Can a person with an applied physics PhD really work in all areas of engineering?
In all areas, yes, but you wouldn't be as valued as others in some positions, vice versa for certain position.
Your specialty being spread on many fields gives you a disadvantage in a position the only needs a specific specialty compared to someone who studied the same amount as you but focused on that specific field, but of course that means he's close to useless compared to you in positions that don't need that specific specialty.
The department chair of EE at my uni is essentially an applied physicist. Dude is crazy smart
>>7967785
Mine too, but according to him that's because AP tend to choose the academy route more often than EE
>>7967688
>Never so much as replaced a light bulb
>Can't draw anything by hand or computer
>"Can I work as an engineer?"
>>7967688
Nuclear PEs need specific licensure to legally work on anything with a nuclear reaction.
Chem PEs need specific licensure to legally work on anything with a chemical reaction.
Civil PE also has extreme regulations for obvious reasons.
etc.
To give you an example, our explosives lab had to have over 12 different engineers sign off on it. All the relevant high paying enigneering jobs are bureacratic as fuck, only the tech type jobs are open to anyone.
Pretty much only thing you can work in is basic manufacturing, research and so forth. Also the typical consulting jobs, which fucking suck nowadays, I literally told a head hunter fuck off when he made me an offer barely bigger than my grad stipend, I read the firm offered 80k for fresh graduates too, it's complete bullshit.
>>7967814
>>can't draw on a computer
Yeah because you need to have an engineering degree to use AutoCAD
Hell no.
What a load of bullshit. There are exceptions but those people have great background supporting them.
The average anon wouldn't even get a call back.
But would you say that industry is a good option for someone with an applied physics PhD?
>>7967904
No, terrible long term opportunities compared to PEs on technical side so you'd need to claim to climb the corporate ladder on the business side. Which is fucking tedious and a waste of a life.
If I had a App physics degree 40 years ago I'd go industry, today I wouldn't even try to stay in STEM, I'd go do something entirely different with my life.
What about theoretical physics phd?
>>7967927
Physics is shit unless you're a genius or have family that will help you get into academia.
>>7967927
That's almost completely useless for everything except programming. Every engineering firm wants someone with engineering electives/experience and theoretical physics doesn't provide that at all
Listen, there's a reason that engineering degrees exist, and no, it's not because universities want to make money, it's because they offer the shortest path for a specific expertise, time is everything, and in the time that you waste on fluid mechanics an EE would dive further more and focus on a specific expertise, the more you spread, the less you dive, and usually the industry values the latter.
>>7967955
Is this is a troll? The engineering profession is mellenia older than physics.
>>7967955
Yeah, but I want to get the best of both worlds if possible. i.e. the theoretical side of physics and the experimental side of engineering interest me
>>7967973
>mellenia
>>7967688
Well, in theory you can do anything. But as an engineer you will lack experience or certain skills needed to do your work and you would need some extra classes to learn those things. It's bothersome, but not impossible.
>>7967688
why the fuck would you waste your time with that.
You would still have to go over all engineering papers and coursework to know what you're doing. It would just be way way easier to understand.
>>7969108
It's a distinction made by layman types, it does not exist in serious academia.
>>7967688
No since you will not have the basic framework to do most engineering jobs. Please, whatever you do, don't try and sneak into the engineering career fair and ask for a job. It's extremely cringeworthy when nonengineering majors do this...
>>7969947
Haha this lol. It's always extra funny when some loser autist asks the guy if it's okay that he's doing some gay-ass major like physics and the poor fucker has to tell him that all degrees are okay it's all about your willingness to learn. LOL.
>>7967911
Not him.
what about finance?
>>7968561
what if you already know those things? not OP but i'm interested in studying condensed matter physics, but i already know C++, matlab and solidworks. if you show the skillsets and experience to work in a designing environment where you can grasp the principles behind cost and materials for builds, alongside the finance, can a physicist get in? if not i'm probably gonna do an engineering physics degree so i can at least say it's engineering. the only reason i want to learn the condensed matter physics side is because it covers areas i feel i wouldn't be able to learn on my own.
