USC physics department strength

I’ve been talking with a few current students at USC and they warned me to not go to USC to study astro (my major) because the physics department is weak and not many research opportunities are available. Can anyone verify this?

@hyponova Did you actually get accepted into USC? When? What did your package say? Did you get good FA to attend? (as your previous posts said there was a strong need for that as well). You were very interested in the UCs for astronomy, which ones (if any) did you get into? Did any school meet your need based aid requirement?

Statistically, running into an astro major here is slim. Who are the “current students” you have been talking to and why not continue a conversation with them versus random people on the internet? Seems odd…

Yes, I got accepted into USC through RD and after financial aid, my cost of attendance to USC is pretty much the same as the UC’s I got accepted into (UCI, UCSD, and UCSC). I’m kind of leaning away from USC and towards UCSC because UCSC seems to have a stronger astro program and more research opportunities but I really like the environment at USC.

Maybe somebody else can chime in on the department, no idea how it compares to others. The only thing to consider with the UCs if you are 100% set on major, which can easily be changed at USC, not always the case at the UCs. Other than that, you really just need to dig deep into projects and professors at each school. They are smaller departments, shouldn’t be too hard to zero in on what each is doing. Check into past issues of Trojan Family Magazine, that come out quarterly, the often have the latest and greatest research stuff going on and if not in your field, shows some of the progressive stuff going on. Good luck in the decision.

This is the low hanging fruit in terms of rankings so I would be sure to look elsewhere for additional rankings - particularly something that’s more specific to the sciences than good ole U.S. News. That’s not my thing, but the rankings do speak for themselves. This is graduate rather than undergrad-specific rankings, so take them with a grain of salt, but they do speak for themselves.

https://www.usnews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-science-schools/physics-rankings

UC San Diego – 17th
UC Irvine – 28th
UC Santa Cruz – 37th
USC – 61st

The thing that a lot of California natives forget is that schools like UCSD, Irvine, Santa Cruz, etc. are better than most states’ flagship campuses. Berkeley and UCLA are on the short list of the very best public universities in the world, and the other campuses are not far behind them at all.

I love the environment at USC too, but you’re going to college and paying all that money to get an education, not to socialize. The socializing is a distant, distant, distant second.

When it comes to physics and astronomy schools, I don’t generally think of USC except for a USC physics professor named Clifford Johnson, who I see all the time on science documentaries .But I would think that a USC undergrad physics education is still pretty good.

I was talking to an astronomy professor at the University of Arizona six or seven years ago. He said to get any kind of decent astronomy job, where you go to graduate school is what matters, and your undergrad school isn’t that important. I’ve always felt that the main focus of an undergraduate degree is classroom education rather than research, so I would pick a school based on the former more than the latter.

@simba9 Hmmm ok. I’ve actually been thinking about changing from astro to physics for my undergrad just to keep my options open to other fields of physics. I’ve also been thinking about adding either a CS major or minor to supplement any sort of research I might do and in case astro doesn’t work out. (there’s also a physics/CS interdisciplinary degree under dornsife but idk if that would be in-depth enough or not) Do you think this is a good plan?

@hyponova
I think that is an excellent plan . USC encourages students to do double majors, or major and minor in 2 different subjects.
The Physics dept and the CS dept have PLENTY of classes to take. In addition, if you qualify [based on your GPA in those subjects] , you can take graduate level classes in both depts as well.
Just remember that in addition to the classes in your major/ minor areas, you will ALSO have to fulfill USC’s general “Liberal Arts” graduation requirements, which means you will have additional required classes in various Liberal Arts areas to take.

DS did a major in Geology and a minor in Physics. He never ran out of classes in those areas to take, which included multiple grad school level classes. And he did Summer research all 4 years he was there.
He went to Caltech to get his PhD in Seismology, and his roomates went to MIT [Engineering] and Princeton [ Physics ] for their Grad school degrees.
If they ALL had NOT received a firm foundation in those areas at USC it is doubtful they would have been accepted at those extremely competitive grad school programs.

“where you go to graduate school is what matters”
VERY true.

@menloparkmom Thanks for the response! I think with the plan I have, I’ll be able to officially get into my astro major through grad school. I’m thinking that it’s probably best not to specialize in anything too quickly right now but I’m still very much motivated to do astro research/take astro electives at USC to get experience.

In terms of grad school acceptance, do you know if schools will care whether or not I have a physics degree versus an astro degree if I’m applying for an astro major?

@hyponova I believe that a physics degree will serve you better in getting into grad schools.But having an astro minor won’t hurt and will probably help. And if you decide to do a Astro major, it CAN’T but help to have a minor in Physics as well.

the most important factors for grad schools are your GPA in your major, LOR’s from your professors, research [ and USC offers UG’s TONS of opportunities to do research], and your GRE test results. But there is no need to worry about those now.
I DO recommend that you also take some coding classes at USC, regardless of your chosen major/ minor ,as these days science grad students need to know how to program.
At Cal tech that was necessary for my DS to get his degree.