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So You Want To Do A Degree In Physics?
Some things to think about to help you decide.
Date : 22/10/2017
Author Information
Uploaded by : Thomas
Uploaded on : 22/10/2017
Subject : Physics
So you want to do a degree in Physics?
Don t rush the decision.
Physics qualifications are highly valued in the job market, but that isn t a good reason to choose to study it. Ultimately you must try to keep your interest in physics throughout the degree, this gives you the motivation needed to endure some fairly heavy workloads.
I don t mean that you need to know exactly what branch of physics you want to study, or even what specific job you want at the end of it, but make sure you are interested in understanding more about the topics you have learnt about during school physics classes.
What is the degree like?
Unlike for GCSE and A-level, where the curriculum and exams are the same for everyone across the country, each University governs its own degree programmess. There are of course a lot of things that all physics degrees have in common. However, each university has its own special topics (such as cosmology at Durham for example), and these will be reflected in the modules available to you in the later (2nd, 3rd and 4th) years.
The degree itself is either 3 or 4 years (a bachelors or masters ). Each consecutive year you may select more specific fields of study. In your first year you will do a bit of everything (including both theory and labs), and sometimes the exams don t actually count towards your final mark. This gives you a bit of freedom to acclimatise to the university system without the pressure. In your final year, you will embark on a long project which essentially mimics full research and you will write the results up into a long report ( dissertation or thesis ) which may then be examined orally (the viva ) and leads to the award of your degree.
Physics offers some really interesting topics of study from the very large to the very small. You can learn how stars are born and die, how the universe formed from the big bang, how the galaxies evolved from fundamental particles. How about the question of nature s fundamental structure (quantum mechanics, quantum field theory, special relativity)? You can learn the science of materials, including interesting phenomena like superconductivity. Aside from the many specific topics you can study, you also build a strong knowledge of mathematics, statistics and coding skills (all of these invaluable for life beyond university).
What happens next, when I have my degree?
Physics degrees are sought after in certain sectors of the job market. Lots of civil service, finance, or other technical jobs recruit physicists. The reason behind this is that in order to understand and apply physics you must have/develop certain skills, particularly a problem solving ability. This is something to bear in mind most jobs that physicists go on to do after graduating will not use the specific knowledge of physics (unless you move into teaching for example), but instead they will be applying analytical skills (for example working on operational research in the civil service). The most competitive salaries require a strong 2.1 or 1st (equivalent to 60% and 70% total marks).
There is also the option to continue life in University through a four year PhD in physics (see my other article about some preparations you can make for this route), if you enjoy your final year project there is a good chance you would also enjoy a PhD. PhD positions are very competitive and usually a good 1st (more than 70%) is a minimum requirement, along with a successful final year project.
What should I be thinking about before deciding to apply?
At the very least make sure its what you want, and will enjoy for 3-4 years.
First of all make sure you will enjoy studying physics. If you are not motivated to understand the lectures, you will fall behind and preparing for exams will be unpleasant. If you can bear to think ahead to your future, make sure that a physics degree will help you onto whatever type of job you see yourself doing in 4-5 years time (or 8 with a PhD).
You don t need to prepare actual physics too much before the degree starts if you have completed the A-level (or equivalent) course, since the first year is usually relatively slow paced to allow everyone to get up to the same level. However, if you haven t done a Maths or Further Maths A-level it might be worth working through those at a gentle pace. You do have to know all the content of the Maths and Further Maths course by the time you ve done your first year so it doesn t hurt to get prepared.
What should I be thinking about after deciding to apply?
Get yourself ready by thinking about these few points.
- Being prepared : Try not to fall behind. Lectures will come at you thick and fast: Quantum Mechanics at 9.00 am, Astronomy at 10.00 am, Thermodynamics at 11.00 am, Labs all afternoon. It can be daunting at first, but try to make sure you have read a little bit ahead of each lecture and know what it is roughly about before it starts.
- Being organised : Some lecturers don t give you notes, but just write on the board, you will be expected to copy the information accurately. Try to maintain a system of organising your notes and problems into folders (or electronically). Perhaps invest in a decent laptop or tablet to take to lectures.
