Help Choosing a Major

t. Physics major turned into software engineer, also took upper div EE courses

Physics is harder than EE for the most part. It's also FUCKING useless. You want to "pursue knowledge" or something like that, but that doesnt really happen anymore. Research is a crap shoot and 99% of studies are either forgotten instantly or only serve as a reminder to not do that again. You won't gain real understanding of how the world works. You won't be able to do anything you couldn't do before. You will be able to think but not act.

Physics is soul sucking. At least you can see the fruits of your labor as an engineer. At least you know that, with profits as a proxy, things you make as an engineer has a purpose in society.

I think you will find that many physics alumni are frustrated and felt misled by their professors. Physics professors tell you that you can do anything as a physics major, but in reality the physics curriculum prepares you for nothing other than more academia. Great, once you spend 4 years and 100k in an undergrad school, you get to spend 4-6 more years in grad school doing something useless. You might get very lucky and get tenure at a well funded university and do high impact work, but how many openings are there for that? Remember, tenured professors aren't going to get replaced by you. They will hold their position till they hit 75, leaving an endless line of other PhDs looking to take their place.

Or maybe you will become a shitty lecturer, or go on to do something unrelated to physics. If you go do non physics things, you might as well have not done physics in the first place.

TL;DR: Don''t do physics. It's useless and its more soul sucking than engineering for anybody that wants to accomplish real things.

>don't study in a shit country
what's that I couldn't hear you printing these fat stacks of cash seeing as I make literally double/triple/quadruple the of the yuropoor equivalent, good thing I didn't fall for "le do what u loooove" meme!

Attached: 34563456.png (155x126, 54K)

But you literally use physics in your engineering equations. That makes you a total hypocrite. Here let me help you understand in simple terms. If people stop becoming physicists, then development of science stops and technological innovation stops with it. Scientists are absolutely necessary for the advancement of the human species.

You make triple the money and are probably unhappy as hell at your job. Here is your reward. A hollow cup to represent your hollow soul.

Saying "go to school instead of becoming a plumber" isn't suddenly hypoctrical just because sometimes on your breaks from your cushy office job you go to the bathroom and use the plumbing system to take a shit.

There's a difference between "X is valuable to society" and "you, yes you, should go on to become the 1957871067th person doing X for a living"

Do you have a degree in physics?

If you do, you would know that the equations used in EE are rudimentary. It's based off entry level (calculus based) E&M physics a freshman student would learn. It's not hypocritical to say this. I know fully well all of STEM is based somewhat off physics and math, but it's based on 19th century physics.

The field of physics is over saturated. The 20th century was the golden age of physics, and most things in the field discovered in the latter half of the century and the 21st century is practically irrelevant to engineering. Nowadays, only several fields (high temp. superconding, fusion, etc...) show promise. Why do you think wages are so trash as a physicist?

If you think physics lab work is necessary for technological innovation, you clearly don't have any experience in the technology industry.

You can be an electrical engineer and do research you know right? I mean if you live in a country with actually good research institutions like Max Planck or Conicet

You can study in Europe and then work in the US if you want to. Although the US only gives out the usual 30-40 days paid vacation after you get seniority in the company, so before that you trade your soul. In many ways it's like working in Dubai.

Where can't you be paid to do research? there's so many thousands of universities, research institutes, lots of big companies and a million SMEs with R&D departments.

I was going to say maybe if you do Business Studies in Kazakhstan, but I'm sure they do research too.

As an electrical engineer. I bet you won't find good work with a physics degree unless you're literally top of your classes and doing some revolutionary...

Here's some examples:

Electrical engineering - reverse engineer this phone billing system because the person who made it left and nobody knows how it works anymore.

Physics - Do this small chunk of some experiment which is for something at CERN but we wont tell you what and nobody really understands it. Or the same as above, because you graduates and got an electrical engineering job with your physics degree, only difference being you have less experience with it.

>You can be an electrical engineer and do research funded by a company and specifically for the purpose of making them profit you know right?
Fixed

>The idea of generating a profit no matter the social cost is hard for me to accept.

That is not an engineering related disease.

Physics will consume all of your free time and studying will take over your life. If you don't drop out, you'll be left with a prestigious degree... that lets you work in a prestigious laboratory for laughable money. Your compensation is being allowed to play with billion dollar toy, access to great scientific minds, and the ability to say that you work at CERN or NASA or something like that. The laboratory will pay you a starvation wage, because they spent it all on billion dollar toys.

Electrical engineering is just a trade with a high barrier of entry. Lots of money to be made, can cross train into another field, an alright job overall. Might not be that interesting if you don't like it, but it at least pays well, and is reasonably within demand.

If you just want to pay the bills I'd recommend IT, though. The more technical the better.

And what about getting my masters or PhD in physics?

That's what I described, you dedicate your life and free time. You can't just do a bachelors in physics. Medschool doesn't offer 3 year courses either - they're worthless in such a difficult field. If you don't at least get a masters then you'll just become a school physics teacher.

