<p>So im a soon to be Senior in High School and i was always undecided on what i wanted to do with life until i took an Honors Physics class and fell in love with it. I want to major in physics, but my parents say its a bad idea. If i obtain a Bachelors degree in General Physics and choose NOT to pursue a Masters immediately after what could i do with the physics degree? Would anyone want to hire me? Also while in college should i minor in something as well?</p>
<p>I too fell in love with physics in my senior year, and I went on to major in it in college. I didn’t do so hot, and so my chances for going to graduate school and PhD were kind of shot. But, it was a while back when my school’s physics program was still archaic - set up pretty much only for people who planned to get a PhD. It has since changed - there are now three separate tracks: Academic, Entrepreneurship (business style), and Industrial. Had I gone to school 10 years later, I would have probably taken the Entrepreneurship track. These tracks incorporate classes specific to your interest - Entrepreneurship has some business classes, Industrial had metal fabrication. They all began incorporating programming.</p>
<p>You really need to look at which school you want to go to. Many are still heavily-focused only on an academic track (PhD). If this is what you want, go for it. Don’t bother getting a masters in physics. It won’t significantly help you find work. See what kind of tracks are offered in your selection of colleges. Maybe some of them </p>
<p>If I were you, I would pursue the physics. Follow what you love, and don’t make the mistake of getting some degree that doesn’t excite you. When I went to school, I thought the idea of Gen-Eds were a huge waste, but now I realize that they really do expose you to a number of other subjects. You might find that you love Geology even more, or maybe Chemistry. Who knows. Taking freshman physics will get your feet wet, and if you change majors, all of your science requirements will be out of the way. Take Calculus your senior year in High School. You will need it. I never did and it dogged me the entire time in college because I had such a steep learning curve, and it took so much time away from my other classes. It was a big part of why I did poorly.</p>
<p>Physics people are often hired into engineering jobs, but to really get there, you should make sure you take some other classes that might not be offered in your physics program. I would say that programming classes, and CAD classes would be important. Maybe your chosen program will offer it (mine sure didn’t). If you can take some classes in circuit design, or hardware fabrication - that would be a bonus and make you more employable as an engineer. A minor in Computer Science is not a bad idea.</p>
<p>Big advice I never got: Take advantage of your advisor - He or She can help guide you down the right path, answer questions, etc. Go to or form study groups. Apply for internships (this is a big one). I work at NASA, many of the civil servants here are here because they got their foot in the door with an internship. Do what it takes to get an internship. I can’t stress that enough. I never got one, and I regret it. The advisor will be able to help you with finding an internship.</p>
<p>Regardless of my GPA, my physics degree always seems to impress people. When I see others mention to people that they have an engineering degree, I notice the response is not the same. So, there’s that to look forward to. A person with a degree in physics tends to stand out.</p>
<p>When I got my first aerospace engineering job (having never taken an aerospace class), I asked my boss why he hired me. His response? “I like people with degrees in physics, because they always bring a unique and often elegant solution to a problem”.</p>
<p>Physics isn’t easy. You might get professors who like to be clever with exams. For instance, you might get an exam with only three questions on it. Question 1 might require a great deal of work. Question 2 might require the answer to Question 1 to continue, Question 3 might require the answers to Questions 1 and 2. It might take 3 hours to take the test. </p>
<p>That was my experience. Yours might be different. But follow what you want to do.</p>
<p>houstonspace—I have just sent your response to our son. He is a high school senior, also thinking of an undergraduate degree in physics. I think your response is very helpful</p>
<p>I majored in physics. My friends who finished with a B.Sc. and left after that are now in stuff as varying as software engineering, actuarial science, teaching, working at a stock market firm, nuclear engineer for the Navy, librarian at a college… and the ones who decided on grad school are in all sorts of various kinds of engineering and sciences and even a few business MBAs.</p>
<p>Basically physics is fundamental, and when you graduate employers look at the degree and see you basically spent four years solving problems. That’s a pretty good thing to go into the job market with.</p>
<p>This is a good article explaining what physics majors end up doing with their lives- [University</a> of Pennsylvania Department of Physics and Astronomy // What You Can Do With a Physics Major After Graduation](<a href=“http://www.physics.upenn.edu/ugrad/whatdo.html]University”>http://www.physics.upenn.edu/ugrad/whatdo.html)</p>
<p>So conclusion, you can do a lot, it’s just slightly more unusual so most people don’t know the details about doing it.</p>
<p>I also will advocate that life is too short to do stuff you don’t want to do with it, as there are few people more depressing than those who tell me at parties how they really wish they did astro/physics but their dad wanted them to be a doctor or whatever. Tell your dad to go be a doctor, you go be an astronaut.</p>