Quick question about physics and other majors

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Chicago ✅
1

<p>I'm an undergrad here at UChicago, and I am a potential physics major (Undecided at the moment)</p>

<p>However, I keep hearing that a physics major is not very useful if you plan on stopping at the undergrad level. Is this true? If I was not planning on going to grad school would a physics major be beneficial to me, if I wanted to work in a science-related career?</p>

<p>I guess I've just been having a difficult time finding a "practical" major for myself here at the school.
I know there really isn't a way to compare, but what would you argue are the most practical majors here at UChicago, science-related or not?</p>

<p>Edit: I guess the problem I've been having is feeling like the school really isn't for me. I've always seen myself as some type of practical engineering type of person, but I don't have that option here (at least from what I've seen so far)</p>

2

<p>QQ - the answer above is quite superficial. In fact it is even incorrect in one respect. UChicago will offer an undergrad Molecular Engineering major starting next school year. But even in the absence of that there are many options. In my opinion, you need to talk things over with your parents, your career advisor, your academic advisor(s), fellow students, and even favorite proferrors in order to construct a practical outlet springing from what you’ve learned in your math, physics, and other classes. There have to be 50 ways to segue from what you are learning now onto a “practical” path. There are any number of internships available which will allow you to test the waters in various areas. This week is an excellent week to begin because the University is having its career days. </p>

<p>But even said the above, it is possible the school is not for you. I would still advise you to talk things over with the people mentioned above to get the best options for yourself. Best of luck to you.</p>

3

<p>QQPhysics, my son was in the same situation as you. He joined uchicago as a potential physics major and decided to switch over to computer science after his freshman year.</p>

<p>Molecular Engineering @ uchicago won’t be mature for another few years and I feel that taking a those [intro</a> courses](<a href=“http://ime.uchicago.edu/prospective_students/undergraduates/]intro”>Molecular Engineering Major and Minors | Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering | The University of Chicago) will help you prepare for graduate school at best. I don’t think it is a viable option for students currently in college.</p>

<p>I think the best option for you is to do cs or some combo with cs. How about physics and a minor in cs? [College</a> Advisers](<a href=“https://college.uchicago.edu/academics-advising/advising/college-advisers]College”>https://college.uchicago.edu/academics-advising/advising/college-advisers) are utterly clueless.</p>

<p>Talk to your seniors or some of the younger profs in the cs department.</p>

4

<p>Yeah I mean I guess I’ve just been a bit lost since the beginning of the whole college app process.
I didn’t get much help from family or anyone as I’m basically the first one from my family to go to college, and my counselors at school were terrible.
In a sense I chose the school based on prestige and I guess I’ve been debating if this school has been a right fit for me.
I’m enjoying physics now, it’s just I’m not really sure what I see myself doing with this degree after 4 years.</p>

5

<p>QQPhysics: I understand where you’re coming from. I was a first gen college student as well. My single parent was too occupied keeping our family above water to help much with college, although she was definitely encouragiing. My guidance counselor was overworked and mostly unavailable. I lived in a lower socioeconomic area so there were no neighbors and other parents to talk to. Partly for these reasons, I allowed myself to drift a bit in college as well. At least until my junior year.</p>

<p>Here’s the best advice you’re ever going to get. I’ve force fed my children (one of whom is at UChicago now) this advice and its worked for them. Camp out outside who ever’s door it takes to get advice on what to do. Talk to all your teachers. Talk to fellow students. Talk to advisors (if, as Husky suggests your advisor is worthless, crash in on someone elses). Talk to Dean Boyer if you have to. Do not allow yourself to drift! One of the great things about going to a school like UChicago is that there will be a lot of people who want to help you. I predict you will be shocked to find how much help you can get. Moreover, you have a right to this help. But you must not let this time pass without taking control of your destiny! Best of luck to you.</p>

6

<p>Nothing wrong with waiting until grad school to get your “practical” education.</p>

7

<p>Chicago is not the best place to get a ‘practical’ education in its crudest sense, and physics is not the best subject. But what a liberal education in general, and physics in particular, give you is not so much the training to do specific things but the ability to do practically anything. </p>

<p>While many physics majors go on to grad school, many others hold jobs in a wide variety of fields where their problem-solving abilities are recognized and valued. As others have advised, talk to advisors, students, etc and see what the options are.</p>

<p>PS Molecular engineering at Chicago, in spite of its name, is basic science rather than engineering. The word ‘engineering’ is in there as a sales tool.</p>

8

<p>Here is a link to the University Registrar’s quarterly report as of last June:</p>