>And what about getting my masters or PhD in physics?

You could compare a few physics text books to a few engineering text books to get a sense of the culture. In my experience, engineering tends to be more sober and objective while physics seems to have a tone of pomposity and ego-maniacal desperation.

Straight out of engineering school even bad engineers become middle class.

Bad physics graduates become unemployed. Good physics graduates are not paid well. Physics graduates often respecialise to become engineers anyway.

You could just as easily substitute the phrases dead and soulless instead of objective and sober. Engineering cares about only 1 thing, designing something for a profit. Engineers don't really care about math or science as much as a carpenter cares about nails.You don't even have to truly understand the stuff. Just plug and chug. Physicists will always be better at math and science because they actually care about the subjects. Physicists see that men before them spent their entire lives working on formulating the proofs and equations, and pay respects to those men by show respect and care towards their theorems. By contrast engineers are disrespectful, high paid and spoiled children.

Engineering is based on physics. Now what do you have to say?

I guess it depends on when and where you are. I studied electrical engineering (through to PhD) and worked in that field for several years. What you describe is not in my experience at all.

Bad engineering students go full Kimmo Alm and never doing anything with their PhDs. Skip these problems and just don't be a bad graduate.

Physics will have an easier time getting into finance but the decision should be based on what OP likes to do daily. Only thing to remember is if they do research then how famous the advisor is will matter.

linkedin.com/in/adam-jensen-hanzer-riseup/

OP, you keep saying this dumb shit. I have no idea what you are trying to say.

It doesn't matter at all if it's based on physics. Physics is based off math so why don't you go major in math?

Typical engineers (in my experience):
Raffaello D'Andrea: Feedback Control and the Coming Machine Revolution (2012 WORLD.MINDS) - youtube.com/watch?v=C4IJXAVXgIo

Without physics engineering wouldn't exist. You speak down upon the field that created you own. Your entire field would not exist without the equations created by physicists.

I think you should choose a bullet to the brain faggot.

Nah, I think adv proved what I already knew. Physics is the path for me. It may take grad school, but I am okay with that. My sole purpose in life is not constantly chasing the dollar like engineers. I prefer to chase meaning over money, and that is why physics suits me even if I do end up making less in the end.

You keep missing the point. Physics gets its money from grants. Its culture consists largely of telling people how important it/they are - because of that economic situation. It is a science that produces knowledge. People don't easily appreciate the value of that so people must be continuously reminded. As a physicist, you will be part of a discipline that has to continuously manipulate the public into providing your funding.

So do you want to build stuff and be left to it, or do you want to write grant proposals and con people into believing that you are important?

BTW - I'm mostly just playing with you at this point. Either choice is pretty cool, IMO.

Again, if you cut off all funding to research science, then you would kill of technological innovation in society because it depends on scientific research and advancement.

I want to learn things because of the knowledge of it. I care not about producing a product to make someone else richer.

Preaching to the choir. I totally agree. The unwashed masses on the hand need significant manipulation.

The ability to make tools and machines is very important. It is not directly related to the dominant regime of the current economy in any way. That is temporary.

Also, teaching physics at a community college seems like it could be a fairly laid back gig.

Both leaf to unemployment

I have a degree in physics. You have a 0.01% of "creating" an equation that will ever be relevant as a physicist. You reek of the attitude of freshman physics students. Your attitude will change in a few years when you realize academia is soulless, generally useless, pompous, while earning only a fraction of the income of engineers. If you decide to go to the industry, you will see that the physics degree has done little to prepare you for it.

You will not find meaning in physics. Theres no inherent meaning in the mathematical constructs behind it. Freshmen come in thinking there is, and leave several years later realizing thats false. If you love the subject, then go for it. At least at my uni, the freshman year for both engineers and physics was just entry level physics + calculus, so its fairly painless to change majors.

But if you had to choose, I can't recommend physics in good faith. In general, a career in physics will probably be less fulfilling, less about knowledge seeking than you wanted, and less pay compared to an engineer.

Lol what a load of bullshit. Stop talking lile a teenager who has just watched wormhole with morgan freeman.
Engineering is building stuff, stop adding your childish bullshit to that. You dont even know what you are talking about.

Without mathematics, physicists wouldnt have the tools to do that. Why dont you major in maths then? Without agriculture, those mathematicians would have been starved before they could do something useful, why dont you major in agriculture then?
You are fucking stupid, get the teenage bullshit out of your system as soon as you can.

Agreed. OP sounds like hes chock full on teenage bullshit. He is a teenager so he gets a pass I suppose.

Do you think neutron degeneracy pressure is fascinating (I sure did) and you like calculating chi squared values (I sure fucking didn't)? Do physics. Do you want to accomplish things where you can see a tangible result within your lifetime? Do engineering.

OP won't find meaning in life in physics. He will drop out if thats all he wants out of the field.