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Comment by no_one_ever | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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 (good for career growth) right off the bat, despite having much, much less experience than already hired colleagues with only master's degrees. why is that? well, some people, cultures, companies, labs, etc. still hold the ph.d. quite high in their mind and heart, despite what they may say. these are the places that think a ph.d. gives someone the ability to manage not only technical aspects (that somewhat makes sense) but also people, projects, system design, etc. (that often doesn't make sense).

so basically, in the end, there is no golden rule.

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.

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.

So I assume it would acceptable to pursue a degree if you enjoy physics and hope to use the knowledge and degree to advance your career. Are the job prospects for advanced degrees in physics that poor?

Not the person you are responding to, but I think the point is that if you want to do an advanced physics degree with the primary goal of advancing your career, that is a horrible idea because there are much more efficient ways to advance your career.

However, if you love physics and want to get an advanced degree for it's own sake, the degree will still likely be a boost to your career, just not necessarily in proportion to the effort you put in to get it.

I would say yes. Pursue physics only because you love it. Unless you want to go into Defense the job prospects are terrible. However, learning physics teaches you how to learn anything and how to do it fast. This turns out to be an invaluable skill for programming, so physicists make great programmers. You just have to earn it on top of all the physics.

Yeah it's very much like that with my math degree. Demonstrated ability to torture myself with difficult concepts.

I mentioned in another thread, if you can get good at something that other people hate, you won't be unemployed. Although, it might take longer to find a job if it's not a fungible skill.

But the secret is, it's not torture. For most people, it's prohibitively difficult to reach the expert level in something that we're not inclined to enjoy.

I think engineering degrees demonstrate an ability to torture oneself with boring and routine concepts. A skill which is apparently more valuable in the working world.

Well, the job prospects are "terrible" if you're committing yourself to stay in physics and be a physicist in both title and profession.

The thing is, most people that get advanced degrees in physics don't stick around in the field and don't follow the traditional path. The article is correct to point out that physics departments would do better if they accept that reality and accommodate for it explicitly. Some schools already do that with the "engineering physics" degree.

Physics is a great preparation for general purpose problem-solving, IMHO.

In my own case, I do wish that I had a smoother transition out of physics, however. Spent a lot of time in my career not knowing where I fit in. Not that it's a totally bad thing, finding "a job" was never a problem, but self-actualization is harder when you're dealing with not knowing where you belong.

>The thing is, most people that get advanced degrees in physics don't stick around in the field and don't follow the traditional path.

The point isn't that if you get a degree in physics, that you're doomed. Pretty much everyone I know who got a degree in physics is doing well. The point is, they are pretty much at a disadvantage (at least initially) in getting those jobs. Whichever non-physics job you find physicists going into, it'll be easier to get those jobs with a different degree.

The only exception I can think of is quantitative finance in the 2000's, where they seemed to prefer physicists and mathematicians above all us (including finance degree holders).

I agree that physics is a great preparation to problem solving. I've heard this in industry as well. Yet I've consistently found that even those who make such statements are more likely to hire those with engineering degrees.

Versatility is one of the main things offered by a physics degree. It might not be the most preferred degree in a given area you're likely to move into, but it's probably at least acceptable.

For varying definitions of acceptable. It's certainly less acceptable than an engineering degree.

Yes, the first conditional of your question is mandatory to successfully follow through and complete an academic career in Physics.

I really loved Physics growing up as a student. I was really good at it and enjoyed the problem-solving.

Finished the degree at university, but knew I wasn't married to the idea of doing it for the rest of my career/life. So I touch computers now (got a degree for that too). It pays more, plus it pays 'now'.

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