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Comment by muvek | Hacker News Reader

I have an MS in physics and I disagree with this. If you want opened doors, go for software engineering. You have so many things you can do with software, seriously.

I have finished my master's in November, and I have been looking for a job. I have not been very lucky so far. I am looking for data-science related stuff. If you have any suggestions, please, I am all ears. (I am in Europe)

There was a time when, if you had a degree in Physics, they'd throw money at you. That is no longer true.

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Hi,

I don't know the situation in Europe. In the US, there are a number of data science boot camps geared more towards PhDs who decide that they want to do something else. I've had friends go into that and find jobs afterwards. I think that what helped them was not the material per se (if you've done physics, most of the math in data science is not terribly challenging), but 1) having space to work on the subject (some people might not have had experience with say coding or thought about coding interviews) and 2) Network The American physical society just launched a topical group on data science in physics. We're planning to offer training to help students who want to either apply data science to physics or want to transition out. We're also hoping to have some webinars from people who started off doing physics and went into industry to let students learn their stories. I hope that's helpful...

I went through a lot of mental gymnastics justifying the path I took in college for years, when in retrospect the straightest, simplest path to get where I am today was to just get a CS degree at my flagship state school.

You're not wrong about physics but I'd say the degree in software is only as good as your ability to code mixed with how willing you are to follow over controlling bosses.

> If you have any suggestions, please, I am all ears. (I am in Europe)

What was your MS program like (research/taught/etc)? Happy to give some advice, but a bit more background would be useful.

Consider Lambda School. That way you have skills and education. You'll be an easy pick for employers.

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

My MS was in astroparticle physics (applied). That means I am better suited for data science than for engineering stuff.

Weirdly enough, if I knew optics but no coding I would be in a better place than the one I am in right now, which is: I know (a little bit of) coding but no optics.

Applied?

Well, it's more experimental than applied, bad word I guess. It could've been theorical, but it was experimental.

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 problems will somehow make you qualified to solve very specific problems.

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).

Do physics students have to learn about electrical components?

In Chemical Engineering, I had to take 2 electrical classes and I learned what math I needed and what components exist.

I think that is a bit extreme but I agree with one thing. If school does not teach job related knowledge but it somehow makes it easier to learn skills on the job later on then isn't it actually just an indirect measure of motivation or intelligence?

The advantage formal education confers is merely making those stand out among the other applicants.

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