defined by the subject matter. If we are to define subjects we study by the very broadly defined tools they use then you could easily mash together just about every engineering and physical science (along with most areas of applied math) into one discipline and a whole host of words become useless.

Those words have meaning and are used for a reason. twofish has on many occasions suggested he feels he's still working in physics, but I don't think it is either reasonable or logical to think he's right.

 

[Locrian]

Quant and ParticleGrl dominate every possible thread about the employment of physics that has ever been posted on this website.

Well, if you joined recently, then it seems like it's every thread ever. If you've been here a decade, then it seems like every thread recently. ;)

It would be really nice to have a more diverse group of people posting. However, I think twofish and (especially) ParticleGrl represent important points of view held by many other physics graduates. It is even my personal belief that between the two of them you get something close to a majority opinion of graduates.

It would be great if others posted more, but I hope they won't post any less.

 

[StatGuy2000]

I disagree. Physics isn't defined just by a set of skills it provides or tools it uses. It's primarily defined by the subject matter. If we are to define subjects we study by the very broadly defined tools they use then you could easily mash together just about every engineering and physical science (along with most areas of applied math) into one discipline and a whole host of words become useless.

Those words have meaning and are used for a reason. twofish has on many occasions suggested he feels he's still working in physics, but I don't think it is either reasonable or logical to think he's right.

I respectfully disagree, as by implication you are suggesting that unless you apply the "exact" subject matter you study (whether that be physics, math, chemistry, engineering, etc.) in your field of employment, then you would be working "out-of-field". In my own opinion, that is far too narrow a definition to define what it means to be working in one's field.

Let's take an example. Suppose an applied math major has just landed a job in software development. Would he/she be considered working out of his/her field? According to you, the answer is yes, but to me that is ludicrous.

The truth is that many areas of employment out there require those with technical expertise, but that technical expertise isn't specifically tailored to a particular degree. These jobs can be filled by those with an engineering, physical science, or applied math majors, and since they are actively using their skills gained from their education, I consider them to be working "in-field".

I might add that my perspective is based on the fact that I studied mathematics in university (before turning to statistics in graduate school). If one is too restrictive in one's definition, then the only careers that would be considered "in-field" for math majors are a math teacher or a math professor. Frankly, this is absolutely ridiculous, and I reject this view out of hand, as the skills gained in math can be applied to a wide range of jobs and professions.

 

[Locrian]

Let's take an example. Suppose an applied math major has just landed a job in software development. Would he/she be considered working out of his/her field? According to you, the answer is yes, but to me that is ludicrous.

It depends on what they're doing in software development. It doesn't seem ludicrous to me at all that someone who spent 7 years studying topology and then - when there are no university jobs available - instead develops software can be called working out of their field. (Ludicrous? Really?)

Math is a big subject though, so I understand how some differences of opinion on this can arise. Physics, on the other hand, is partly defined by the subject matter. The "tools" of physics are either scientific or mathematical in nature. When you define anyone who uses those tools as working in the field of physics the whole system of defining different field of science falls apart. Using words like "physics" and "economics" stops making sense, because you've removed a critical part of what defines them (their area of study).

 

[StatGuy2000]

It depends on what they're doing in software development. It doesn't seem ludicrous to me at all that someone who spent 7 years studying topology and then - when there are no university jobs available - instead develops software can be called working out of their field. (Ludicrous? Really?)

Math is a big subject though, so I understand how some differences of opinion on this can arise. Physics, on the other hand, is partly defined by the subject matter. The "tools" of physics are either scientific or mathematical in nature. When you define anyone who uses those tools as working in the field of physics the whole system of defining different field of science falls apart. Using words like "physics" and "economics" stops making sense, because you've removed a critical part of what defines them (their area of study).

Well, first of all, I consider topology to be a branch of pure mathematics, but I digress. Second, my example above was (somewhat loosely) based on someone I know who finished her PhD in applied math (specializing in numerical analysis) and then worked in a software company specializing in medical imaging. Since she is actively using her knowledge and expertise in her position in software development, I consider her to be very much working within her field, and to suggest otherwise seemed ludicrous to me.

