After Graduation
What Can I Do?
Let's make the choices uncomplicated. You can either get a job or keep going to school. Our graduates are roughly evenly divided between the two. It is our aim to prepare you academically and to help you with the details of pursuing your goal, whether it is entering the job market, pursuing a graduate degree in physics, or a related field, getting into medical school or other professional schools.
What is your physics degree good for? Well, you can be a physicist or astronomer, which are as good as anything for impressing your family and friends. In addition to a traditional graduate curriculum in physics or astronomy you can enter programs in environmental science, optics, applied physics, atmospheric physics, medical physics, engineering physics, education, electrical engineering, nuclear engineering, and computer science. Medicine and law are fields that have become increasingly technical, and welcome students who have physics degrees. A physics degree will make you stand out in the crowd of biology, pre-med, or pre-law students you compete with for a position in professional schools.
It usually isn't necessary to know exactly what you want to do. Even graduating seniors about to enter graduate school or the work force seldom know, or need to know, what they will end up doing. You will get exposed to a lot of things here and elsewhere in your education. Don't commit to something earlier than is necessary. Our students are well prepared to compete in programs beyond the bachelor's level and in the work force. No one expects you to know it all yet.