Physics and engineering are two very common toss ups for students including myself when I was in high school
Maybe you've taken a high school physics course liked it a lot
But don't know if that directly is the best route versus engineering since engineers
Of course use physics on top of engineering principles to solve problems
well
I'm going to lay out the differences between each major
The pros and cons of both and what your options?
Are then hopefully you can make an informed decision if you have not seen the physics video
I made I recommend you do that before this because I left a lot of more technical information out of this one
So it would not be too repetitive. I will repeat some things though in case you are gonna go through this video first
before anything
Let's start the pros and cons of each major
Because based on how long you want to be in school or what options you want afterwards this may push you in one direction
One pro of engineering is that has more direct career paths
if you study mechanical
engineering you would apply for mechanical engineering related jobs with a title related to what you studied as
I'll talk about soon a lot of people who study physics don't work in physics jobs
then you only need a bachelor's degree for most engineering majors and you can definitely be making pretty good money right after graduation if
You want you could go right into the workforce
Find a full-time job that allows you to support yourself and work your way up from there
Physics on the other hand opens you up to a wide range of job sectors, so it is engineering
But if you look at the stats
You'll find physics graduates with bachelor's ending up in engineering rules suffer developer rules of finance positions as teachers and so on
It might not be the best direct path to an engineering job, for example, but it totally happens
You also gain a lot of foundations as a physics major in terms of the various branches within the field
You learn concepts from the ground up such as thermodynamics classical physics quantum physics, etc
And if you decide to engineering afterwards as a masters
Let's say your technical background will be advantageous and accelerate your ability to grasp engineering theory the main con of physics
Is that in most cases? You need a PhD to work as a physicist?
You want to work an astrophysics string theory high-energy laser research work with particle accelerators
Relativity work on quantum computers, etc, and perform the role of a physics researcher in those fields. You really need a PhD
If you just want to go to college for four years and jump into the workforce, maybe engineering is better for you
But and not required if you are willing to be in school for probably eight to ten years after high school
in which you'll do four or five years of a bachelor's then likely four to seven years of a master's and/or PhD so you can
work as a researcher in physics, and of course starting with a physics bachelor's is a good place to be and
The other kind of physics is the career path isn't as defined
Even if you do a physics PhD because you want to work as an astrophysics researcher at MIT or another big research school
There aren't enough spots for everyone
You may end up at a tech company instead maybe as a data scientist at a defense company and so on
Nothing wrong with those at all either
It's very likely you will find a job you like but keep your options open in case it's not
Exactly that one thing you wanted to do
Now for cons of engineering I've seen people post several that are more specific to them in general terms
the only thing I could really think of which is more on the topic of getting a bachelor's is you might not start with the
Most exciting work which really applies to physics bachelors as well
Some people work for companies that do cool things
but they start with very basic assignments that aren't exactly the advanced research or design work you may want to do I
Mean, maybe you will start with that
There's no way to predict what your career will entail to begin
But in most cases got to work your way up to your dream job. You won't start there
Now there is overlap on what you can do in both of these fields
But I'm gonna list some careers that might be more geared towards engineers and then some geared towards those physics PhD positions
If you have an interest in designing bridges tunnels dams roads
Buildings that can stand up to earthquakes, etc. Then civil engineering might be good for you
aerospace engineers can work on the structure of an air or spacecraft
Design and test the propulsion system ensure that an aircraft is capable of traveling at supersonic speeds analyze the aerodynamics and so on
Electrical engineers can help improve the efficiency and speed of electronic systems
Like those in your phone and computer all the way to those and satellites you could work on wireless communications
And ensure that two satellites can communicate with each other securely or you could help improve the coverage for a cell phone company
You can work on solar panels power systems and more
chemical engineers can work on chemical reactors
Control systems safety systems and more for places like Procter & Gamble or Budweiser where large chemical reactions take place
And everything must be handled very properly
Chemical engineers work on the process that makes solar panels computer chips food and drinks medicine rocket fuel and so on
mechanical engineers can work on cars including the engine
Structure suspension and braking they could work on aircrafts robotics
Maintaining a proper temperature within a spacecraft they've helped make wind turbines that are aerodynamic and highly efficient their submarines
Rollercoasters biomedical equipment and so much more. This is one of the most broad engineering disciplines there is
Engineers write software build control systems develop ways to help the environment
Design medical tools power plants renewable energy technologies and plenty more I could honestly keep going for a while
