if i get a Physics degree, can i still do certs like in CAD and work in engineering as a technician or something? i'm just curious about my options, like if you have to be accredited to be an engineer no matter what, of if there are other positions that are technician tier.
>>7848592
If you want to work as an engineer then why the fuck would you not study engineering.
ffs some people are just too stupid to reason, JUST CONNECT THE DOTS MAN, IT'S NOT THAT HARD.
>>7848634
>I don't want to be a physicist or do any kind of related work in pure physics
>I want to be an engineer/work in engineering
What is the best choice?
A) Get an engineering degree and become an engineer
B) Get a physics degree, then spend months getting certifications, then spend years looking for an employer so thirsty for employers that he choses me over a real engineer, and then get paid only 50% of what the real engineers are making.
YUP! B sounds like the best way to go!
>>7848640
P o t e n t i a l
O p t i o n s
,Dumbass.
>>7848592
Certs for technician (including CAD draughtsman) is a two year diploma to which there is no shortcuts (there are accellerated ~6-12 week programmes for degree holding engineers, but you can't actually work as a tech. with them), what you're looking for in terms of CADshit is a technologists (yes, different from technician; they do theory up to ODEs etc.) degree which is typically CAD monkey work for around 40-60k starting. You can transfer some of your physics credits to a technologists. Obviously the calculus and some of the intro courses so you can negotiate with the tech college to accelerate your education.
The usual route into STEM industry jobs coming from physics is more software dev/IT related which is where certs are easier to obtain. There are some jobs were physics grads are hired to supplement engineering teams at industry R&D departments and consulting firms (usually working under a supervising PE), but those are so rare you can forget it unless you have an uncle working in the company or something or you're graduating from a top 5 school.
The road to accreditation for a full professional engineer depends on your country/state. Officially ABET states that an accreditted undergrad 4 year bachelor degree that specifically has "engineering" in it is required. Most Washington Accord nations are like this, except UK where the CE has some routes from physics where you need to prove you did remedial studies and you can apply for a CE after working in the engineering industry for a set amount of years, but again in this case you'll need a daddy with good contacts to get those rare jobs.
I would recommend software dev, but apparently that bubble crashed. Finance is as mundane as you think it is. Fuck man I just don't know anymore. The STEM job market really sucks at the moment. It's a time to be innovative, try to start a small business etc. Professional careers just aren't what they used to be.
>>7848643
>Incredibly inneficient
>Potential
If you consider something so retarded and inneficient, to be a potential option for a life choice, then you are literally retarded.
>>7848651
>If you consider something so retarded and inneficient, to be a potential option for a life choice, then you are literally retarded.
Projecting. You pulled a 50% less pay statistic out of your ass. This is because you're being stupid.
>>7848673
Well, >>7848645 said that you will be earning 40 - 60k and that you would have to take a 2 year long course for this to be even legal, so that adds up to 6 years.
Believe me that any engineer, after 2 years in the market, that you wasted doing more school, is already earning >80k while you will be just starting with a Mc Donald's salary.
You want that for your life? 4 years BS and then 2 years cert for 40k starting? Then go right ahead.
Meanwhile every engineer in the world will be counting their 6 figure salary while they fuck a hooker that costs twice your monthly income.
>>7848673
Uh, no that's about right. But it's not just engineering degree holder vs physicists. It's also about how well you develop in your career. Professional engineers generally get the 6 fig. jobs, everything else below that usually needs to work under a PE for near entry level salaries. But there are other factors, those PEs also need to develop their career in a specific industry, for example you're not going to get hired into a polymer ChemE job if you have a PE in EE. So in STEM industries you'll probably have much less than 50% life time earnings compared to a real PE doing an ideal career.
Of course professional engineering is far from the only way to make money. Software devs, senior sys admins, finance etc. can all get you in the 6 figure braket.