Now I agree with you that physics is partly defined by subject matter, but that subject matter is itself very big, and many physicists (particularly those specializing in, say, complex systems or nonlinear physics) have an extremely broad range of interests. It isn't too much of a stretch to say that the skills and expertise (e.g. computational & mathematical skills, analytical skills) gained in pursuing this subject matter will equip many such students to work in a wide range of jobs, and so I'd be hard-pressed to say that their not working "in-field".

Let me give you another example. A close friend of mine finished his BS in physics and his PhD in applied math, specializing in quantum information theory (or something of that nature -- I can't speak for his exact research). He later completed a postdoc in bioinformatics and is now currently working in the bioinformatics field for a health-research institute, applying the same graph-theoretic methods he first employed in quantum information theory to his new field. Now do you consider him to be working "in-field" or "out of field"?

 

[Locrian]

Let me give you another example. A close friend of mine finished his BS in physics and his PhD in applied math, . . . [snip] . . . Now do you consider him to be working "in-field" or "out of field"?

Yes*, but I already stated I felt there was room for different opinions when it came to math. I'm really not interested in going over a hundred math examples.

Nothing you said changed my opinion about physics at all. Subject matter is critical to its definition. The subject matter is the only thing that separates it from several other subjects.

twofish, Particlgrl and I are all working outside our field of study.

* Edit: I put yes, but I think I meant no. Actually, I'm really not sure, since I don't know exactly what he studied.

 

[camjohn]

Quant and ParticleGrl dominate every possible thread about the employment of physics that has ever been posted on this website. Just know that hearing about ParticleGrl's graduating class is in no way a representation of the entire field of physics, nor will it give you a good idea of what to look forward to in the future.

I also can't help but feel like people looking for legitimate information are no longer receiving the aforementioned information, but are only being fed the reiterated opinions and loose facts of two remorseful PhDs.

There are no medals for the Career Guidance section of this forum, and there is a reason for that; opinions do not matter. Some opinions (those of people who have been in a situation similar to the inquiree) are worth more than others, but statistical information will and always will be the only feasible source of information of which anyone should be trusting. Basing your future, your approach to academia, and your career off of the same two people who frequently voice their opinion is not healthy, nor do I see the reasoning behind their doing so.

I don't have a quarrel with either of them, but I do feel as if they unjustly dominate a section where opinion is naught, and statistics is not. I can't say that I saw any tangible sources of which either of them combatted the original poster, which is troubling, considering their influence in this section of the forum. If you disagree with him, that is by no means a bad thing, however, it is required that you have a firm basis and evidence for your opposing stance.

Please take this into consideration. Thank you.

I appreciate this. I think this whole post not only comes from the heart, but it makes a good point.

 

[AnTiFreeze3]

Well, if you joined recently, then it seems like it's every thread ever. If you've been here a decade, then it seems like every thread recently. ;)

It would be really nice to have a more diverse group of people posting. However, I think twofish and (especially) ParticleGrl represent important points of view held by many other physics graduates. It is even my personal belief that between the two of them you get something close to a majority opinion of graduates.

It would be great if others posted more, but I hope they won't post any less.

I have joined relatively recently, so that would explain why it seems like they have been such an imposing force in threads like this.

@ both Quant and ParticleGrl

You both responded with extremely valid arguments. From what I have read, I have unfortunately only seen what appeared to me to be anectodal evidence, but I do see the value of your posts, especially when so many PhDs end up in situations similar to yours. Like I said, I didn't mean anything to be demeaning or neglectful of the importance of your posts, I merely felt some subconscious urge to express my thoughts on what I saw.

 

[chill_factor]

I respectfully disagree, as by implication you are suggesting that unless you apply the "exact" subject matter you study (whether that be physics, math, chemistry, engineering, etc.) in your field of employment, then you would be working "out-of-field". In my own opinion, that is far too narrow a definition to define what it means to be working in one's field.