- Getting ahead : Some basic skills will be necessary for a lot of the degree, but may not necessarily be emphasised beforehand. These are things like coding (used in lab modules for example, python is one of the best and most used languages for coding projects), statistics (also labs), mathematical techniques (used everywhere, check module descri ptions on university webpages for an idea of which ones are most relevant) or event document preparation with LaTeX (have a look into this as you probably haven t heard of it before).
- Getting help if you need it : Universities are putting increasing emphasis on student support, particularly on emotional wellbeing. Help is always available and there is always a willingness to make allowance for students when necessary. Sometimes tutoring can be arranged within your department to improve on weak areas. So do not be afraid to ask.
- Enjoying it : after all, your going to be spending quite a bit of money on it.
Pros and Cons
In my opinion, the pro s probably outweigh the con s because I love physics, but everyone will put a different weight on each of the points listed below.
Pro s
- Sought-after subject by employers in many industries.
- Wide range of topics : you can specialise in a very broad range of disciplines such as condensed matter (building lasers and atomic experiments) or astronomy (building telescopes and analysing their data) or, like me, particle physics. Be aware that particular universities specialise in particular areas. My university, Durham, is very strong at cosmology and particle physics among others and so a good place to apply if it aligns with your interests.
- Regular contact time : often, physics modules contain workshops where you will be able to work on problems at your own pace, with experts (PhD students like me and lecturers) in the room to ask questions to and get 1-on-1 feedback.
- Ability to work in labs with some advanced equipment you wouldn t normally get to use. You will also develop practical skills.
- No essays! Most problems will involve some algebra and lots of thinking, but not large amounts of writing up.
Con s
- Heavy workload : compared to other subjects, and even other science subjects the workload for physics is heavy, that means a lot of contact time per week (lectures, tutorials, workshops), and more assessed work (weekly problems, technical lab reports).
- Frustrating at times : I will be the first to admit that physics is a hard subject to understand at times. It can be frustrating to try to understand all the concepts that are being thrown your way whilst also keeping up with all the lectures.
- Usually quite high entry requirements : these are to ensure that you can keep up with the course and manage to complete it after 3-4 years.
- Takes some time to get to research level : for the first two or even three years you will be covering standard physics which has been understood for 50 or more years. Getting to our current frontier of knowledge in lectures doesn t really happen until fourth year.
Don t rush the decision.
Physics qualifications are highly valued in the job market, but that isn t a good reason to choose to study it. Ultimately you must try to keep your interest in physics throughout the degree, this gives you the motivation needed to endure some fairly heavy workloads.
I don t mean that you need to know exactly what branch of physics you want to study, or even what specific job you want at the end of it, but make sure you are interested in understanding more about the topics you have learnt about during school physics classes.
What is the degree like?
Unlike for GCSE and A-level, where the curriculum and exams are the same for everyone across the country, each University governs its own degree programmess. There are of course a lot of things that all physics degrees have in common. However, each university has its own special topics (such as cosmology at Durham for example), and these will be reflected in the modules available to you in the later (2nd, 3rd and 4th) years.
The degree itself is either 3 or 4 years (a bachelors or masters ). Each consecutive year you may select more specific fields of study. In your first year you will do a bit of everything (including both theory and labs), and sometimes the exams don t actually count towards your final mark. This gives you a bit of freedom to acclimatise to the university system without the pressure. In your final year, you will embark on a long project which essentially mimics full research and you will write the results up into a long report ( dissertation or thesis ) which may then be examined orally (the viva ) and leads to the award of your degree.
Physics offers some really interesting topics of study from the very large to the very small. You can learn how stars are born and die, how the universe formed from the big bang, how the galaxies evolved from fundamental particles. How about the question of nature s fundamental structure (quantum mechanics, quantum field theory, special relativity)? You can learn the science of materials, including interesting phenomena like superconductivity. Aside from the many specific topics you can study, you also build a strong knowledge of mathematics, statistics and coding skills (all of these invaluable for life beyond university).
What happens next, when I have my degree?
Physics degrees are sought after in certain sectors of the job market. Lots of civil service, finance, or other technical jobs recruit physicists. The reason behind this is that in order to understand and apply physics you must have/develop certain skills, particularly a problem solving ability. This is something to bear in mind most jobs that physicists go on to do after graduating will not use the specific knowledge of physics (unless you move into teaching for example), but instead they will be applying analytical skills (for example working on operational research in the civil service). The most competitive salaries require a strong 2.1 or 1st (equivalent to 60% and 70% total marks).