If you want to go engineering specifically, you'd be pretty fucking stupid to do a physics degree, you can't become a PE with it, you just can't and definitely not reach the same career ceiling, you can do tech/non-PE jobs in the "engineering industry", but that's not a PE career though if you're not interested in engineering as a degree, but want to work in the "engineering industry" see >>7848645 for your options coming from physics. I'm not going to lie though, the non-PE engineering industry jobs aren't ever good salaries. I've met 60 year old technologists who are paid like shit, they all tell me they wished they picked up their engineering bachelors at some point, but they sent their sons to law school and finance degrees in any case.
I have a Masters in Physics. AMA
(lol joke)
Seriously though, it's a great subject and having it has never done anything but help me in life.
N.B. It won't guarantee you a job, but it will definitely help
>>7848592
Is it possible to take an engineering degree in undergrad, then take a physics masters/Ph.D.?
>>7848733
Like I take an engineering degree with a physics minor, and decide to study something in Grad school that I like in Physics, then if shit hits the fan, i can just grab a PE and work as an engineer with a physics background.
>>7848685
Just to clarify so there's no ambiguity, I'm talking about mid career salaries when I say 40-60k, those are my own experiences because I often get job openings like that mixed in with PE job offers in my emails so it's an estimate for most jobs with 5+ years of experience. You can double check it at bls or a similar source:
http://www.bls.gov/ooh/architecture-and-engineering/drafters.htm
http://www.bls.gov/ooh/architecture-and-engineering/mechanical-engineering-technicians.htm
People love throwing the job title "engineer" around when it's inappropriate, but used like that most "engineering jobs" pay like shit. The reason for that is because they aren't actually real PEs and like I said in >>7848700 even many engineering bachelors holders never progress their career that far to get those 6 fig PE salaries which usually relies on 10+ years in a SPECIFIC industry; so if you don't start out in NukeE working on power generating reactors early for example, you're fucked if you try to switch to it later, and also you generally can't, legally speaking and what employers hire, switch disciplines like that. However, even switching within your own discipline from say Nuke power to Nuke medicine R&D/engineering sales manager etc. for example, will generally fuck up your career up beyond repair and drastically decrease your life time earnings. Trying to break into engineering from a science degree is a terrible idea, because you're mostly doing support jobs for mechEs in manufacturing which pays like shit even if your job title says "engineer" (so do "coder girls" with IT degrees so don't bank on shiny titles). In general you will probably earn less than technologists if you only have a sceince degree. Which is why most poeple go software dev/sysadmin etc., but yeah that market is fucked too.
>>7848733
I think it depends on your institution, I was quickly offered a spot in a physics masters programme after talking with a professor there coming from ChemE at my university, but I'm not in the states and I think my university is rated around 400-500 internationally. (I went with cheme btw, my current PI offered me a much cooler and ironically more theoretical project).
>>7848761
>>7848733
But also if you want to go Physics PhD it's far better to do your bachelors in Physics btw. University requirements are generally irrelevant, but for your own development since it's obviously quicker to get the point where you can do research coming a physics bs.
Don't worry about backups, you can always go software/IT/finance if you can't get into gradschool. You'll be fine.
>>7848712
>It won't guarantee you a job
Nothing will, lack of job availability is the worst reason ever not to do physics since it's exaggerated/misunderstood anyway, not every job has to be in STEM. Take it from a ChemE, this job market was perfect when I started and now it's one of the worst in STEM. It's a combination of luck and talent that gets you a job. A lot of my classmates went into unrelated jobs, including shit like teaching (NOT 4 year university level), while I got 2 job offers before graduation without even trying (went postgrad anyway). On the other hand 6 fig. starting salaries in petroleum are still real, 1 of my classmates got it.
In general just target something early and do internships in it. But also just being passionate about your field and proving yourself both usefull and not autistic can get you hired in many places.