But note that engineers are not the only ones who work on these and physics majors could get into several of these fields
However, in general a lot of these are more geared towards engineers and if any of them interest you engineering might be a better major
Especially from a research perspective. You will see physicists in these positions like improving the speed of computer chips, for example, but again,
most of these are classic engineering examples now engineering has all these branches but if you study physics
You'll likely start simply as a physics major where you'll learn foundations of various branches of physics
however, when you go to grad school there are many fields for you to get into that can lead to different areas of research an
Astrophysicist or cosmologists may study black holes
galaxies supernovas the Cosmic Microwave Background
dark energy and why the universe is accelerating etc a
Plasma physicist may work on research and fusion energy
Which is the process that powers stars like the Sun which we want to use here on earth to power our homes and businesses
They can work on ion thruster research, which is a form of electric propulsion for spacecrafts
Then a very common but not well understood phenomena that exists in the universe is something called magnetic reconnection
Which when magnetic field lines within a plasma break and quickly reconnect as an example of research Princeton has a magnetic reconnection
experiment in which they generate and study these reconnections under lab conditions in order to teach us more about solar flares Aurora's and more a
Condensed matter physicist can do research and superconductors or conductors with no electrical resistance
These currently only exist at very cold temperatures, but we can create ones that room-temperature there would be countless applications
Including faster computers very accurate sensors all the way to cars that can hover above the ground
Then one specific area of research is spintronics, which is about manipulating electron spin in order to produce certain results
Because electrons are charged the spin gives electrons the properties of magnets
Current research is mostly about using that spin as a carrier of information so we can represent data by the direction of that spin
Instead of physically moving charge or current some of this research has led to electronics with enhanced memory reduce power consumption and more
These physicists could work on lasers and nanotechnology as well just to name a few fields
This is a big branch as it deals with the macroscopic and microscopic properties of matter
Particle physicists are the ones working with particle accelerators and trying to understand physics beyond the standard model
This model classifies the known elementary particles which are not made up of anything else and also describes three of the four fundamental forces
The gravitational force is the big missing piece to this puzzle that the model does not explain at least yet
The standard model is a great low-energy approximation
But is not valid at higher energies where gravity cannot be ignored like it can for small particles
the theoretical math behind including gravity in this model leads to infinities that we cannot make sense of currently and
experimentally
We would ideally like to detect a graviton a hypothetical particle
responsible for the gravitational force that we would include in the standard model
But we have never detected one and we know that doing so would be very very difficult
Physicists are hard at work trying to piece this all together though
Particle physicists are also looking to explain things like the nature of dark matter and dark energy which are two topics
We know very little about dealing with the movement of galaxies and the expansion of the universe
Particle physicists are also trying to determine the mass of a neutrino. Which once was thought to be massless
But now we know is not the question of what their mass is still remains
they're exploring the origin of mass structure of a proton the of hot and dense matter of the early universe and plenty more and
Of course
There are a lot more
Subfields, but these are just some of the unique areas of research you can get into and you can see their popularity here
now like I said in the physics video a lot of these jobs lie in academia where you do research for a
University in your field of expertise and work as a professor as well
or a good amount of these jobs can be found at National Labs or government agencies where you do a lot of
experimental physics related research
If you don't want a job in academia
Businesses can of course get research jobs in industry where you'd work for a company such as Google Boeing Microsoft, etc
Who hire physics PhDs these are where you could work on laser technology high-speed circuits quantum computers and so on
This research is more often for the purpose of making a product for that company rather than determining the physics of black holes. For example
Next I want to show a little about the differences in the curriculum for both physics and engineering
There of course way too many engineering disciplines to go over everything
But I will talk about classes that are similar and also how they differ
Two of the most famous engineering classes that most engineers take are statics and dynamics
Statics is basically a physics class on systems that are not moving
Examples from a textbook would be like some network of pipes or a bridge truss
Nothing is moving in these systems
So you'd be asked to find the force or torque at various locations within the system so you can see what one beam
let's say feels in which way it wants to move a
Dynamics class would be about systems that are moving
Examples of problems would be like some complex pendulum that swings back and forth this problem specifically asks the maximum angular acceleration
So the crate does not slip given some coefficient of friction
Where you might have some system with a lot of moving components?
