<p>I have heard from many sources that getting a PhD in theoretical physics is a trap. The US trains twice as many PhD's as there are jobs available. Also, there is tough competition and only a 1/4th of PhD's get tenure at a university!</p>
<p>The point is I'm in my 2nd year of college as a physics major and am wondering if I should end at a B.S. and apply to medical school. I really do love physics and can see myself doing research on problems that interest me, but not at the expense of constantly being jobless and having to relocate every year or so.</p>
<p>Also, what sort of a factor does race/ethnicity of a physics PhD student play in getting hired? Does it also depend on which institution you received your PhD? i.e. (Caltech PhD > UC Irvine PhD?)</p>
<p>Why don’t you talk to a physics professor about this? The short answer is that, no, you will not be jobless with a physics PhD, but yes, you might have a hard time getting tenure at a top university. If you don’t have tenure, you won’t have to move every year, but probably every three to six years, until you find a university at which you can reasonably expect to get tenure. Race/ethnicity probably matters very little when being hired as a professor. Getting your PhD from a better program, with all else equal, will make it easier to get a job. Doing physics research for a living and being a physician are two wildly different career tracks. Get some experience with both (research assistant, internship, shadowing) before making up your mind.</p>
<p>obviously getting a PhD from Caltech matters…how much is impossible to quantify</p>
<p>I’m an engineer and there are quite a few of my profs that did physics undergrad to grad engineering…med school would be another option (although more different from physics of course)</p>
<p>While the stats you mentioned are true on average, they’re more true for people in the humanities and certain social sciences than they are in the natural and physical sciences. While some fields are overrun with PhDs (history and English) others are in need of professors (accounting, for example). Physics, I think, is one of those in between fields where there’s not a shortage but not 300 people applying for each position, either.</p>
<p>Where you get your degree from will matter a lot, as well as who you work under. It’ll be easier for you to get jobs if you work under a famous physicist as opposed to an unknown physicist. Your race or ethnicity won’t matter that much. At some places they’ll be trying to increase the diversity of their faculty, but that doesn’t mean it’ll be easier for a black or Latino candidate to get hired; it just means if they find a qualified one it’ll be a boon for the department, but they’ll be looking at qualifications above all other factors.</p>
<p>Incorrect. That’s all I can say. Do recall that Einstein couldn’t get a job a hundred years ago in Physics after searching for years before settling on the patent office. It’s not quite humanities level in getting a tenure-track job, but even Southeastern Nebraska State wants their incoming physics professors to have 2 postdocs at MIT.</p>
<p>Cybershot, have you thought about other careers except tenure-track positions? Correct me if I’m wrong, but there’s plenty of job opportunities at national labs, industrial research labs and even consulting and financing, though maybe not so much if you want to go into theoretical physics per se.</p>