<p><a href=“http://registrar.uchicago.edu/sites/registrar.uchicago.edu/files/uploads/pdf/statistics/eoq/EOQ.Spring2013_0.pdf[/url]”>http://registrar.uchicago.edu/sites/registrar.uchicago.edu/files/uploads/pdf/statistics/eoq/EOQ.Spring2013_0.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Go to Table II-A, which shows the declared majors of all College students. There were about 3,800 students with declared majors, some of them double or even triple majoring. How many of those students had majors that match up precisely with career-type jobs that exist in the non-academic world? Maybe it’s 150 (i.e., 50 per class); maybe you could argue me up to 450 (150 per class). Some of those are majoring in fields where careers exist but it’s really difficult to do it successfully – I’m looking at you, TAPS and Visual Arts majors!</p>

<p>But, basically, the vast majority of Chicago students are majoring in something that doesn’t translate directly into a career. If you look at the other colleges that Chicago is most like – Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Brown, Princeton – you are going to see similar things. Does that mean that none of those kids is going to have a career? Not at all! Close to 100% of them are going to have meaningful careers, some of them are going to be total stars. But elite private colleges have never been in the business of job training. Except for engineering – which Chicago hasn’t had at all until a minute ago, which went almost completely dormant at Harvard and Yale for several generations, and which exists most places in a separate school – the fields that are most directly career-related tend to be recent additions (like TAPS . . . and Computer Science).</p>

<p>Moving really smart, beautifully educated undergraduates into meaningful careers involves a sort of alchemy that elite colleges have been practicing as long as they have existed. So far their success rate has been very high, even for students whose career path isn’t “go work for Dad and inherit the family business.” In a lot of cases, it involves some graduate school or professional school, but not necessarily right out of college.</p>

<p>So, yeah, maybe you made a mistake picking Chicago because of its prestige without thinking about what “prestige” meant. And maybe you should have gone someplace with an ABET-accredited engineering program. But put that behind you, because if you tried to transfer into such a program now you would probably have to start over, or close to it. </p>

<p>What you really want to do is to get over to the Career Services office and start talking to them about how you translate your physics major (or some other major you would prefer) into a good job when you graduate. Now is the time to start that process . . . but if you start that process now, and take it seriously, you are likely to be really happy with the results.</p>

9

<p>QQ - In my opinion, you could benefit from reading and really internalizing JHS eloquent advice.</p>

10

<p>All the advice you have read above is excellent. Let me just add something from the perspective of a physics professor at a school just up the road from yours. I have been advising physics majors for a long time and while physics is not engineering, I am positive that a physics major can successfully compete for engineering jobs as long as companies are willing to give them an interview. Think about the kinds of things you learn as a physics major: mechanics, electrodynamics, instrumentation, quantum mechanics, applied mathematics, scientific computation. All these subjects have direct connection to fields of engineering so as a physics major you can go lots of ways and integrate these different disciplines very effectively in an engineering environment. I know for a fact that companies like Boeing like to hire physics majors. They figure that if you are smart, you can learn what you need to effective in their company.</p>

<p>At my institution, we have physics graduate students working for faculty in the college of Engineering and they do very well. Furthermore any experimental physicist worth her/his salt will have more than a passing familiarity with designing and building equipment and instrumentation. Just think of the complicated detectors that high energy physicists have to build for the Large Hadron Collider. In my research, I am collaborating with University of Chicago physicists who are trying to develop and commercialize novel low-cost and high speed photon detectors. anyone who works on such a project could easily get a job in an engineering firm.</p>

<p>If you are just not passionate about physics, then maybe you need to change majors, but if you like it, just find one of these labs, get involved in research and gain some practical skills which can help you pursue that more applied career. You’ll be fine.</p>

11

<p>Alice, Going back and reading my post, I apologize for my choice of a word in reference to your post. It does come off as a little brusque. I could write a lot of things in response to your post above, but perhaps the best thing I can do is refer you back to the posts of xraymancs and JHS (9 and 11). Basically, I believed the OP was looking for more than a recitation of what he probably already knew which is that UChicago does not have an undergraduate engineering major and that economics and comp sci are more “practical” or vocational, with relatively clear paths to employment. I sensed that the OP is in a bit of a box, and that he was looking for reassurance and ways out of the box. I tried to give him some guidance on how to get out of the box in my posts, and I believe xraymancs and JHS did as so well.</p>

12

<p>FWIW, I know a number of people here who are planning on going to engineering grad school with a physics, math, or compsci major + physics minor. I’m not sure how well that’s going to go for them, but it may be a possible option.</p>

13

<p>My uncle was a physics major and worked in satellite communications, first for NASA and then for GTE. Years later he got a MBA and worked in management for engineering firms. I have two neighbors who were physics majors, one at brown and the other at yale; both went directly into IBanking. My s1 is a neuroscience major at brown. He went to a career fair this fall and although he’ll probably pursue a lab position and grad school, he spoke with consulting firms, which all told him they’d be interested in him bc of his quant background. Took my S2 to an overnight at jhu this fall. while waiting in admissions office, met a senior majoring in physics who told us she was going to pursue a career in PR for science-related businesses & had done some internships that had already led to a post-graduation job offer. So I think you’ll have plenty of options to pursue as a physics major. </p>