Physics GRE Discussion Forums

Please tell your opinion with reasons if possible. I hope this will be important for those who do not have a good undergrad research experience

Please consider all the factors including the demand, funding, research, jobs,...etc.

the title of this thread doesn't match the question posed in the poll.

yeah, do you want us to choose the most demanding as in the hardest field or do you want us to choose the field which will guarantee a safer future...

al-Haytham wrote:yeah, do you want us to choose the most demanding as in the hardest field or do you want us to choose the field which will guarantee a safer future...

Sorry....I changed the question.

Thanks

I suggest you to think of a model Hamiltonian which is a function of future happiness, success and safety(basically these are generalized coordinates). Then you can possibly use ideas from renormalization group(cuz of long range interactions, or you can ask RG how this works) to solve your model Hamiltonian. After all, success is probabilistic, so you can not aviod the concepts of statistical mechanics and the methods therein to solve your partition function.
Such a study has shown that cond matter is by far the safest field compared to any other fields in physics.
Well, this is all i can say and think of.

there's more money for condensed matter research, and it's also the best as far as getting an industry job if academia doesn't work out.

Haha, I find it funny that someone put high energy....ahh, if only this were true....

I do'nt know why theory was listed as a separate branch of physics from the rest... and I also don't know why bio/medical physics, which can lead to six-fig salaries, did not get more attention.

Biophysics and Medical Physics FTW!

I'm not applying to either, but really you can't go wrong with any career that has the words "bio" or "med" in it these days. I have been talking to a lot of people about biophysics; I might make the jump (from Soft Condensed Matter, not really a big jump since there are a lot of people doing both).

Hahaha, I was thinking the EXACT same thing hpharty! I love soft-condensed matter physics, but I think Im going to work with a biophysicist for now and move back to soft condensed matter if its not my cup of tea.

quizivex wrote:I do'nt know why theory was listed as a separate branch of physics from the rest... and I also don't know why bio/medical physics, which can lead to six-fig salaries, did not get more attention.

Exactly....Why is that?