Let's take an example. Suppose an applied math major has just landed a job in software development. Would he/she be considered working out of his/her field? According to you, the answer is yes, but to me that is ludicrous.

The truth is that many areas of employment out there require those with technical expertise, but that technical expertise isn't specifically tailored to a particular degree. These jobs can be filled by those with an engineering, physical science, or applied math majors, and since they are actively using their skills gained from their education, I consider them to be working "in-field".

I might add that my perspective is based on the fact that I studied mathematics in university (before turning to statistics in graduate school). If one is too restrictive in one's definition, then the only careers that would be considered "in-field" for math majors are a math teacher or a math professor. Frankly, this is absolutely ridiculous, and I reject this view out of hand, as the skills gained in math can be applied to a wide range of jobs and professions.

if that's the way you put it:

chemistry is physics. because both use quantum mechanics and thermodynamics to describe molecular and condensed matter systems and methods of their characterization. they also use a lot of the same math, such as group theory in crystallography and molecular spectroscopy, and supposedly in particle physics too.

biology is chemistry, because both use the theory of atoms and molecules to describe complex self organized condensed matter systems and the chemical reactions of biomolecules themselves are important and interesting.

so that means that biology = chemistry, chemistry = physics, therefore biology = physics.

also geology is just the materials science of naturally occurring inorganic materials. So geology = materials science. materials science is also close to chemistry. so geology = chemistry. but chemistry = biology. so we conclude that geology = biology.

psychology is just natural signal processing by biological systems. since psychology = biology and geology = biology, psychology and geology are the same thing.

if only the tools and methods of a discipline matter, then we can get really stupid conclusions such as psychology = geology.

 

[twofish-quant]

Likewise, both twofish-quant and ParticleGrl (and those in similar situations to them) could be considered working "in-field" because while they are not specifically employed as "physicists", they are at the current moment using the analytical skills they have developed from their time in physics research.

There is one caveat here. My **current** job makes use of my physics skills. This was specifically *NOT* true of any of my previous positions. So when ParticleGrl says that she isn't using the analytical skills that she did her Ph.D. in, this is something that I can sympathize with because all of the jobs that I did before I went into Wall Street, specifically did *NOT* use any physics related skills.

My current employment involves babysitting supercomputing code that crunches partial differential equations and modelling reality with said equations. This is *NOT* the same work that I was doing before I went into finance, and because my previous jobs did *NOT* have any physics related content, I was going a bit nuts.

 

[twofish-quant]

Physics isn't defined just by a set of skills it provides or tools it uses. It's primarily defined by the subject matter.

We can get into arguments about what physics is, but...

If we are to define subjects we study by the very broadly defined tools they use then you could easily mash together just about every engineering and physical science (along with most areas of applied math) into one discipline and a whole host of words become useless.

Actually we can't do this. Different fields use different tools. For example, my background is extremely weak in statistics and time series analysis. It's also very weak in finite element methods. It's very strong in partial differential equations and high performance computing.

Defining fields by tools and skill sets gives you a different set of boundaries that might be more useful when it comes to getting employment. One thing that people have asked is whether the "department structure" is at all useful in actually describing reality.

This also is important when writing resumes. For example, someone that does observational cosmology is very strong in statistical data analysis, and it would make sense to "match" them with a job doing algorithmic trading. If you classify things as "finance" and "physics" or even "astrophysics" you don't see that.

This matters a lot for Ph.D.->industry transitions. One thing about physics Ph.D.'s is that people come out with *wildly* different skill sets, so when you try to figure out what jobs are available, you have to look a the individual Ph.D.

Those words have meaning and are used for a reason.

When things are broken, then it's useful to look at the definitions of words to see if they make sense. The problem is that if you don't question the definitions of words, then you are trapped by those definitions. If you look at why words have their definitions, there are usually some interesting history, but then you have to ask yourself what was the cause of that history.

