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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

#91

Post by mettamage »

andbberger wrote: post #56
no_one_ever wrote: post #6

Please please please do not pursue a PhD or MSc in Physics on the sole expectation it will open a door to a career that you believe would otherwise be closed. You will not enjoy it.

I'll second this. You don't do academia for career stuff, or because you think that's the path to becoming a professor. You do it because it's fun, full-time science for a couple years. There was a thread the other day where the top-comment was some guy who quit his PhD as soon as he realized professorship wasn't an option. Personally, I find this staggeringly backwards and have trouble relating...

Quite a bit of first generation students (I am one) could have trouble realizing this. They are grown up in The Netherlands with: university is the best education you can afford and it will make you the most money. And since parents of first generation students are a bit money scarce (not a lot, I'm not saying they're poor), money is important.

And according to them, if you do university education, then you don't have to work like your parents, who started having back problems between 40 and 50 because dad lifts a lot and mum is just unlucky.

Get a white collar job and don't burn your body: go to university.

If that's drilled in for the first 18 years, then yea, your opinion would be considered a new interesting one they've never heard of.

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

#92

Post by chrisseaton »

Balgair wrote: post #86
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'll echo this. In the US, having just a MS in Physics means that you failed your quals. Though it may not be true, this is the 'popular' perception.

In the UK we often make the dropout degree an MPhil or MRes, so it's different to people who started an MSc with the intention of just doing that degree.

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

#93

Post by chrisseaton »

rongenre wrote: post #49
mrits wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I've been in recruiting discussions where we specifically wanted an ABD in CS (we wanted ability, but also eagerness to work in a new subject area). Although, it's conceivable that being both ABD and not specifically in CS is seen as a bridge too far.

Why did you want an ABD but not a PhD holder though?

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

#94

Post by dlokshin »

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…

If you're in a Physics masters or Ph.D. program and are thinking about dropping out because academia is not for you, please email me: david [at] TraceUp.com. We are hiring people like you.

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

#95

Post by elamje »

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 as a necessity and it didn't have the same pedigree or difficulty that a top tier US masters would. This is no shot at Euro schools, but something that was very clear to me and my American exchange counterparts when we talked to our EU friends, which were all engineers of some kind.

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

#96

Post by mjfl »

bloomer wrote: post #76
mjfl wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why data science and not something where physics degrees confer more of a comparative advantage? Something like telecommunications engineering or something of that sort?

Data science is one of the few fields where a physics degree does have at least some comparative advantage. In any engineering field, a hiring manager with a choice between an engineering graduate and a physics graduate is always going to choose the engineering graduate because they have specific training in the field. Part of the myth propagated by physics departments is that learning to solve a bunch of general pro…

The real myth is that schools actually prepare you for specific problems on the job, as you have asserted. I have helped hire people before and I would say that schools do very little good specialized training. Almost everything learned in engineering school is going to be at best tangential to the problems actually experienced in industry, to the point where there is little difference between an engineering degree and a physics degree, especially in a field that is close to physics (electrical engineering, radio engineering).

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

#97

Post by throwawayjava »

chrisseaton wrote: post #93
rongenre wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been in recruiting discussions where we specifically wanted an ABD in CS (we wanted ability, but also eagerness to work in a new subject area). Although, it's conceivable that being both ABD and not specifically in CS is seen as a bridge too far.

Why did you want an ABD but not a PhD holder though?

Interest in "something new, anything new" tends to substantially increase in the past 2ish months of a PhD.

Not sure if this is a reason for or against.

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

#99

Post by agentofoblivion »

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…

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, which can be the resume gate keepers. But the hiring managers and peers don’t care. In fact, if you polled them, I would guess half would know my background is in physics, a third that I have a masters, and 0 which school I went to.

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

#100

Post by hueving »

chrisseaton wrote: post #93
rongenre wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been in recruiting discussions where we specifically wanted an ABD in CS (we wanted ability, but also eagerness to work in a new subject area). Although, it's conceivable that being both ABD and not specifically in CS is seen as a bridge too far.

Why did you want an ABD but not a PhD holder though?

Intimidation.
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