where would you be employed with a physics degree?

Carsinian Thau

I'm trying to decide between physics+maths, elec eng and med.
I know a lot about careers in med and a fair bit about careers in eng but all the info for the maths+phys is very vague. Personally I'd prefer the subject content of maths+phys to elec eng but careers are slightly more important in the long term. Anyone know where you'd most likely end up with a physics degree?

Irish Wolf

Carsinian Thau wrote:

I'm trying to decide between physics+maths, elec eng and med.
I know a lot about careers in med and a fair bit about careers in eng but all the info for the maths+phys is very vague. Personally I'd prefer the subject content of maths+phys to elec eng but careers are slightly more important in the long term. Anyone know where you'd most likely end up with a physics degree?

A mate of mine with a big bag of letters after his name works here... The Radiological Protection Institute of Ireland.

dudara

Carsinian Thau wrote:

but careers are slightly more important in the long term.

Actually I'd disagree with you there. What is important is to do something that you will enjoy and find challenging in college. Eng and Physics both meet the challenging criteria, so it's up to you to decide which one is more personally satisfying.

I did a Physics degree in UCC (graduated 2000) and completed a PhD in Electrical & Electronic Engineering in UCC in 2005. During this time, I was a essentially an experimental physicist doing a bit of theory as well. I also lectured part-time for 2 years in the CIT in the physics department.

I've left Physics behind now and work as a management consultant for a major company. I'm content that I've made a good choice for myself. I truly enjoyed science while doing it, was pretty decent at it, and originally thought that that would be where my career would lie. However, things change.

Careers are fluid these days. What matters is that you do things that you find challenging and exciting and that you do them to the best of your ability. Employers can spot that, no matter what course you did.

mathias

Agree totally with the previous poster , Im and Electronics Eng graduate myself , and did this because I was interested more than anything else. You'll never make it through the course otherwise , in my first two years my fellow students were dropping like flies .....mainly because they found it too hard / boring or whatever ..... they seemed to be there just because thats what they had the points for and it sounded good !!

When it comes to employment , you'd be surprised how many people are working in disciplines other than their degree field , employers just seem to see degree and not necessarily what its in , ......and in my experience the type of people who finish engineering and physics degrees are the type who like change anyway.

Professor_Fink

In many ways I agree with the previous posters. Do what most interests you. Any of those degrees can lead you to careers that pay extremely well, if that's what matters to you. An obscene number of physicists go into investment banking and consulting, and earn fairly hefty paycheques. The danger with physics, if you can really call it that, is that you could easily find it to fascinating, and decide that you can't imagine a job where you were not looking at fundamental questions about the universe. Unfortunately those jobs don't pay well. They are, however, extremely satisfying.

For the record I did theoretical physics in UCD and then a DPhil in Oxford.

kevmy

If your interested in jobs from Physics places like Intel in Lexlip and Analog Devices in Limerick take on a fair bunch - especially if you've done a post-doc in some form of microelectronics.
Met Eireann also take on Physicists if your interested in that area.

But the thing with Physics is that you could end up anywhere. Most people who do a Physics degree end up being called engineers when they get a job - feck all peoples job description reads Physicist.

Also from my experience it is one of the largest research disciplines so if your interested in research it is great (these might not pay very well but they have other advantages such as flexible working hours, paid trips to conferences and high job satisfaction).

My overall advice to you: to want you like best and see where it takes, very few people know what there going to do before starting college