Are there really any jobs for physics/mathematics graduates outside of academia?

College Majors Science Majors
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<p>I'm a senior physics/mathematics major. Although I have a pretty good GPA (3.8), I've decided against going to graduate school, at the very least for the foreseeable future. I've become quite disillusioned by academia and I know I probably have a better chance of winning the lottery than becoming a professor.</p>

<p>With all that said, it seems there are no jobs for people with physics/mathematics experience. I've spoken with many of my peers, and many are considering simply doing another degree in something more practical as they don't even have the option to do graduate school as their GPA is simply not competitive enough. </p>

<p>The only job I've been told I have the skills for by my department's career centre is teaching, but that would require me to do another 2 years to fill the requirements for the bachelors of education, which I'm not at all interested in.</p>

<p>It seems all the good technical jobs in industry only go to engineering, chemistry, and computer science graduates. Would I just be better off starting from scratch and just do a degree in engineering if I want to ever get any technical job in industry? </p>

<p>Also, I'm in Canada if that changes anything. I heard in the U.S it's different, but for Canada, it seems there are no employers outside of academia that are interested in hiring physics or mathematics graduates.</p>

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<p>Finance and computers are often types of jobs that math and physics majors adapt to, although they may not be as recruited as much as those majoring in more directly related subjects (e.g. CS for jobs in computers). But how much that is true in Canada may be different from the US.</p>

<p>Out-of-major courses in statistics, economics, and CS can help you with these types of jobs.</p>

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<p>@Ucbalumnus: From what I’ve heard from employers in both industries at least where I’m based (Ontario, Canada), they are not at all or have ever been interested in mathematics or physics graduates. From what I’ve gathered, mathematics/physics graduates are just about as unqualified for jobs in these fields as fine arts graduates, and I generally agree. The only programming I did in coursework were two computational physics classes and an introductory programming class for physical scientists in first year. Now I did do a lot of programming when I did research over the summers which was necessary to model physical systems, but I am only proficient in mathematica, matlab, and python, which I’ve read are pretty much not used at all in pure programming jobs. As for finance, I’ve never taken a finance or economics course before which goes to show just how qualified I am for a job in it. </p>

<p>I really don’t understand how physics and mathematics graduates even end up with these jobs, and I’m really starting to become skeptical that if they are hired by these industries at the numbers that are often claimed and or cited. I really fail to see how algebraic topology or classical electrodynamics prepares one more for finance than say a finance major who spent the four years taking finance courses, and there’s certainly no shortage of finance graduates. </p>

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<p>You have to sell your skills, not the courses you have taken. You have a deep knowledge of the physical world and how it works. You have the ability to learn new things and you have some programming experience. More than anything you have a broader knowledge of many fields which touch on engineering than an engineer in a particular discipline has. You know circuits & electrodynamics, mechanics and statistical physics, quantum and modern physics. These disparate fields are ideal for a relatively new field called mechatronics.</p>

<p>Enlightened companies realize that they don’t get fully-formed employees straight out of college. The value of college is not as vocational training but learning how to learn new things and to adapt what you know to new situations. This is the strength of your degrees. The training they give can equally well be absorbed by a physics/math major as a mechanical or electrical engineer, you just need to find an employer who understands this. I know that all the physics graduates of a certain mid-western university are sucked up by a major aerospace company. They know the value.</p>

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<p>Perhaps it is different in the US, but some (not all) employers hiring for finance or computer jobs like “smart people who can do math” because such people can learn on those jobs relatively quickly. Of course, if finance study in Canada is math-heavy, and there are numerous finance graduates around, then that can prevent consideration of physics and math majors for such jobs. In the US, finance is usually under general business, and students majoring in general business are usually not that strong in math.</p>

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<p>Except for nursing, other in-demand healthcare specializations, accounting, petroleum engineering, and software development, <em>no</em> degrees are left standing with the ‘degree to job’ pipeline that was implied to you (and me; I’m 25) when you started college. That no longer exists, it’s as simple as that. You get a job by networking, not applying at random, hoping strangers notice you in a pile of hundreds. What your degree is in hardly matters. </p>

