<p>So, I've been trying to decide on a major for years. And I've vibrated between physics and history. History because it interests me, memorization is easy for me, and I enjoy it. Physics because it fascinates me like nothing else, because of how amazing it would to help discover. And yet math has always been my most difficult class, even though I do enjoy it when I understand it.
Recently however, I decided to major in history. And yet, after talking it out, Physics is shining for me once more, and I'm curious about other people's experiences in majoring in physics and choosing it as a major.</p>
<p>From a stance of being a lucrative major, it’s hard to find a major less lucrative than history. It’s certainly a very fascinating and quite important field…but history majors largely do not have a lot of career options available.</p>
<p>Math is definitely important for studying physics, but people who don’t excel in pure math often find they do better in physics because the math seems more logical.</p>
<p>I’m a physics major. I decided on it out of pure passion. I have a nearly equal passion for pure mathematics though too, which certainly goes hand in hand with studying physics. I’ve frequently considered actually declaring a double major in physics and mathematics. That’s yet to be determined though, and I’ve still got some time left before I’d have to officially declare the second major. </p>
<p>I’ve found it to be a very rewarding major. I’m the type of person that loves solving hard problems. I love abstract, critical thinking. Physics does take a lot of time up though. You’ll spend a lot of time slogging through problem sets and reviewing notes.</p>
<p>I started out hellbent on majoring in physics at 19. I avoided the life of the military after high school and took a gap year before I enrolled in college. After my first semester, I switched to mathematics and am a senior mathematics major at 23. I did not try at all in community college, mostly because I hated computational math since it was incredibly repetitive. When a teacher would challenge us to come up with proofs, I loved that. I had applied as pure math, applied math, and physics to different schools when I was going to transfer from community college. I spent a lot of time on courses meant for pharmacy school, but I discovered my heart wasn’t in it. I think one of the most motivating points of my undergrad career was when I was in my second semester and someone asked me “How much math do you have to take?” in Calculus I. I simply just smiled and said “I’m going all the way”. I’m 16 units from graduating, so it’s bittersweet. I liked physics enough that I wanted to double major in it here (I’m Applied Math/Stats), but it’s a little too late for me to do that. I decided to do a minor and I can say that if you’re still interested in it, keep going. I was thinking about auditing a course in Differential Geometry simply because of its applications to physics and am picking up a little bit of topology right now in my Real Analysis course. Nonlinear Dynamics & Chaos, Partial Differential Equations, etc…all of the applied math classes I’ve taken here at Cal Poly Pomona have made me see a lot of the motivation behind physics. I am rounding out my undergrad career with the physics minor because I am truly interested in the mathematical side of things, but I found out I am not so much in love with astrophysics as I thought I was. It took a couple of CalTech lecturers on campus to put me to sleep about it. I think a lot of the interesting physics applications actually come in the form of healthcare, which I think is a lucrative field for budding physicists to go into. I myself am considering engineering, computer science, or biostatistics for graduate school. </p>
<p>If you’re not going to go to graduate school, what are you doing? </p>
<p>This is the question every professor asks here of physics majors. You gotta have plans. There’s really no alternative. You have to be really passionate about it, not just because you like watching Minute Physics on YouTube or Neil DeGrass Tyson. I’m in the mathematical methods courses here and the grading is absolutely brutal. If you can’t do calculus extremely well, don’t even consider majoring in physics. That’s all it is really I’ve come to find after some pretty heavy quarters of calculus use and the mathematical methods classes for physics. Differential Equations seem to be the bread and butter of physics. We have integration bees here and the physics majors usually outperform the math majors. Why? They know this stuff in their sleep. Math majors move onto much higher level mathematics and pretty much dump the previous knowledge for more theoretical knowledge. </p>
<p>It amazes me when physics majors here whine about the math we’re doing in our psets in the mathematical physics classes. I hope you are persistent because if you’re anything like some of the physics majors I’ve seen so far you are probably going to change your major at some point down the road. The difference in who makes good grades will be for instance the physics major who gives up and skips the problem than the mathematics major who doesn’t remember crap about relativity, yet after a couple hours can crank out a solution that’s right. You need to be realistic and evaluate yourself on how much effort you’re willing to put into your courses. Since I transferred, I have been lazy. I have been sloth. But if you were standing in my way during finals I would hit you like a truck. I encourage you to push yourself but not in ways that seem to be idiotic, like learning 5 chapters of probability with proofs the weekend before the final. Being a senior, I have definitely felt a new challenge from my theoretical courses and am not quite the slacker I was as a junior. I suppose a bit of that also comes from wanting to graduate and me really wanting to get internships, but you need to have some motivation anyway to make it. </p>
<p>I think the most useful advice I ever got from someone was this ambitious Harvard math student that dropped out because he was too immature in college but later in life went back to get his math degree. He said “At some point, YOU MUST PERFORM”. I think it’s still posted in my apartment somewhere on my wall above my desk.</p>
<p>You will not get by on memorization. You will fail out of this major, my major, or any major that requires actual applied thinking if you take that approach. Yes, you’ll need to memorize a ton. So you’re good there. But I hope you know what to do with it. That’s the real thing. When you go far enough you can’t look for a solution in a solutions manual, your answer is your own whether it’s right or wrong. Basically, I’d think of your major as your wife. It can get hard, but you work it out or get a divorce (change major).</p>
<p>I am a physics major in my 3rd year. I started out in engineering but switched my major to physics after my first year because I fell in love with my calculus classes… I’d say just take the first year math and physics classes and you should have much better idea. </p>
<p>I didn’t have much math coming into university (up to precalc) so don’t be worried about the math. You can start at the base and work your way up. I ended up really enjoying math and spent a lot of my free time doing it. I studied a lot and got A+ in the entire math sequence and that has really helped me with my physics classes… I’d say whatever you decide, just emerse yourself in the material and don’t look back. What do you spend your free time reading, physics or history? Whatever your answer, choose that…</p>
<p>Yeap. I had asked similar questions many times here, and one of the common answers was to experience, then decide, not the other way around. But what I’ve also heard many times is that physics is a demanding major. Fascination alone will not last you through.</p>
<p>My answer would be to ask your heart what you truly like to do. Because studying is a pain if you have no interest in it. Wouldn’t it suck to learn, study, then do something for the rest of your life-- purely for the money?</p>
<p>Also, I agree to confortablycurt: if problem solving and abstract thinking are enjoyable to you, physics might not be a bad choice at all. </p>
<p>And yes, it would suck. It was a rhetorical question.</p>