‘Pipeline’ Provides Physicists with Flexibility

Ripin replies: Actually, I do think physics is for people who don’t know what they want to do, in addition to those who think they do. Selecting a major that will serve you throughout a lifetime is chancy, particularly if you are young, inexperienced, and have limited knowledge about what day-to-day work involves. If a student lives, breathes, and dreams physics, or genomics, or programming, then the choice of major may be obvious. But isn’t it important to retain flexibility? Most disciplines change direction and have ups and downs over a career. Personal interests and opportunities may shift as well.

Every survey I have seen supports the notion that a physics education, with its strong technical foundation and emphasis on critical thinking and problem solving, has, in bad times as well as good, provided tens of thousands of graduates with satisfying career options such as those exemplified in the Society of Physics Students poster. A good physics education broadens and retains options while many other majors narrow them. The main point of my article is that there is more that physics department faculties can and should do to expand options for their graduates.