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A physics master’s degree opens doors to myriad careers

physicstoday.scitation.org

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Re: A physics master’s degree opens doors to myriad careers

#161

Post by agentofoblivion »

Ragib_Zaman wrote: post #147
agentofoblivion wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That hasn’t been my experience. I have M.S. in physics at a shitty school and went into industry. (I didn’t fail anything, and actually had a 4.0 gpa, just didn’t want to spend more time in school). Eventually switched from material science to data science. Currently an ML research scientist at AWS. It’s been a fun journey. No one gave a shit about what I did or didn’t do in college. It might matter to HR people, whi…

I'm currently getting a Masters in CS (specialising in ML) after leaving a pure math PhD. I'd love a research type job from anywhere, let alone Amazon, but every job posting for roles with 'research' in the title says they require a PhD. Was your success a case of simply applying anyway? I know they say to apply anyway but it feels like a long shot to me. Do many of your peers have a similar background to you?

My primary mechanism was reaching out to recruiters and people on LinkedIn that already had the jobs I wanted. I found that just applying through the job site almost never went anywhere. It comes down to a numbers game, so I would sort your hypothetical list of jobs from "dream job" at the top to "I guess" at the bottom, and then start applying from top down. You should absolutely take job postings and required skills with a healthy grain of salt. These are almost always generic, copy/paste artifacts.

An exception might be if you see "Publications in top-tiered journals" as a requirement. Those positions likely actually target PhDs with relevant publications. They might overlook a lack of a PhD if you're a recognized expert in the field, of course. But I interpret this requirement as "we want an academic", and there primary job is likely research and publishing papers. A Research Scientist at AWS is not an academic, as someone at Google Brain might be, but rather someone building applied ML solutions.

Re: A physics master’s degree opens doors to myriad careers

#162

Post by SantalBlush »

sidlls wrote: post #111
SantalBlush wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In your mind, do you think a physics degree or a statistics degree is better suited to doing data analysis, and why?

Depends on the context of the analysis and the desired outcome. What does that have to do with my comment or the GP's?

Reading through the thread, it looks like you believe that physicists can perform data analysis better than statisticians, because a physics program includes some stats courses.

Re: A physics master’s degree opens doors to myriad careers

#163

Post by oneepic »

throway1 wrote: post #144
anmorgan wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a degree in Engineering Physics where I concentrated in Electrical Engineering. I also minored in Industrial Design. I currently work at a product design firm as an "Embedded Systems Engineer", where I primarily design and write software for embedded microcontrollers and microprocessors and couple that with user experience design. I have been able to utilize my understanding of physics to work on things like d…

>plain ol' software developer Oh, you resonate with me (not sure if. I am going to start an undergrad in physics soon, and started doubting my choice after this thread. I got into programming from 9th grade. I am still interested in it, but I kinda grew over my crush on being a dev in FAANG and silicon valley startups. I have the opportunity to got to a SE program, but I don't like the lack of humanity(and other) ele…

I'm not the person you're replying to, but yeah, lots of people become programmers with a bachelor's in physics and they've done programming classes, projects, etc. on the side. That path is totally fine if you eventually decide you want to go into the software world. (or who knows, maybe you'll reignite your crush with FAANG in the meantime!)

Re: A physics master’s degree opens doors to myriad careers

#164

Post by oneepic »

mrits wrote: post #46
oneepic wrote: post #41

I've also heard the opposite, that it leads to absolutely nothing and you are kind of treated like a PhD dropout, at least in the US. Just be careful, I guess, and get plenty of advice from real people who took that path (successfully or not). Oh, and a bachelor's in engineering physics seems to lead to nothing as well. Have had quite a few friends go to career fairs and every company rep lost interest as soon as the…

I've never considered being a PhD dropout a bad thing. There are so many legit reasons for not finishing a program.

Just to clarify, I don't think it's inherently a bad thing either. But these were the words given to me by physics grad students at the time.

Re: A physics master’s degree opens doors to myriad careers

#165

Post by oneepic »

Denzel wrote: post #80
oneepic wrote: post #41

I've also heard the opposite, that it leads to absolutely nothing and you are kind of treated like a PhD dropout, at least in the US. Just be careful, I guess, and get plenty of advice from real people who took that path (successfully or not). Oh, and a bachelor's in engineering physics seems to lead to nothing as well. Have had quite a few friends go to career fairs and every company rep lost interest as soon as the…

Is Engineering Physics considered lesser than a Physics degree, or are you saying that both an Engineering Physics and a Physics degree seem to lead to nothing? What's the difference?