>>7848811
How's the job market for nuke E? Planning on getting into Nuke E in the future, probably hoping to advance into grad school Ph.D. to be able to take part in the R&D towards Nuclear Development.
>>7848905
Bump
so physicist is not a big industry position for R&D? damn...
In EE almost no cares about PE license and in many states you can still get a PE without a degree in the field.
PE is a meme.
OP here. i found this:
> The halls of industry have always been peopled with physicists. For many years a bit more than a third of PhD physicists worked in industry, while almost half went into academic research and teaching. By the mid-1990s the numbers for new PhDs had reversed, with more than half going into industry and a little less than one-third going into academic institutions (see PHYSICS TODAY, April 2007, page 28). Notwithstanding the important relationship between physicists and industry, the kind of work that industrial physicists do and the way industrial R&D is organized have, until recently, been largely a matter of speculation. In 2003 the Center for History of Physics of the American Institute of Physics began a five-year study of the history of physicists in industry—the first systematic assessment of the work that physicists do in the corporate sector, how the organization and funding of industrial R&D have changed over the past several decades, and the extent to which the records of physicists in industry are being preserved for current and future researchers.
should i look into it? honestly i'm only doing this because i do love academia, but i want to know if i have options doing research without postdoc. on that note, what's postdoc like?
another thing i found
>physicists are regularly employed within areas such as radiology, radiation oncology and nuclear medicine, in order to test and approve the latest technologies and equipment. As well as testing, responsibilities in this area include research, design and quality assurance.
Research-based roles in this field are available within medical technology companies, healthcare providers, research centers and academic institutions. Knowledge of accelerator physics, radiation detection and materials science is valuable for many of these roles, and a master’s degree in a relevant specialization (e.g. medical physics) will also give you a leg up into the industry.
>>7848905
keep dreaming kid
So guys, let's get down now.
Memeing and actually not knowing shit about aside now please.
What are jobs phyicists with a (bachelor)/master can do? I read and hear so many different opinions that I can't tell whats right and wrong anymore. I'm in my second semester of physics bachelor now. I'm not sure what to do after it. I definetely don't want to go into pure research, that's for sure.
So what are jobs are there actually? Give me some exact examples, and no bullshitting please. Like this >>7850745 >>7851522 anon.
And is it really true that there is a huge salary gap between engineers and physicists? I actually reall don't care that much about it, but would like to know anyway.
And if there's nothing to go into at the end, I thought I just might go into education. Always dreamed of teaching dumb little shits about physics.
>>7854963
The AIP studies are incredibly stupid and/or outright dishonest. I've researched this before, but I'm googling now since my old work is another computer.
In the first place around 36% of physics graduates are double majors (https://www.aip.org/sites/default/files/statistics/undergrad/bachdegrees-p-14.pdf ) and they count those as "physics" despite the fact their other degrees are probably more likely what got them the job, they even include single majors in engineering physics as physics for fucks sake. Furthermore they count "Computer or Information Systems" and "Non-STEM" as private sector "industry" job (https://www.aip.org/sites/default/files/statistics/employment/bachinitemp-p-12.1.pdf). Not to mention they don't say whether they consider the 8% teaching high-school to be
Now worst of all under the job titles called "engineering" they include that most respondants had titles like "quality contol assistant", "electrical engineering technician". There are real engineering titles included here too, but since they don't give us the statistics we have (A) No way of knowing how many are doing real engineeirng and how many are doing QA/tech/assistant work and (B) how many of the real engineers aren't just engineering majors who picked up a physics double major? Even the respondant qoutes talk about majoring or minoring in engineering or picking up programming/CS so we know those aren't pure physics graduates.
Also see the oversaturated market with graduates doubling in the last 15 years in the first link, this is even more graduates than most engineering disciplines nowadays. Physics is nothing like it used to be.
Conclusion? Pick up a double major in engineering/CS if you want these employment statistics to match your own own reality, but what you really SHOULD be doing is ignoring my post and doing your own research.
