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mbq

17:26

Q: Journalist Looking For Physicist Entrepreneurs

My name is Eric Sokolsky and I do PR for Stack Exchange. I came across a media opportunity that might be good for someone in the Physics community. The reporter writes a regular career column for the national publication of the American Physical Society, APS News. She is looking to interview p...

5 hours later…

Coward

22:49

Howdy

David Zaslavsky

23:12

@Coward Hi :)

Coward

Hi David :] First-year uni student here. Is there any reason to major in physics if you're certain you will never do a Ph.D in the subject?

@DavidZaslavsky (sorry, new here)

David Zaslavsky

Sure

@Coward no problem

Coward

Could you elaborate?

David Zaslavsky

I was just about to ;)

Pretty much any sort of quantitative job can be done with a physics degree

Coward

Well, what makes it any different from an applied maths degree than

David Zaslavsky

23:15

Probably not that much

The value of being a physics major is that it teaches you a certain way to think about quantitative problems without getting too wrapped up in the numbers

basically "physical intuition" I guess

I'm not sure to what extent that would apply to applied math majors

Coward

If I'm certain I'd like a quantitative job and certain I don't foresee myself doing physics for a doctorate. I really do enjoy physics but i feel it's more of a hobby of mine

at this point

"Physical intuition"... well... I do like toying with physics puzzles and building things

David Zaslavsky

hm, well is there something else you enjoy doing that you see yourself spending the majority of your time on?

Coward

(i.e. I participated in the american physics olympiad)

David Zaslavsky

"hobby" suggests something you just do on the side of something else

Coward

Yeah, I feel applied maths is the way to go because it allows for so much flexibility. At the uni I go to... they'd like you to specialize in some subject matter outside of the maths dept (physics, engineering, economics, etc)

computer science, etc

"they" being the directors of the applied math program

David Zaslavsky

23:18

makes sense

To be honest, I can't tell you that much about applied math because I'm really not that familiar with it

my college didn't have an applied math major

so I'm not quite sure how it would differ from physics

By the way, for what it's worth, about half of the physics majors in my graduating class went to work at financial firms... totally unrelated to physics

Coward

@DavidZaslavsky Wow. So basically what you're saying is physics is a good "I'm-to-an-idiot-degree" for inudstry?

Sorry for the dup

David Zaslavsky

23:57

@Coward Did you mean "I'm-not-an-idiot-degree"? I guess you could say that. There are a lot of employers who do things completely unrelated to physics but will still look favorably at a physics degree.

Coward

Er yeah

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