Apples and oranges. I just mentioned it because I saw another comment somewhere about engr. physics, and it reminded me of my friends' experiences in their program.

Re: A physics master’s degree opens doors to myriad careers

#166

Post by anmorgan »

throway1 wrote: post #144
anmorgan wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a degree in Engineering Physics where I concentrated in Electrical Engineering. I also minored in Industrial Design. I currently work at a product design firm as an "Embedded Systems Engineer", where I primarily design and write software for embedded microcontrollers and microprocessors and couple that with user experience design. I have been able to utilize my understanding of physics to work on things like d…

>plain ol' software developer Oh, you resonate with me (not sure if. I am going to start an undergrad in physics soon, and started doubting my choice after this thread. I got into programming from 9th grade. I am still interested in it, but I kinda grew over my crush on being a dev in FAANG and silicon valley startups. I have the opportunity to got to a SE program, but I don't like the lack of humanity(and other) ele…

I think it really depends on what you want to do. If you want to work with physical systems, computation, or data-science, then I think engineering physics is a good path.

Where I went to college, all engineering physics majors concentrated (which is essentially a minor) in one of the other engineering disciplines (mechanical, electrical, civil, computer science, etc).

If you want to work on digital only products that don't utilize what you learn with a engineering physics degree, then you may want to consider another degree.

I can't speak directly about a physics only degree, since I did engineering physics, where I took all of the same core classes as engineering students.

Motivation, experience wherever you can get it, and knowing people / networking, will get you pretty far, so I would also say, take the path that's interests you the most. Also, physics is hard.

Re: A physics master’s degree opens doors to myriad careers

#167

Post by doggydogs94 »

leoedin wrote: post #148
nikofeyn wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

however, there are certain jobs that a ph.d. will basically catapult you into a senior position as soon as you are hired, and it will do so at the expense of people with just a bachelor's or master's degree. i have seen people titled "senior research scientist" and put into management roles despite having just graduated in the same year. in other cases, having a ph.d. will give you large amounts of responsibility (go…

Everywhere I've worked incoming grads with PhD's have ended up somewhere similar to the 2-year experience mark in seniority. Some have come in and quickly ended up with a lot of responsibilities, others have basically ended up as fresh grads. I think it's more due to personality than the skills a PhD give you though.

In a job where original thinking is involved, the individual with a PhD has has already proved that they are capable of original research; after all, that is what a PhD is. The MS person still has to prove that they can do original research.

Re: A physics master’s degree opens doors to myriad careers

#168

Post by zd123 »

elamje wrote: post #157
barry-cotter wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least sixteen and possibly twenty students from GA Tech’s OMSCS have gone on to Ph.D. programmes. The following 14 universities have OMSCS grads and CMU admitted one. National University of Singapore MIT UNSW Florida International University UBC UC-Santa Cruz Iowa State University Tokyo Institute of Technology University of Southern California Virginia Commonwealth University Auburn Georgia Tech University of New…

Not trying to discredit your evidence, but according to the GT OMSCS website, there have been 8664 students in that program. 20/8664 is less than .25%. Anyways, all I'm saying is that I'm confident that Online MSCS are not held to the same pedigree or difficulty as their on campus counterparts.

But what is the basis for your confidence?

The vast majority of students are working alongside the degree and not looking to go on to phd programs...

Imperial, Stanford, Columbia, Gatech, UIUC, Utexas Austin all offer online degrees.

Being in one of these programs myself I can assure you that the standard is rigorous. I attended a top university in the UK and the quality of education is not any lower.

There are some universities that are absolutely frauds but that is not the case for the universities listed above.

If you disagree go on the coursework pages and try and do the first problem set then tell me it’s not as difficult.

Re: A physics master’s degree opens doors to myriad careers

#169

Post by zd123 »

repsilat wrote: post #110
elamje wrote: post #95

This should be nuanced with the fact that a Master's degree in the US is much different than Europe. Typically, in Europe, STEM fields do a "Masters" but it's really equivalent to junior and senior level coursework in the US. This was the case for me as an exchange CS student in Sweden at KTH, and it seemed that all of my Euro friends that were getting masters in their respective country just treat a Masters in STEM…

For a countervailing viewpoint, I got a Masters in CS from Georgia Tech, and it was just coursework at the level of my 3rd and 4th years of undergrad in New Zealand. Bit of a let-down.

What courses did you take in the masters program?
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