One reason I think it's "valid" to call what I'm doing now "physics." is because there are books and journals in "econophysics" and people *have* published work that isn't that far from what I've been doing in peer-reviewed physics journals,

D. Sornette and A. Johansen 'Large Financial Crashes', Physica A 245, pp. 411-422, 1997

Figueira, Moura, "The Gompertz-Pareto income distribution", Physica A, 390, pp. 689-698, 2011

The other issue here is that there is a big distinction between what I'm doing now and what I was doing five years ago. What I'm doing now is physics. What I was doing five years ago, wasn't.

twofish has on many occasions suggested he feels he's still working in physics, but I don't think it is either reasonable or logical to think he's right.

If you define physics as "stuff that is publishable in peer-reviewed physics journals" then what I'm doing is clearly physics. It's just an odd form of statistical mechanics.

 

[twofish-quant]

It depends on what they're doing in software development. It doesn't seem ludicrous to me at all that someone who spent 7 years studying topology and then - when there are no university jobs available - instead develops software can be called working out of their field. (Ludicrous? Really?)

Depends on the *type* of software. If he is working on Mathematica, then it's not out of field.

When you define anyone who uses those tools as working in the field of physics the whole system of defining different field of science falls apart.

Well, maybe things *SHOULD* fall apart. One of the things that I learned at MIT was if you want to do anything non-trivial, you have to be inter-disciplinary. My teachers taught me to not respect departmental boundaries, because at some level they were stupid political barriers.

At MIT, astronomy is considered part of the physics department. At UT Austin, astronomy is *VERY* different from physics. There are interesting political and historical reasons why things are they way they are, but it's not holy writ.

Using words like "physics" and "economics" stops making sense, because you've removed a critical part of what defines them (their area of study).

Just because we have definitions doesn't mean that we have to have your definitions. I can define physics in a way that's different from you. Now if I were the only one with my definition of physics, I'd be screwed, but the editorial board of Physica A and the National University of Singapore agrees with my definition.

If we can have biophysics, geophysics, and astrophysics, then I don't see the problem with econophysics.

You get into some interesting questions. Is an astronomer a physicist or not? In astronomy, you run into the weird situation where theoreticians are "astrophysicists" whereas observers aren't. It's pretty clear that when it comes to supernova, who is a "physicist" and who isn't does *NOT* have much to do with the topic of study but rather the method of study.

 

[twofish-quant]

Subject matter is critical to its definition. The subject matter is the only thing that separates it from several other subjects.

That doesn't make any since if you apply it to astronomy. Or geology. Or biology. What's the difference between an astronomer and an astrophysicist, a geologist and a geophysicist, or a biologist and a biophysicist?

An astrophysicist uses physics techniques to study astronomy.
A geophysicist uses physics techniques to study geology.
A biophysicist uses physics techniques to study biology.

There are people in astronomy that clearly are not physicists. There are people in astronomy that clearly are. What's the difference? It has nothing to do with what they are studying because they are studying the same thing.

Also, a lot of this depends on who you are trying to convince. I'm not going to spend a huge amount of time trying to convince Locrian to change his definitions, because frankly his definitions don't matter to me, since he doesn't have an impact on my daily life. The people whose views *do* matter are people like my dissertation adviser, my wife, my teachers both at MIT and UTexas Austin, and any hiring committees, peer review panels, and grant review committees I might apply to, and part of the reason I can get away with "I'm doing physics" is that their definitions agree with mine.

This isn't a small thing. I'm actually surprised at how will I've done, and why I've been able to get done what I've been able to get done, and I suspect that one *BIG* reason is that the "people that matter to me" don't share Locrian's definition of physics.

 

[twofish-quant]

if only the tools and methods of a discipline matter, then we can get really stupid conclusions such as psychology = geology.

On the other hand, if only subject matter is important, then you come up with equally absurd conclusions, such as the idea that astrophysicists, geophysicists and biophysicists aren't
physicists.

At MIT astronomy is handled in the physics department and planetary science is handled with the geologists. At UT Austin, planetary science is in the astronomy department which is rather separate from the physics department and just totally different from the geology department.

