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Any physicists?


AuroraeBorealis

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AuroraeBorealis

Any physicists in these parts?

 

I wanted to ask how you chose the branch of physics in which you specialized once you finished the degree or in the last year of the degree. What kind of job do you have?        

I am in my last year and very lost about my future. 

 

Any non-physicists that may have any advice, feel free to give it.

 

Thanks to all

 

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HELLO :D i am currently working on my bachelors of physics. I will be going to grad school for astrophysics.  

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Knight of Cydonia

I'm working on a PhD in astrophysics - focused on discovering and characterizing new exoplanets, especially exoplanets that could be considered "habitable". I've got about 1.5 years to go, then (hopefully) on to a Post Doc!

 

In terms of how I decided I'd want to do that, I did my bachelor's in Physics and Astronomy, initially without much of an idea of what I wanted to do specifically. I took several upper level electives, including a course on "Exoplanets and Astrobiology". I managed to get a summer internship with the prof of the course since it was such an enjoyable course for me, and since I was interested in the prospect of finding other life in the universe. He gave me the "job" of trying to find new exoplanets using data from NASA's Kepler mission. It was a good fit, and the prof and I worked so well together, that he eventually became my honours undergraduate thesis supervisor, and is my PhD dissertation supervisor to this day.

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I didn't do a Physics degree, though what I do is effectively physics and my degree was about 50% identical to a physics degree. I'm now doing a PhD working on the last unsolved problem of classical physics - turbulence.

 

The question to ask yourself is where do you want to work - industry or academia? What kind of work do you like doing? Starting from there it's best to pick a fairly big specialisation with lots of job offers - that would typically be more towards engineering, like mechanics (solid and fluid), material research, acoustics, photonics, that kind of thing. My suggestion is to pick something not too niche because once you have job experience it's usually quite difficult to find work in a different field, or if it's a rather small subject it can be even tricky to find another employer (simply because there are none).

 

If you still have no idea, may I suggest looking for industry-funded PhDs? Depending on how far you are willing to move, it's almost a piece of cake to find one of those. It gives you a lot of extra time to think about where to move from there. And I would be really surprised if there's no PhD topic that can interest you.

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AuroraeBorealis

Thanks to you all. I didn't expected so many replies. 

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I am a career physicist - been working >25 years since my PhD.  I am on the engineering side of physics, working on the development of experimental hardware and detection systems. 

 

Physics covers a huge range - from theory, to grand problems like cosmology, to studying the flow of sand grains, to work like mine that drifts very close to engineering. No better / worse, just whatever you are interested in.

 

If you want to be a more pure science sort of physicist, then look for a field that is just starting to grow.  NOT Astrophysics:  astrophysics is doing fantastically well right now - which means it is likely near its peak.  sort of like high energy physics 20 years ago. 

 

If you can do internships, do so - they are a great way to learn what you like to do. 

 

My particular job is managing a small group of scientists and engineers developing new types of instrumentation for astrophysics experiments. 

 

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

Fascinating, @uhtred. :) 

 

I did an MS in physics with a thesis involving high-temperature superconductors, and then went straight into the semiconductor business, spending much on that on ion implanters (a marriage of particle accelerators and robots). That was quite interesting. After 20 years of that, I switched to the biotechnology field. Here, I am somewhat of a statistician, which is OK, because I like statistics and math.

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  • 1 month later...

Sort of physics-related; my career was in geophysics and seismology, although my weakness in advanced calculus and beyond led me to branch off more toward being a technician in the end. Loved the years I was involved with major U.S. earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, as well as one in Colombia.

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