Career Options for Physicists

A data scientist will spend most of their time analyzing data and designing and developing models to predict how something will behave based on data of how it has behaved in the past.

Business, technology, and education consultants work with various clients, combining data and analytics skills with relevant knowledge to find solutions within that sector.

A career as a government funded laboratory physicist often involves managing resources and people, in addition to doing research.

A college graduate with an undergraduate degree in physics or physics education may consider a career in high school physics teaching.

Medical physics opens doors to many types of career paths: one can find research and development work in industry or government, teach and conduct research in academia, or pursue the clinical track.

Most liberal arts institutions expect faculty to teach courses and direct undergraduate research, so colleges will be looking for evidence of an ability to do this successfully.

This career path begins with a bachelor's, master’s, or PhD in physics or a closely related discipline like engineering or mathematics, with a major emphasis in physics.

PhD grads in physics or related fields may pursue their career path as a postdoctoral researcher in research-focused and education-focused positions.

A physicist in the research and development industry would spend most of his or her time conducting research, performing literature and patent searches, and working on other projects.

At the PhD level, physicists in sales and marketing roles may be responsible for managing the company's resources or exploring new and more effective ways that the company can market their product.

Private sector jobs requiring a bachelor of science degree typically also look for experience in experimental research through on-campus research, summer research projects, or REUs.

For bachelor level physicist at a national lab, strong technical skills are a must, as scientists at this level often function as the interface with engineering or in an engineering role themselves.