The Early Careers of Physics Bachelors

by Rachel Ivie and Katie Stowe

Highlights

Five to eight years after graduating, only about one-third of people who earned bachelor’s degrees in physics do not have any additional degrees Figure 1. This report focuses on this group—physics bachelors with no additional degrees who are not primarily students.
Three-fourths of these physics bachelors work in science-related jobs, including software, engineering, high school teachers, and managers in technical fields. The largest group—about one-fourth—are employed in software jobs Table 1. These physics bachelors graduated in the early 1990s during the rapid expansion of the IT industry.
30% of these physics bachelors are still working in their first career-path job five to eight years after graduation.
Those who are employed in software jobs are much less likely to use the parts of their education that are exclusive to physics than those employed in engineering, math, and science jobs Figure 2.
About 70% of those employed in engineering, math, and science rate their physics preparation highly. However, they did not rate their preparation in terms of scientific research experience, lab skills, and scientific software as highly Figure 5.
There are some discrepancies between how much these physics bachelors say they use some skills and how well they felt prepared to use that skill. For example, most say that they spend a lot of time working with co-workers. However, they did not rate their undergraduate preparation in this area very highly Figure 6.
60% of these physics bachelors say they would major in physics again.