Now if you just consider these "random historical and political" issues then we that's fine, but if they are political then we can change them. If you think that the definition of physics is some fundamental law of the universe, then it's weird that the laws of the universe are different in Cambridge and in Texas.

Also getting back to the psychological issues involved. There is this idea since the time of "Plato" that physics was the "king of sciences" so the reason why people what to keep the definition of physics restricted is so that it doesn't get contaminated by "lesser sciences."

 

[Rika]

Also getting back to the psychological issues involved. There is this idea since the time of "Plato" that physics was the "king of sciences" so the reason why people what to keep the definition of physics restricted is so that it doesn't get contaminated by "lesser sciences."

That's why I don't like physics culture.

Econophysics, geophysics, biophysics, mathematical physics and all the other are normal branches of physics in my physics department.

Not all people working on physics are physicists through. Since everything is interdisciplinary you can find geologists, biologists, mathematicians and other guys in physics dep. They don't define themselfs as "physicists" because their background, skillset, mindset is different.

They are biologist (people with background and skills in biology) working with physicists (people with background and skills in physics) on interdisciplinary field.

So I think econophysicist is a person with skills and background in physics who work with economists on interdisciplinary field.

And that's ok.

However most people doing theory are dead-set on high energy or astrophysics. They want to study particles or supernovas, not sth "too down to earth" like stock market.

So they should be aware of the fact that they need to change - if not field then let's say - branch. Some of them would choose lasers instead then because lasers are more boring than supernovas but more interesting than stock market for them.About this thread commotion - people like to believe in fairy tales and if someone tells them truth, they got angry becaue they are not ready for reality-check. If they want to be delusional, let them be. They are going to see it themselfs anyway.

 

[twofish-quant]

The truth is that many areas of employment out there require those with technical expertise, but that technical expertise isn't specifically tailored to a particular degree. These jobs can be filled by those with an engineering, physical science, or applied math majors, and since they are actively using their skills gained from their education, I consider them to be working "in-field".

One thing that has to be made clear here was that the jobs that I had before moving to Wall Street *didn't* make just of my physics background. As far as I can tell I had a standard programming job that was similar to the one's that other people in the thread have talked about, and it was quite depressing.

One reason it was depressing was that if you don't use your skills, they rot. One thing that I like about my current job is that I'm doing "physics" like things so that if and when I cash out, I can jump back to supernova or black holes without much difficulty. This wasn't true with the other jobs that I have.

The other thing is that my Ph.d. says that it's a Ph.D. in astronomy. No mention of physics at all. Now I could call myself an astrophysicist, but there was never a formal piece of paper saying that I was an astrophysicist. So if I could call myself an astrophysicist when I was doing graduate work on supernova, I really don't see any reason why I couldn't call myself an econophysicist now.

The more closely you look at the definitions, the weirder they are. For example, you can almost consider astronomy to be a branch of physics. The AIP reports statistics for physics and astronomy departments and there are many universities in which physics includes the astronomers. However, this *isn't* the case with geology. If you look at *why* you quickly get into medieval notions of Neoplatonism.

A lot of this has to do with internal psychology. Statistically you can say whether I'm working "in field" or not, but it's something that I have to tell myself. There's also social validation. If my peer group were people that had Locrian's definition of physics, then I'd be screwed, but they don't. Also, once you have definitions by social validation, then money can change the definitions. If I had a million dollars and went around looking for a university that's willing to start a program in econophysics in their physics department, I'm pretty sure that I could find someone willing to take the money.

I might add that my perspective is based on the fact that I studied mathematics in university (before turning to statistics in graduate school). If one is too restrictive in one's definition, then the only careers that would be considered "in-field" for math majors are a math teacher or a math professor. Frankly, this is absolutely ridiculous, and I reject this view out of hand, as the skills gained in math can be applied to a wide range of jobs and professions.

I got my degree in astronomy. However, the point that I need to make is that most jobs *don't* make use of my special skills, and it was a struggle to find one that did.

