Hello everybody,
So a good friend of mine is intending to attend a university in my home country and wanted me to ask a few things on CC. He is a fairly good student and does not know if he wants to major in mathematics or physics. He has to choose one of the two within 2 months time and there is no option for transferring after that. In school he loves calculus but does not like math when it becomes too abstract. Although he initially planned to study math he is afraid that he might hate it due to the lack of immediate applications of math to real life. He is now thinking of majoring in physics but is not absolutely certain about that either. He plans on attending grad school in the US and wanted to know whether one major would give him an advantage over the other when applying to grad school. He is thinking about a career in either economics (I guess math is better for this one) or medicine and technology (physics?). He is also thinking about going into the computer manufacturing industry (hardware not software) where I would guess physics would be the best choice for him, right?
I think it is horrible that the educational system here is forcing the students to decide what they want to major in by 12th or even 11th grade. This is precisely the reason I have chosen to come to the US and study but he does not have that opportunity available.
Thanks in advance for any advice
It sounds like your friend is more interested in applied mathematics than pure mathematics. For all the career options you have listed, I think he/she is best off choosing physics. Lots of physics is applied mathematics and should be fine for any of the graduate programs you mentioned.
Your friend sounds like he looks at math a lot like I do: I love and appreciate math but generally only like dealing with moderate amounts of proofs and abstractions. I can tell you what I’m doing as a current physics major, which might not be relevant to his ambitions in particular, but it does show that there are avenues you can take within physics that will allow you to use math in your daily life. I’m a junior physics major planning on doing theoretical physics research as a career. As I understand it, this career path requires a good bit of background in math–I’ve done two theoretical/computational research projects and they were definitely heavy on mathematical reasoning and applications. I also have taken several math courses (not sure how much flexibility he’ll be given to do this), and I honestly think that mathematical intuition has really helped my as a physics student. So, if he decides to major in physics he should get his share of chances to play with math.
Having said that, both majors can open doors for him. I just know more about the physics game. As xraymancs suggested, maybe he could look into focusing on applied math? Also, I don’t know what it takes to get into computer manufacturing, but he can definitely find internships or research projects with major computational components in physics and likely applied math as well. (Again, I know more about the physics game.)
Best of luck to your friend!
In general, I would consider “applied math” a more versatile major than physics. Simply because it is easier to branch of to these areas from there:
- Optimization (EE)
- Control/Communication (EE)
- Algorithms (CS)
- Applied math (lol)
- Finance
On the other hand, if he truly enjoy physics, there is no substitute for physics. It’s a pretty awesome subject to learn!