Or you'd be asked to find the velocity of a certain beam based on given information
These classes are all about classical systems
Nothing on an atomic scale or anything like that and they involve plenty of math vectors calculus, etc
But they are a little more on the engineering side
Physics majors on the other hand take a class called classical mechanics, which is again all about macroscopic systems projectiles, etc
So what's the difference well in this class at least at most colleges they learn more about the underlying math behind macroscopic systems
Solve more general physics problems from there. If you've seen my physics video, you know, they learn about Lagrange's and Hamilton's equations
Which give you a lot of power in terms of representing complex systems?
Directly from a textbook you could be given a problem in which a mass slides down a circular wedge
Four people have some basic physics knowledge. This may seem easy
but in this problem
there is no friction on the wedge or the ground and you'd be asked to find the equations of motion for both the mass and
the wedge itself
Here's the answer by the way to emphasize the complexity compared to what you may think
Or you could be given some complex oscillating system in which you need to determine the equations of motion
So there is some overlap for physics majors and engineers in terms of the types of questions
Whether it be an oscillating system
Like this one a center of mass problem and so on
But a physics major will usually derive equations of motion from the ground up and deal with a more broad range of physical systems
Whereas engineers use a lot of already known concepts to deal with complex systems
Yes, I am generalizing a bit here, but hopefully you get the idea
Another huge class for certain engineering disciplines is thermodynamics where as physics majors take a class on thermal physics often called statistical mechanics
Well, they of course both view of heat and temperature how they relate to energy, etc
And thermodynamics class is more about the practical applications. Whereas thermal physics covers more of the underlying science a
Thermodynamics class would involve problems dealing with heat exchangers and turbines where you might have to determine the net power developed
There'd be various problems dealing with engines or aircraft propulsion systems. You learn about refrigeration cycles and more a
Thermal physics class would have more general problems
So just estimate the probability that a certain volume within a room becomes devoid of air
Or you could be asked to find the equations of State for two different types of ideal gases in the limit of high temperatures. I
Mentioned before how when you cool a certain class of particles called bosons to near absolute zero you obtain something called a bose-einstein
Condensate which some people called the fifth state of matter and it's also topic of interest in thermal physics
So you see how it's a little more broad and less on the practical side than an engineering class
These thermal physics courses which you can take a few of an undergrad go into way more depth than what I've talked about though
Honestly, I had to do a bit of searching to find problems
That would be generally understood by the audience
Most questions within the thermal physics textbook were a bit more complicated in math heavy
But this is nothing you need to worry about now
So as you can see, there are differences, but both engineers and physicists learn a lot of the same basics
You got to learn entropy the laws of thermodynamics basic equations and so on
If you flip through these text books though, you would notice a difference in topics
And also the physics side of things is a bit more math intensive
another overlap between physicists and engineers is electromagnetism, which is really something electrical engineers of all engineering disciplines mainly take
There's a lot of overlap in these classes where you learn the equations that govern electromagnetic waves
Which make it so we can talk on the phone listen to the radio and so on
Both majors learn about waveguides which allow these waves to travel a certain path to a receiver or electrical system with minimal loss of energy
When I was working on satellites at my first job
These were the things that we're carrying the wireless signal from the receiving antenna to the computer for analysis
So they are used a lot in high-frequency systems
Electrical engineers would have a lab for this class in a lot of cases though where you'd analyze how very high-frequency
signals behave when traveling through special cables
When you have voltage and currents oscillating in a cable
Billions of times per second a lot happens and in a lab electrical engineers would analyze these effects such as reflection
transmission and so on a
Physics major will learn more of the theory may go beyond engineering
Applications such as relativistic electromagnetism how these waves would appear to observers moving close to the speed of light
Physics majors that also take a circuit slash electronics class where you learn a lot of circuit components and circuit analysis
this will likely be like learning two or three electrical engineering courses all in one will go in a much less depth and
Lastly there's a physics course called quantum mechanics
Which is huge for physics majors and they do take a few of them
But electrical engineers and often computer engineers will take one as well. But just one
The reason is because some of the topics in that class can be applied to how electrons and atoms behave within
transistors one of the key electrical components within your electronics
Electrical and computer engineers to learn a little about the chemistry and physics of these circuit components in their semiconductor course
which requires some quantum six knowledge
But then they go on to do actual circuit analysis with them instead of diving into the upper division quantum mechanics material like physics majors
do
Now these are some of the similarities but honestly
