I'm Screwed!

[jrd.ffer]

Currently a senior in college. Starting to realize that I'm basically screwed in the real world. Major is physics, it's a ton of work, and it gave me no marketable skill set. I have 4 lab reports plus a final I have to ace due next week. All that work for nothing and probably no better job at graduation than at a fast food place.

I switched from a private school to a public school with 40,000 plus people, thinking there would be more opportunities there. Going to double major for a language there but I didn't realize how crappy the program was. And nope, no real social contact, everything is completely temporary.

I remember talking to someone occasionally in one class for weeks, thinking that we were starting to become friends. I ask him if he wants to study for a test together outside of class, and the guy just walks away, saying nothing. That was the most blatant social rejection but there are lots of subtle things that happen. Take one step towards somebody, they'll take a step back or none at all.

I don't think it's me either; at my other school I had no problem making friends, people were more approachable. And here I have to compete for a job to be student busboy, and I struggle to even get a rejection letter for student employment. That's just for student employment, applications for real jobs and internships I now figure are just a waste of time. At my other school, I had a good job too, and my supervisor really liked me.

Starting to make neurotic, and I've become nasty in the last two weeks towards my parents and family.My behavior disgusts me now, but I have been dramatically reducing dependency on my family--my parents earn more in tax credits than they spend on my food and utilities. But a year and a half of no real social contact is driving me crazy, and I think I'm permanently anti-social now.

Schooling is a tremendous waste if you can't name a valuable skill you're going to learn and explain from beginning to end how your program will impart that skill to you.

[Cornfed]

Currently a senior in college. Starting to realize that I'm basically screwed in the real world. Major is physics, it's a ton of work, and it gave me no marketable skill set.

Well of course if the real world were not itself screwed then you would (or at least might, depending on your course) have marketable skills. It is just that advanced skills like that of a physicist manifest themselves over the course of a lifetime working his way up within a huge well-funded network of intelligent and morally upstanding men, and unfortunately no such network exists any more. It seems there is no value in advanced, specialized skills now.

[Mr Natural]

Welcome to the real world, it's not easy for 99.9%. There's a big difference between general education, which is nice to have but not generally worth much monetarily, and learning a marketable skill which will make money for you. People have a tendency to think that going to college covers the latter, but actually only in a few disciplines such as computer science, engineering, geology, maybe accounting. For me, I don't have a college degree but I have a very marketable skill set - except that it's only marketable in the USA, where I don't really want to be. So even though I can make good money while there it's still not a good fit for me. If you are young and wanting to be able to travel the world, to live wherever you want, then look at things people do for a living that is location independent. For example if you are a super sharp computer programmer in some type of specialized area then you can work almost anywhere you have an Internet connection. But if you were say, in the construction trades, like a plumber or electrician, no matter how good you were at doing it you would never be able to make a decent living outside of a Western country. You need to look at things in a practical way like this if it's important to you to make a good living. Doing things simply to make money isn't always the most enjoyable way to spend your days, but it depends on how you look at it. I'm sure physics is quite the interesting subject, but if you can't pay the rent .....

[jrd.ffer]

I'm sure physics is quite the interesting subject, but if you can't pay the rent .....

I thought physics would combine computer programming/modeling data with intense abstract problem solving. Lab classes are stupid, useless, with no programming guidance/no in depth programming. Abstract thinking is pretty stupid, you just read the stupid book and believe it like it's some sort of pseudo-religious text.

Too bad I'm too stupid to verify curriculum.

[jrd.ffer]

Currently a senior in college. Starting to realize that I'm basically screwed in the real world. Major is physics, it's a ton of work, and it gave me no marketable skill set.

Well of course if the real world were not itself screwed then you would (or at least might, depending on your course) have marketable skills. It is just that advanced skills like that of a physicist manifest themselves over the course of a lifetime working his way up within a huge well-funded network of intelligent and morally upstanding men, and unfortunately no such network exists any more. It seems there is no value in advanced, specialized skills now.

Networking for physics is a joke: everyone has the same advice-to go to grad school. That last sentence you wrote really hits hard.