Also, it's a standard bit of marketing that you can use a physics degree in any job. Physics departments like to say that but think that's false. In the case of astrophysics, the three fields that specifically use astrophysics skills are 1) Wall Street 2) oil and gas companies and 3) designing nuclear weapons. I *wish* there were more people posting talking about the wonderful opportunities for physics Ph.d.'s in some other field, and it's depressing that there aren't.

 

[chill_factor]

twofish: you mentioned that you were weak in finite-element methods and statistics, but strong in PDEs.

What type of techniques do you use in PDEs? Isn't finite-element just a method for solving PDEs?

How much computational knowledge is necessary before it is actually useful? And how much computational knowledge should an experimental scientist know?

 

[twofish-quant]

What type of techniques do you use in PDEs? Isn't finite-element just a method for solving PDEs?

There is a difference between "finite differencing methods" (FDM) and "finite element methods" (FEM). The wikipedia articles can go into details. FEM isn't very commonly used in finance. It's not clear to me whether this is because of some numerical reason or because of the people that get hired to crunch equations just come from an FDM background.

One other thing is that people in mathematical finance will make a distinction between "finite difference methods" and "finite volume methods" while people in my neck of computational astrophysics don't. Also, mathematical finance distinguishes between "tree" methods and "mesh" methods, but that's also a distinction that's not made in computational astrophysics, and that's clearly a "historical" distinction since they are mathematically equivalent. What happened was that two groups of people published the same techniques in different journals. The tree method came out of economics, whereas mesh methods come out of computational fluid dynamics.

Also this is a perfect example, of how I do use physics skills in my work. Boss person comes down and says we need to simulate that. I know the difference between FDM and FEM and so I come up with techniques to simulate it.

I've heard the term "financial engineering" used, but there is a very real sense in which what I do isn't engineering but rather physics. In engineering you are apply basic principles that do not change, and you aren't interested in figuring out what those principles are. A civil engineer applies Newtonian physics, but they don't have to worry about Newton's laws suddenly changing. If you have a situation where you don't know the basic principles, then an engineer is just going to go home.

However, in quantitative finance an "engineering" approach won't work, because the rules change, and often the goal is to figure out what the rules are. For example, since 2008, the rules involving interest rates have changed, and people haven't figured out what the exact equations for the new rules are. Figuring out fundamental and more or less universal principles from data is what defines "physics" in astronomy, and what defines an "astrophysicist."

One thing that I think is rather amusing is that when someone says that I'm not "doing physics" when they don't know what my job actually is. All you know is that I work in a bank and I sit in front of a computer all day, and that seems to be enough to define what I'm doing as "not physics." Suppose instead of modelling interest rates, I was modelling electron flows through semi-conductors. Well at that point I would be "doing physics", right? OK, so can you tell me the difference between the first and the second? Well I can't grab a handful of interest rates, but I also can't grab a handful of electrons, and I certainly can't grab a handful of neutrinos. Money is not "physical" but neither is gravity or time.

And what do you do if the editorial boards of Physica A and Physics Review E disagree with your definitions?

How much computational knowledge is necessary before it is actually useful? And how much computational knowledge should an experimental scientist know?

It depends on what you are trying to do. One good and bad thing about finance is that there are hundreds of different jobs with vastly different skills, and one odd thing is that every job is unique. It's not as if I have a fixed job title. It's very fluid, and one reason I like my work is that people do make an effort to fit my job to my skills, as well as to put some things that I'm bad at in the mix so that I learn new stuff.

One thing that is the case is that what I do doesn't work with an "industrial" model. You have a factory that produces standard widget part 43243 that fits into standard machine A34234. People tend to think the same way about degrees and jobs. You create major #34343 and that fits into career #B34234. Except that things don't work that way.

Also one thing that I do recommend that people do is to read lots of philosophy. What possible use is philosophy? Well we are in a discussion over names, and I've found that studying French post-structuralism and Marxist critical theory is pretty useful in thinking about how to make the system work for me. One thing that comes out of Marxist critical theory is that names are a political tool for the power holders in a society to maintain political and cultural hegemony. So if you want to change the definitions of words, you have to look at the politics and economics of a situation.