There is also the option to continue life in University through a four year PhD in physics (see my other article about some preparations you can make for this route), if you enjoy your final year project there is a good chance you would also enjoy a PhD. PhD positions are very competitive and usually a good 1st (more than 70%) is a minimum requirement, along with a successful final year project.
What should I be thinking about before deciding to apply?
At the very least make sure its what you want, and will enjoy for 3-4 years.
First of all make sure you will enjoy studying physics. If you are not motivated to understand the lectures, you will fall behind and preparing for exams will be unpleasant. If you can bear to think ahead to your future, make sure that a physics degree will help you onto whatever type of job you see yourself doing in 4-5 years time (or 8 with a PhD).
You don t need to prepare actual physics too much before the degree starts if you have completed the A-level (or equivalent) course, since the first year is usually relatively slow paced to allow everyone to get up to the same level. However, if you haven t done a Maths or Further Maths A-level it might be worth working through those at a gentle pace. You do have to know all the content of the Maths and Further Maths course by the time you ve done your first year so it doesn t hurt to get prepared.
What should I be thinking about after deciding to apply?
Get yourself ready by thinking about these few points.
- Being prepared : Try not to fall behind. Lectures will come at you thick and fast: Quantum Mechanics at 9.00 am, Astronomy at 10.00 am, Thermodynamics at 11.00 am, Labs all afternoon. It can be daunting at first, but try to make sure you have read a little bit ahead of each lecture and know what it is roughly about before it starts.
- Being organised : Some lecturers don t give you notes, but just write on the board, you will be expected to copy the information accurately. Try to maintain a system of organising your notes and problems into folders (or electronically). Perhaps invest in a decent laptop or tablet to take to lectures.
- Getting ahead : Some basic skills will be necessary for a lot of the degree, but may not necessarily be emphasised beforehand. These are things like coding (used in lab modules for example, python is one of the best and most used languages for coding projects), statistics (also labs), mathematical techniques (used everywhere, check module descri ptions on university webpages for an idea of which ones are most relevant) or event document preparation with LaTeX (have a look into this as you probably haven t heard of it before).
- Getting help if you need it : Universities are putting increasing emphasis on student support, particularly on emotional wellbeing. Help is always available and there is always a willingness to make allowance for students when necessary. Sometimes tutoring can be arranged within your department to improve on weak areas. So do not be afraid to ask.
- Enjoying it : after all, your going to be spending quite a bit of money on it.
Pros and Cons
In my opinion, the pro s probably outweigh the con s because I love physics, but everyone will put a different weight on each of the points listed below.
Pro s
- Sought-after subject by employers in many industries.
- Wide range of topics : you can specialise in a very broad range of disciplines such as condensed matter (building lasers and atomic experiments) or astronomy (building telescopes and analysing their data) or, like me, particle physics. Be aware that particular universities specialise in particular areas. My university, Durham, is very strong at cosmology and particle physics among others and so a good place to apply if it aligns with your interests.
- Regular contact time : often, physics modules contain workshops where you will be able to work on problems at your own pace, with experts (PhD students like me and lecturers) in the room to ask questions to and get 1-on-1 feedback.
- Ability to work in labs with some advanced equipment you wouldn t normally get to use. You will also develop practical skills.
- No essays! Most problems will involve some algebra and lots of thinking, but not large amounts of writing up.
Con s
- Heavy workload : compared to other subjects, and even other science subjects the workload for physics is heavy, that means a lot of contact time per week (lectures, tutorials, workshops), and more assessed work (weekly problems, technical lab reports).
- Frustrating at times : I will be the first to admit that physics is a hard subject to understand at times. It can be frustrating to try to understand all the concepts that are being thrown your way whilst also keeping up with all the lectures.
- Usually quite high entry requirements : these are to ensure that you can keep up with the course and manage to complete it after 3-4 years.
- Takes some time to get to research level : for the first two or even three years you will be covering standard physics which has been understood for 50 or more years. Getting to our current frontier of knowledge in lectures doesn t really happen until fourth year.
This resource was uploaded by: Thomas