Well, to be fair, you’re not exactly painting the bleakest picture here. I mean, physics is ninth on that list of mid-career earnings out of 129 majors, and is pretty much indistinguishable from computer science. An extra $10000/year or whatever on top of an already pretty good salary doesn’t hold much appeal to me—certainly not enough to make me wish I had done engineering. Having said that though, you’re right—if you do physics, you probably won’t get a job in physics, and you’ll probably make less than you would had you done engineering. This is valuable information and smart high school students should definitely know it.
I wonder, though, to what extent physics degrees are actually displacing engineering degrees. They surely are to some extent—if physics were eliminated as a major tomorrow, no doubt a good fraction of physicists would migrate over to engineering. And then, yes, they would be better off than before in terms of earnings potential. But plenty would go to other majors with even lower earning potentials, like applied math ($96200), math ($88800), chemistry ($84100), or philosophy ($78300). So if you’re advocating for people not to go into physics, I would say you should be very clear about what alternatives you’re recommending. In many ways physics seems like a pretty good compromise, if you’re intellectually curious—you get to study an interesting subject for four years, and then make almost as much as an engineer.
Well, to be honest it did come across that way to me, although that’s partly because I was framing it in the context of your last physics post, which was advocating against physics. I assumed this was sort of a continuation of that line of thought. Reading it again though, you’re right, this one is maybe not as anti-physics as I first thought. The earnings section does seem to emphasize the negative more than is necessary though, I think.
Well, to be fair, you’re not exactly painting the bleakest picture here. I mean, physics is ninth on that list of mid-career earnings out of 129 majors, and is pretty much indistinguishable from computer science. An extra $10000/year or whatever on top of an already pretty good salary doesn’t hold much appeal to me—certainly not enough to make me wish I had done engineering. Having said that though, you’re right—if you do physics, you probably won’t get a job in physics, and you’ll probably make less than you would had you done engineering. This is valuable information and smart high school students should definitely know it.
I wonder, though, to what extent physics degrees are actually displacing engineering degrees. They surely are to some extent—if physics were eliminated as a major tomorrow, no doubt a good fraction of physicists would migrate over to engineering. And then, yes, they would be better off than before in terms of earnings potential. But plenty would go to other majors with even lower earning potentials, like applied math ($96200), math ($88800), chemistry ($84100), or philosophy ($78300). So if you’re advocating for people not to go into physics, I would say you should be very clear about what alternatives you’re recommending. In many ways physics seems like a pretty good compromise, if you’re intellectually curious—you get to study an interesting subject for four years, and then make almost as much as an engineer.
Does my article come across as advocating for people not to go into physics? If so, which parts?
Well, to be honest it did come across that way to me, although that’s partly because I was framing it in the context of your last physics post, which was advocating against physics. I assumed this was sort of a continuation of that line of thought. Reading it again though, you’re right, this one is maybe not as anti-physics as I first thought. The earnings section does seem to emphasize the negative more than is necessary though, I think.
Thanks.