<p>I know how bad it sucks to hear that, but it’s been growing more and more like this for years. Except for those willing to study dreary, pre-vocational stuff during what should be their prime years to learn about interesting, beautiful things like math, science, history, art, etc., there is no work waiting for you just because you got a degree. </p>

<p>Some people seem to be reveling in this ‘get tough’ mentality, and can barely contain their glee as they type, you have to be clever, you have to want it bad, work your contacts, get out there and be a ***** type of crap. Unfortunately, it’s all true (except their inexplicable attitude that this is for some reason a good thing). </p>

<p>Perhaps you shouldn’t settle for my advice too soon. I settled and I hate my life. Maybe there’s some clever technique inaccessible to me because of my background, bad attitude, or excessively orderly expectations of life that enables you to get into a job in which you get to apply your intellectual training. Seek advice from people that have pulled it off. But be prepared, because you may find what I found: the desert of the real. </p>

<p>p.s. congrats for realizing the grad school nightmare before it was too late. Some people, after trying to get by as a normal job holder, have a second realization- it doesn’t matter that their career aspirations will never pan out. They have to go to grad school because they care about the material too much, and will never let themselves rest until they have at least taken a shot at their dream. Not to mention, it’s a threadbare but satisfactory lifestyle, ‘the life of the mind’, for 5 years before getting dumped out into an impossible job market, which for some is better than 5 years doing anything else they could be doing with their late 20s. </p>

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<p>OK, what is done is done has far as your choice with a more “pure mathematics/physics” slant. I do want to comment without the “should have could have” thinking.</p>

<p>I always believed in doing things with a “Plan B” in your back pocket. Yes, you may have a career path that you want and would be ideal, but the Plan-B should be something that you at least “kind of like” but is more “certain”. When it comes to Math and Physics majors…as one CC poster said (I forget who)…“No Math or Physics major should leave their campus without at least a minor in Computer Science”. When you look on just about every job-search site, the words “Java”, “Linux”, “Oracle”, “Cloud”, and a few others have much more hits than any other job-related word, so taking those extra computer science courses can help in the event of a Plan-B.</p>

<p>I would think I know. I am myself was Mathematics major (Computational albeit) but I made sure I crammed even more upper-level computer science courses with my electives. During my final semester as an undergrad, I applied for almost every math-related job around but the only employers calling back were software ones. Initially, I turned the software jobs down but when my parents decided to cut off the money, I needed to choose Plan-B.</p>

<p>In general, and unless one has the funds to go straight to a M.S. degree and possibly a PhD, a math undergrad major NEEDS TO take courses in other APPLIED AREAS, like:</p>

<ul>
<li>Computer Science</li>
<li>Mathematical Finance</li>
<li>Probability & Statistics</li>
<li>Optimization & Operations Research</li>
</ul>

<p>Algebraic topology is nice, those businesses are using more of combinatorics, linear programming and Ito’s Lemma.</p>

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<p>If you have a plan B, when it comes to career stuff, you will use it. The small number of people who do manage to get their dream jobs in the arts, academia, etc. all had something in common (along with, probably, some homeless people, dead people, and addicts): they deliberately had no plan B. </p>

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<p>Or you might not have known that they had a plan B because they never needed to use it.</p>

<p>For example, Andrew Luck has his dream job as an NFL quarterback on a winning team, but he also has a bachelor’s degree in architectural design from a prestigious university. <a href=“http://www.sportingnews.com/nfl/story/2012-06-19/andrew-luck-graduates-stanford-degree-michelle-wie-indianapolis-colts”>http://www.sportingnews.com/nfl/story/2012-06-19/andrew-luck-graduates-stanford-degree-michelle-wie-indianapolis-colts&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Those aiming for academic jobs in fields where there is a significant industrial job market (e.g. computer science, engineering, some areas of applied math, statistics, finance, economics) almost automatically have a plan B.</p>