‘Pipeline’ Provides Physicists with Flexibility

I read with interest the articles on careers for physicists in the April 2001 issue of Physics Today, especially the article by Kate Kirby, Roman Czujko, and Patrick Mulvey (page 36). These authors interpret their fine research results in terms of the familiar concept of a “physics pipeline,” a flow of physics students from high school through college, graduate school, and postdoctoral appointments. Students are often lured through this pipeline by such factors as the advertised prestige of physics faculty positions, promises of quality careers, and patriotism. I believe that the physics pipeline was a cold-war idea that emphasized the importance new physics research could have to national security. Unfortunately, the concept is also dehumanizing, comparing physics students and journeyman scientists to a commodity such as oil. Surely there are better ways to attract and justify the existence of students in physics.

I have a PhD, postdoctoral research experience, and more than 10 years’ full-time university, college, and even high-school teaching experience. My observation is that today’s students are wiser than students of the not-so-distant past, more cognizant of economic and political realities. For instance, I received the Society of Physics Students careers poster shown in Barrett Ripin’s article in the same magazine (page 43, figure 2) when the poster first came out. I displayed it in the hall, and students immediately told me that physics degree holders must be having trouble finding jobs. Within a week, one joker had penned in the career option of “fast food,” so I had to take the poster down. Perhaps this cool reception occurred because students view blithe promises of quality careers as fostering a delusion to attract physics majors. Most of the careers listed on the poster have their own degree programs. Students realize this and may get the impression that physics is for people who don’t know what they want to do.

My opinion is that the overarching reason to pursue a physics degree is interest in physics and the politics of physics research, although I realize that graduate programs in physics and other technical fields are attractive to foreign students who also wish to gain a foothold in the US. Physics educators encourage more undergraduate majors by emphasizing exciting teaching and research. Graduate programs with well-defined times for degree completion and a climate in which journeyman researchers believe that they can meet their career goals will improve both morale and enrollment numbers at higher educational levels. Insinuating that it takes a PhD in physics to solve certain challenging industrial and business problems is likely to be counterproductive.

We must do more to educate the American public about physics itself. People may link physics and national security far less tightly than in the past. For instance, in the community of my youth in the 1960s and 1970s, people thought that physics was hard and that physicists “learned to build better bombs.” Now all that seems to remain is the thought that physics is hard. I believe that clearly defining physics to the public will, at the very least, boost high-school and undergraduate enrollments.

We saw in 2001 that a sudden economic bear market and layoffs in the technology sector make future job prospects uncertain at all times. I hope the physics community will steer away from tired concepts such as a bull market of jobs and a physics pipeline. I look forward to future articles in Physics Today that point in new directions.