[Mr Natural]

But at the moment it doesn't sound like you have any advanced specialized skills, if you haven't even graduated yet then your knowledge is very general. In most fields it takes many years to develop advanced specialized knowledge and skills, I would think this would be particularly true about physics.

[Cornfed]

But at the moment it doesn't sound like you have any advanced specialized skills, if you haven't even graduated yet then your knowledge is very general. In most fields it takes many years to develop advanced specialized knowledge and skills, I would think this would be particularly true about physics.

This is what I am saying. You don't develop advanced skills in the sciences in university - you get them by riding on a conveyer belt designed to bring good men through as part of a lifelong process where you play a small, specialized part in a big system. It is this conveyer belt and system that have broken down, so there is not a lot an individual trying to enter the sciences these days can really do.

[Jester]

Good OP, good replies.

My 2 cents:

(1)
Graduate on schedule with good results and REFERENCES (brown-nose a couple of professors you like, talk with them, make friends)

(2)
Do one (or both) of the following in a summer or after graduation:
(A)
Get certified in one of the currently in-demand computer languages that offer work (other guys on here know this stuff). This will bring work here, and eventually location-independent. This work will suit you.
(B)
Get a CELTA certificate, no matter where you have to go to get it. With a BS in Physics, and CELTA, you will be prime meat for high-paying teaching jobs in the Persian Gulf and at prestigious international schools all over the world. Eventually they will phase you out of teaching English, and just have you teach math, physics or programming.

[publicduende]

Hi there,

It might be a very partial view, but in times like these advanced knowledge in physics, with a good grounding in maths and perhaps in one specialised area (say, climate modeling) is one of the most sought after skillset around. Cornfed is right in encouraging you, but I believe he's wrong in thinking that a graduate in physics is ultra-specialised. Physics and maths are some of the most general skills a young person can possess, and they make for an excellent foundation for any profession in virtually any industry, from finance and economics to management consulting, engineering to research and teaching.

I would align more with Jester's point and say, as long as your degree is with a reputable college and you have demonstrable skills in maths and physics and possibly a postgrad degree in one specialised area (4-5 years of college), you'll be one of the most employable people across the entire world. Guaranteed.

You may well try to play down your current state of socio-sexual frustration by just getting out of the US - go spend your college breaks somewhere nice and sunny (Mexico, Colombia, Dominican Republic, or even Asia if you can afford it) and go back to your studies with batteries fully charged (and an empty b*llsack LOL).Work hard, learn at least one programming language - Python, Scala, C#, R etc. - very well and the results will not be far away from your path.

By the way, this isn't from a young unexperienced guy. I have been working as a financial IT specialist in the City (London) for quite a while and the number of physics graduates, some but not all with a PhD, working as traders, quantitative analysts or developers, analysts, economists, or "simple" software developers is mind-boggling.

The key nowadays is not specialisation, but generalisation, which gives you the foundations to make your own career choices later. Physics and maths are a truly enviable foundation.

[Cornfed]

It might be a very partial view, but in times like these advanced knowledge in physics, with a good grounding in maths and perhaps in one specialised area (say, climate modeling) is one of the most sought after skillset around. Cornfed is right in encouraging you, but I believe he's wrong in thinking that a graduate in physics is ultra-specialised. Physics and maths are some of the most general skills a young person can possess, and they make for an excellent foundation for any profession in virtually any industry, from finance and economics to management consulting, engineering to research and teaching.

As does (or would) writing well, good grammar, historical knowledge, moral insight etc. The trouble is that there is virtually no interest in hiring men with such a grounding these days. In fact, it is exactly the opposite.

[jrd.ffer]

I would align more with Jester's point and say, as long as your degree is with a reputable college and you have demonstrable skills in maths and physics and possibly a postgrad degree in one specialised area (4-5 years of college), you'll be one of the most employable people across the entire world. Guaranteed.