There are many more differences in physics and engineering curricula than similarities to name
Just a couple aerospace engineers to your course specifically on aircraft or spacecraft propulsion systems or one on supersonic aerodynamics
electrical engineers take classes on power systems or signals
civil engineers take courses on reinforced concrete design or take courses on seismic principles and how to make structures earthquake resistance and
computer engineers take courses on micro processors the central processing unit and more and
That's just a few examples of courses that physics majors won't take so
overall, yes, if you look at any engineering flow chart you'd see only a few classes that overlap but physics majors take however
there is overlap in some material here and there like thermal physics and these thermodynamics classes or the dynamics class and classical mechanics a
Physics major again dives more into physics subfields and can take elective classes and particle physics
relativity atmospheric physics condensed matter physics and plenty more which engineers are not required to take
So now if you're still on the fence and just cannot pick let's talk about your options
If you really want to study both you could look into engineering physics
I don't currently have the major on the channel, but it's been a very common request
It's basically a combination of physics and engineering where you take classes in both disciplines
Many people who go into this major end up going to graduate school for either physics or engineering afterwards
But this is not a very common major. So be sure to make sure the schools you're applying for habbit
Another option is you can take classes on the side that are not within your major
That could be for electives or maybe as a minor for those who go to schools that offer one
It's common to take like computer science classes along with a physics degree
Or lots of Engineers end up minoring in physics just to gain that extra knowledge
but one of the biggest questions I get is can I go from a physics bachelor's to an engineering master's or even PhD as
Well as vice-versa, I always gave me answers based of what I could find online
But for this video I decided to really figure it out
So even of about 20 of the more top-tier schools saying either I want to get a master's in engineering
But I have a bachelors physics or vice-versa. What are my options?
And here's what I found out in general
It seemed like going from a physics bachelor's to an engineering master's was a little easier to do which I'll go over first
For example an advisor from the aerospace engineering department at Purdue
Said some of our current aerospace engineering grads come from math and physics
Than mechanical computer and electrical engineering backgrounds
There were no specific prereqs and you could do your catching up in the master's program
You just take the undergrad classes in the beginning an advisor from the computer science department at the University of Washington
Sends a really helpful email and laid out how you don't need a computer science degree
But they do want you to have a background in these topics
So if you study physics and undergrad and want to do computer science in grad school
You should plan to take these courses on the side during your undergrad
Here's an email from a computer science advisor at the University of Illinois
One from a structural engineering advisor at UC San Diego and one from a bioengineering advisor at Rice
I'm not going to go over those but feel free to pause the video and read through them yourselves
Now if you want to go from an engineering bachelor's to a master's in physics
Here's what I found the most thorough email probably came from a Princeton adviser who said that again
You don't need an undergrad degree in physics, but they do like seeing completed coursework and a lot of those typical undergrad physics classes
For people going to school in the u.s
A GRE general exam and GRE subject test and physics is required for a lot of these schools
The GRE general exam is like the SAT or a CT for grad school as it covers multiple subjects
Then the physics GRE covers material from the first three years of undergrad physics specifically
So you can take those classes somewhere or even self-study and do well that'll improve your chances a lot
For those outside the u.s. They care much more about your grades and any research experience you have in the field
here's another email from a physics adviser at Cornell one from
Northwestern and for those in Europe I even sent an email to Cambridge if you want to read through that yourself so
If you want to do physics as a masters
But are not doing it for undergrad try to take several of their second and third year classes if possible
at my school all engineers take these physics courses
Anyway, then if you can manage to take at least four of these core physics courses and ideally a lab
Which is pretty much what a minor is
you would be in a really good position if you keep your GPA high and score high on necessary exams and
If you study physics and undergrad to want to do let's say computer science in grad school
Try getting a computer science minor or taking some of those key classes, ideally up through algorithms and theory of computation
For other engineering disciplines Alicia, I take their second year classes such as statics and dynamics, for example
as you'll see the one thing that every single
Email had in common was that you don't have to have any specific degree before entering a master's program
They often pick and it's on a case by case basis and look at many factors
So let's try to give yourself that extra boost by taking those extra classes and you should be able to find something
all these advisers were very nice and happy to help so of course reach out to schools of interest if you have any questions for
Them as well
Otherwise, that's it for this video if you enjoyed be sure to LIKE and subscribe
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