Physcist/Software Engi/ Hardware Engi Which is best for me?

<p>I have 3 big plans for my major.</p>

<ol>
<li><p>physicist - Quantum (theoritcal?) particle physics. I don't mean by the boring guy who just calculates and does math, my goal is to find the reason for existence... passion since I was a kid. </p></li>
<li><p>Software Engineer - Programmer of some sort, maybe an AI coder (robotics), Microsoft?</p></li>
<li><p>Hardware Engineer - Hardware Engineer, less of software relation. So having to deal with developing the latest chipsets and technology.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>I am interested in a High Paying, stable, interesting and quite chill type job.
Which one would you think they would fit?</p>

<p>I had a dream of becoming a physicist but I realized I would have to work at a lab and if I become a theoretical physicist I'd have to give lectures (which I don't want to).</p>

<p>Software Engineer - Too casual?
Hardware Engineering - This might be interesting but what do I do exactly?</p>

<p>When it comes to career I am very serious about this. I'd like to do what I love to do and what suits me.</p>

<p>There are not a lot of actual physics jobs, and they generally need a PhD.</p>

<p>Physics majors do get considered for computer software, finance, and some engineering jobs, though they would be second choice compared to those who majored in the subjects.</p>

<p>Computer science and engineering majors can go into software or hardware based on their interests and what course work they took. Currently, those jobs are high paying if you are good, but the industry can have wild swings (a decade ago, it was a very poor job market, but it is one of the better job markets these days), so “stable” may not be the right word for it.</p>

<p>Thank you for the feed back, </p>

<p>I guess then I’ll major in CS most likely but there are lot of paths I can take and I suppose I’ll decide that later.
I got an internship this summer at a lab, so I think that should help a lot if I am applying for college.
I am very passionate and talented in … Animation/VideoEditing/FX/(hollywood movie trailer with 3D texts and fx kind of) I can make those. </p>

<p>or… 3D modeling, and animation. I think this could be fun. Work at being an animator, or a video game designer. </p>

<p>Then there’s the programming and the hardware engineering.</p>

<p>You don’t really sound like you have the drive for physics, especially if you don’t want to be a guy doing math, which is pretty much exactly what theoretical physics is.</p>

<p>If you want high paying and stable, then you want a CS degree from a reputable university or a computer engineering/electrical engineering degree from a reputable university. Well, “high-paying” is a relative term, I consider a starting salary of 60k to be high for a 22-year-old guy with just a bachelor’s degree.</p>

<p>I don’t know what you mean by “chill type” or “casual.” Most (but not all) computer science majors wind up working in jobs where they are concerned with the storing, sorting, searching, and computation of data (although this takes many guises). If this sounds simple to you, bear in mind that some of the hardest math problems in the world are related to this. Comparatively fewer software engineering jobs involve, say, making video games or working with graphics. I love computer graphics and can’t bear the thought of doing database type stuff, if I were to get a software job I’d want to be doing either cutting-edge graphics or physics simulations/computational physics. But I plan to go to grad school for physics to unlock the secrets of existence. And I like doing math.</p>

<p>People who get computer engineering degrees can do all sorts of things. With a graduate degree you can get work designing microprocessors, microcontrollers, etc. With a simple BS you can get more testing/QA type jobs (design jobs tend to go to grad-degrees). Or like a lot of people with a computer engineering degree, you could wind up programming! Even though the focus of the degree is hardware and not software, computer engineers have a much better silicon-level understanding of the hardware and consequently are better at assembly/writing device drivers or embedded software. Embedded software is big, and probably getting bigger what with more mobile devices.</p>