 

[chill_factor]

There's more and more of these ultra narrow specializations unnaturally created by regulation such as industrial hygienist, and yep, there's a degree in that now. The job used to be taken by chemists or biomedical engineers, now its taken by a ultra narrow specialized degree.

Indeed biomedical engineering itself is one of these ultra narrow specializations, just that its older and thus "broader". The job of designing medical devices used to fall to mechanical engineers (prosthetics), chemists (pharmaceuticals, drug delivery, biosensors), biologists (tissue engineering) and electrical engineers (electronic monitoring systems). The ABET approved BME degree at my school right now is just a hodge podge of biology, chemistry, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering and ethics classes. Do they even have the ability, not just motivation but ability, to move beyond?

Yes, a degree may not mean much, but it may indeed limit your future because it simply doesn't give you the tools you need to switch.

So on one hand, your job doesn't fit in an industrial model. But more and more jobs, and degrees, are moving towards a highly industrial model, they are getting narrower and narrower, more and more specialized.

 

[twofish-quant]

There's more and more of these ultra narrow specializations unnaturally created by regulation such as industrial hygienist, and yep, there's a degree in that now. The job used to be taken by chemists or biomedical engineers, now its taken by a ultra narrow specialized degree.

Yup. This is huge problem facing theoretical physicists. You are often limited in what you can do by licensing regulations and professional societies. The reason that particle physicists move into software engineering is that there are no formal standards for software engineering. Whereas you *can't* easily move from theoretical physics to air conditioning repair or selling real estate because of licensure requirements.

In finance, I can call myself an econophysicist, because people doing this sort of work don't have enough clout to prevent new people from moving in. By contrast, in oil and gas, I couldn't easily call myself a geophysicist since there is already a well organized professional society that has "trademarked" that job title.

People have tried to create MFE degrees, but so far those have gone nowhere because 1) there are already so many people without formal credentials doing this work and 2) the situation changes much too quickly.

This is the problem with the idea that you can do anything with a physics degree. You are pretty much restricted to industries in which people haven't set up professional barriers to keep people from getting in. That includes software.

Yes, a degree may not mean much, but it may indeed limit your future because it simply doesn't give you the tools you need to switch.

Yup. On the other hand if you study politics and history, you can figure out how to move around these sorts of barriers. It's not altogether a bad thing. One way is to keep trying to do new stuff that no one has figured out yet.

So on one hand, your job doesn't fit in an industrial model. But more and more jobs, and degrees, are moving towards a highly industrial model, they are getting narrower and narrower, more and more specialized.

Sure, but I think things are going to blow up at some point. One reason that the industrial revolution happened is that people just got fed up with the medieval guild system made the economy extremely inflexible. If we move toward a system in which you can't move skills from one area to another, then I think we are going to see productivity go down, and at some people the system will (hopefully) fall apart.

 

[twofish-quant]

However most people doing theory are dead-set on high energy or astrophysics. They want to study particles or supernovas, not sth "too down to earth" like stock market.

But it's important to understand *why* particles and supernova are "sexy." The reason for this is that it's very, very mathematically hard. You spend all your life being trained as an olympic marathon running, and then when you reach age 30, you get thrown in the scrap heap.

One reason I post as much as I do is that most people don't realize that there are extremely mathematically challenging problems in finance and oil and gas. For example, did you know that one standard tool in oil and gas uses neutron diffusion to look at the properties of rock, and then you use gamma rays and magnetic induction. I didn't before I got hired by an oil/gas company.

It's not that people don't want to study "down to earth" stuff. The problem is that people don't want to be "code monkeys."

So they should be aware of the fact that they need to change - if not field then let's say - branch.

Easier said then done.

About this thread commotion - people like to believe in fairy tales and if someone tells them truth, they got angry becaue they are not ready for reality-check. If they want to be delusional, let them be. They are going to see it themselfs anyway.

That's not the issue here.

First of all, getting good information is hard. It was even harder before the internet. When I was in college, I got all these projections from the NSF that there was going to be a huge demand for astrophysicists. Now it turns out that those stats were very dodgy, but in the pre-internet era, it was very hard to challenge bad statistics.

