Physics vs Engineering Physics

What is the difference?
Could you still make a career (or intern) for pure physics-related things if you major in EP?
Could you as a physics major attempt to take electives in engineering programming in order to give yourself an applicable edge in case you want to work in industry?
Could you as a regular physics major be competitive for industry positions?

I love theoretical physics stuff. But I’m not too sure on how great a lifestyle it would be to live and work in it.

(I’m also planning on perhaps double majoring in Economics, if that adds anything to the discussion)

The difference is that in Engineering Physics you have a mandated set of applied courses and, if the program is ABET accredited, you have a required design component. With a Physics degree, there is usually no design requirement and your electives are free to be whatever you like.

Someone with a Physics major can access the same jobs as an Engineering Physics major but the ABET accreditation of the latter might make it a bit easier to be considered for engineering positions.

Becoming a theoretical physicist is a long road and you have to be extremely dedicated to go through a B.S. and Ph.D. and then at least one postdoctoral position before getting a shot at the limited number of theoretical permanent positions. yes this is a daunting and long road but if you have the determination it is possible. You don’t have to decide right away. All physics B.S. degrees are basically the same and you can start by deciding if you want to go into graduate school once you are done with the B.S.

I guess the main reason I even consider EP is because I hear that most jobs ask for engineers. And the programming and product based skills that engineers learn aren’t taught to physics majors. I know somebody who just got their PhD in physics related stuff and his advice was to learn some engineering since it’s almost near impossible to find a job with just physics and no programming.

It’s also part of the reason I’m considering double majoring in Economics, because perhaps it will make me more competitive to the real world. I want to work in Silicon Valley or make a start up, so I want to have those basic business skills in check. Though most business majors focus on management, which isn’t what I’m interested. It’s the economic aspect which I find most important.

But then again, from other professionals, I’ve heard that SV companies usually flock to physics majors or other hard STEM majors because they understand that they have the analytical skills necessary to do the job, so perhaps getting a double major in Economics wouldn’t be so necessary after all.

“I love theoretical physics stuff” - Can you give some examples? That may help people advise you better.

A fair number of physics majors do end up working in computing, probably because they can relatively easily learn the needed CS due to similar thought processes. Indeed, physics is probably one of the more common type of non-CS major backgrounds among those writing software. You can get a head start on this backup plan by taking some CS electives, which can also be helpful in some pure physics contexts.

Some physics majors do go into finance, so a few economics electives (intermediate micro and macro, financial economics) may be helpful if that is an option you want to keep around.

@colorado_mom well i enjoy the theory behind things, and sometimes i get enthralled in understanding those theories more so than coming up with applications (example: i love electricity and magnetism. i love the relativity shift that is involved in getting that to work. i love learning about photons and subatomic particles. but i don’t really care much for circuits and measuring lasers). but i imagine that working in a theoretical physics field (if it’s even possible?) just means doing academia and research and im not sure if i would enjoy that as much as i would actually applying things to create real products or something. (i know, it sounds like i just contradicted myself. i enjoy learning the theory more so than the experimental side, but id rather work in application than in theory.) well i think i just did contradict myself… but that’s how i happen to feel about the subject.

@ucbalumnus hm, when i look up program requirements for physics (at UCSD), it allows for 3 electives but they have to be physics related. same for the individual econ major, it requires like 5 econ electives. so that’s why im considering double majoring since i can’t really take electives from other fields to have a nice financial understanding of things. im not sure if this is a matter of me misinterpreting the regulations when it comes to electives or not, though.

http://www.ucsd.edu/catalog/curric/PHYS-ug.html indicates that for the typical BS physics major at UCSD, there are three upper division restricted electives to be applied to the major, but you would still have schedule space for non-major electives (and possibly additional general education courses, depending on which UCSD college you enter). The suggested schedules list 2-3 physics major courses for each of the six quarters in your (after transfer) junior and senior years. This leaves space for 1-3 other courses each quarter that you can use for out-of-major electives like economics, CS, etc. courses.

@ucbalumnus i thought 3 courses a quarter was the standard? especially for something like physics… how many courses do you usually take a quarter?

Undergraduates would take at least 4 courses per quarter. At a semester school, it would be 4 or 5 standard.

Many physics programs have a significant amount of computation in them. Enough to get you a job in software easily. As an example the physics curriculum at my university, Illinois Tech, includes a basic programming course in CS and then two computational physics courses where students use MatLab and Python. This, along with a relatively deep understanding of physical modeling, will be a good background to get a job in these fields. An economics minor is not really needed.

@xraymancs ah i see. would an economics minor help if i want to start my own business some day? things like entrepreneurship. or like elon musk. he had 2 bachelors degrees, one in physics and one in economics. though of course his success can’t be matched just by getting the same degrees as him but i can’t imagine it not helping him.

Most of the upper division physics courses at UCSD are 4 units each, according to http://www.ucsd.edu/catalog/courses/PHYS.html . So a normal course load of 15-16 units would mean taking 4 such courses if you took all physics courses. If you take 2-3 physics courses in a quarter, you would have 8-12 units of physics courses, leaving you schedule space for 1-2 other courses for 3-8 units.

Programming skills are really useful in physics, particularly if you want to do undergrad research, which is pretty much a requirement if going on to grad school is something you might want to do.

My HS son is working in an astrophysics lab at a UC, and his programming skills have gotten him on a bunch of projects in the lab. They need programming and other computer skills for controlling motors and lasers, data collection, data analysis, database stuff, interfacing devices, and more.

During the break between semesters he have been touring undergrads who have asked the professor about research positions. The professor said he should figure out if the people had any useful programming experience. If they didn’t, he was supposed to recommend that they take the intro to programming course through the CS department, because that would at least teach them some Python.

If you are interested in economics then you should get a minor in it. The tools entrepreneurs need are not necessarily economics though. A lot of it is simply knowing how to build the right team. If you are the technologist, you might not necessarily need or be able to run the business side.