By the way, this isn't from a young unexperienced guy. I have been working as a financial IT specialist in the City (London) for quite a while and the number of physics graduates, some but not all with a PhD, working as traders, quantitative analysts or developers, analysts, economists, or "simple" software developers is mind-boggling.

The key nowadays is not specialisation, but generalisation, which gives you the foundations to make your own career choices later. Physics and maths are a truly enviable foundation.

I did take a course in derivative modeling and finance does use many mathematical models also found in physics (the random walk model for polymers and options, the heat flow equation). Pursuing a job from the financial angle is tough-I have investigated this pretty well tried connections, etc- and at this point I have good reason to doubt I match any prototype of a physics-major turned trader.

I think generalization is awkward when it comes to physics. You have a skill-set that can't really be crammed into many things. I've been looking at entry-level positions available at communications and engineering firms. Chemists, accountants, programmers who know 6+ languages well can expect to see help wanted.

I do know people who've graduated, and the job market isn't charitable. Though a few I know of have gotten engineering jobs.

[jrd.ffer]

(1)
Graduate on schedule with good results and REFERENCES (brown-nose a couple of professors you like, talk with them, make friends)

(A)
Get certified in one of the currently in-demand computer languages that offer work (other guys on here know this stuff). This will bring work here, and eventually location-independent. This work will suit you.
(B)
Get a CELTA certificate, no matter where you have to go to get it. With a BS in Physics, and CELTA, you will be prime meat for high-paying teaching jobs in the Persian Gulf and at prestigious international schools all over the world. Eventually they will phase you out of teaching English, and just have you teach math, physics or programming.

I've heard those teaching jobs in the Gulf are actually low-paying with a high turnover rate. Only Oman and (maybe) Bahrain would be tolerable. Also, from what you know, would knowing Arabic command a premium?

I've thought about the computer languages approach. I know some Python and Matlab, but most job listings demand C#, Javascript, Php, and several others. It seems like 3 or 4 languages would be the minimum to know. And it seems like starting from year 0 to pick up that many.

Not trying to shoot down your suggestions, but I have built a lot of resentment and pessimism from attending college, and a little paranoid about future steps. But your, and everyone else's posts are helping me think a little more clearly.

[jrd.ffer]

It might be a very partial view, but in times like these advanced knowledge in physics, with a good grounding in maths and perhaps in one specialised area (say, climate modeling) is one of the most sought after skillset around. Cornfed is right in encouraging you, but I believe he's wrong in thinking that a graduate in physics is ultra-specialised. Physics and maths are some of the most general skills a young person can possess, and they make for an excellent foundation for any profession in virtually any industry, from finance and economics to management consulting, engineering to research and teaching.

As does (or would) writing well, good grammar, historical knowledge, moral insight etc. The trouble is that there is virtually no interest in hiring men with such a grounding these days. In fact, it is exactly the opposite.

I think you're saying that physics is a specialization that requires certain qualities (discipline, conceptual thinking, among others) to attain knowledge of an important theoretical framework. Employers and people within networks don't really value that.

[jrd.ffer]

But at the moment it doesn't sound like you have any advanced specialized skills, if you haven't even graduated yet then your knowledge is very general. In most fields it takes many years to develop advanced specialized knowledge and skills, I would think this would be particularly true about physics.

Well, it's also about getting a foot in the door to develop those skills. When I see entry-level positions, I do not see 'Physics graduate wanted' or 'Engineering or related field' but rather 'Accounting' or 'Electrical Engineer.' It's the job listings that are specific.

[Cornfed]

I think you're saying that physics is a specialization that requires certain qualities (discipline, conceptual thinking, among others) to attain knowledge of an important theoretical framework. Employers and people within networks don't really value that.

Yeah employers/corps might value getting particular tasks done, for which you simply need experience doing those tasks, which is of course problematic if they won't employ you to get that experience in the first place. Any thought of bringing new generations of young men forward to expand the boundaries of human knowledge and take us to the stars etc. is long since out the window. As for most employers, you are at best just a machine to them to be used until it breaks down and then replaced with another machine. But really though, most of physics is now just a welfare project benefiting incumbent physicists.