Second, what do you do once you have information. OK, change fields. Change fields to what?

Third, a surprising amount of truth is "marketing truth." For example, Apple is cool, if people believe that Apple computers are cool, then that becomes truth. Not all truth is objective, and one thing that physicists need to do is to realize that some truth involves social validation. If everyone in the world believes you are the King of the United States and treats you accordingly, then you are King of the United States. If the person looking at your resume thinks you have a bad personality, then in that situation, you have a bad personality. Dealing with "non-objective truth" is something that physicists have difficulty doing.

 

[chill_factor]

Is it? I always thought particles and supernova were popular because they represent something fundamental and beautiful. At least on a popular level, I like to read about astrophysics myself. Never would want to actually work in the field, but reading is OK.

Also, I keep getting conflicting information regarding the importance of learning math and programming.

My undergrad advisor worked as a staff scientist for Dow Chemicals for 20 years before going back to academia. When I told him I wanted to take math methods for physicists, he laughed and said "sure go ahead but you'll never use it, its just good for passing classes you'll never use that stuff in the real world."

Yet on here, its almost as if "math and programming beats all".

 

[Astronuc]

Yup. This is huge problem facing theoretical physicists. You are often limited in what you can do by licensing regulations and professional societies. The reason that particle physicists move into software engineering is that there are no formal standards for software engineering.

Actually, IEEE develops and maintains standards for software development/engineering.

http://www.ieee.org/portal/innovate/products/standard/ieee_soft_eng.html

Some may not be aware, and there is certainly disagreement in industry regarding their efficacy or necessity. Of course, there are folks (professionals) who employ good engineering practices and those who don't.


Regarding the OP, not everyone thinks that the job market for physics majors is terrible. Some do apparently.

 

[gbeagle]

Yet on here, its almost as if "math and programming beats all".

I don't know for everyone, but the reason everyone is saying programming beats all is that it's one of the few ways to actually get a job after a physics PhD in certain subfields. I was in experimental high energy. If I had somehow not know how to program (note: it is basically impossible to complete a PhD in hep-ex without knowing how to program), then the only sort of jobs open to me would have been retail.

This isn't necessarily the case for all fields of physics, but programming is very important for high-energy and astrophysics. These are probably the most represented field of physics in this subforum, which is why you are seeing this advice. In general though I don't think knowing how to program is going to hurt your prospects in any technical field.

 

[Locrian]

That doesn't make any since if you apply it to astronomy. Or geology. Or biology. What's the difference between an astronomer and an astrophysicist, a geologist and a geophysicist, or a biologist and a biophysicist?

An astrophysicist uses physics techniques to study astronomy.
A geophysicist uses physics techniques to study geology.
A biophysicist uses physics techniques to study biology.

There are people in astronomy that clearly are not physicists. There are people in astronomy that clearly are. What's the difference? It has nothing to do with what they are studying because they are studying the same thing.

My posts made it clear that the subject matter is necessary but not sufficient.

You basically made my point in this post, though, so I guess that's a good thing.

 

[Locrian]

For example, my background is extremely weak in statistics and time series analysis.

We know, we know, you don't have to try to convince us.

 

[twofish-quant]

My posts made it clear that differences in subject matter is necessary but not sufficient. How you missed that is beyond me.

You really need to explain what the rule is, and why economics is excluded from things that can turned into physics. The only one that I can think of is that Aristotle wrote his lecture notes in a way that separated "politics" from "physics" and "metaphysics" but worshiping Aristotle is something I thought we got rid of several hundred years ago.

You are coming up with a definition, and I'm interested to see if you have anything that you can use to justify that definition. If it's just "personal preference" then we don't have much of a problem, since I can just have different "personal preferences" than you. If your argument is that "that's just the way it is" then my counterargument is "no it's not."

http://polymer.bu.edu/~hes/econophysics/

If you have any particular reason why you think that your definition of physics is *better* than mine, then I'd like to know about it.