Career advice?

Associate
Joined
30 Mar 2024
Posts
1
Location
England
Hi, I'm stuck. I think I am a fairly employable individual (or soon to be, once I graduate), but I have no idea what I want to do or what is even an option for me.

I am going to graduate with my master's in an integrated master's course next year. It is an MPhys in Physics with Philosophy at the University of Lincoln (above average but fairly standard UK university, but it has an exceptional school of maths and physics and runs a high-tier philosophy programme too). I am at the top of my class and expect to graduate with a first.

1. As a result of my studies, I have very good English skills (better than most native speakers), good math and physics skills, and I'm quite computationally literate with a small amount of programming experience.
2. I'm very good generally at problem solving (whether that's philosophy- or math-based or philosophy-based).
3. I was a course representative for most of my 4 years at my university and spent a lot of time working with the staff and other students to improve my course, and I was a school ambassador, which meant being one of the students on open days who interacts with prospective students and offer-holders in order to convince them to enrol at my university; being a course rep was voluntary, and the ambassadorship was a paid role. I was extremely committed to and enthusiastic about both.
4. I also did an academic project at my university in which I was given a research grant of £1000 to spend 6 weeks across my summer working on a project that delved into the intersection of physics and philosophy and eventually had my report published in my university e-journal, as well as presenting a poster at a conference.
5. I have some work experience at a paragliding school where I helped run training sessions and sometimes gave instruction; at a hospice where I volunteered for a year and a half working alongside nurses to provide palliative care to patients; and I did a 6-month stint as a contact tracer during the pandemic where I spent most of my days on the phone with people who might have COVID, providing medical instruction on how to self-isolate, do tests, and get help.
6. I'm talented at writing and am fairly knowledgeable across a range of fields (psychology, philosophy, math, physics), and I know a little in terms of politics, history, geography, art, and literature.\
7. I have good social skills (I have a lot of friends, and I am active in the philosophy society).
8. I am also reasonably well travelled and have visited a number of countries on my own accord, and I am reasonably well-read and have gone through a lot of classic literature.

What jobs would you recommend someone like me for once they graduate? I could see myself entering the physics industry, but I'm not really sure what that means or what jobs are available to be honest.

I could also see myself becoming an academic, but the prospect of living near poverty (which is often the case amongst academics) is intimidating to me.

I am also extremely tempted to move abroad for work. I do not like it in England; I honestly feel like this country has been left for the dogs.
 
What jobs would you recommend someone like me for once they graduate?

Try to do something you'll enjoy/find interesting and you'll have a better chance at making a success of it. Obviously, there are mundane aspects to many jobs; a teacher might love teaching but get frustrated by admin/marking, a software developer might love building new features or working on completely new projects but also dislike getting bogged down with maintenance stuff or having to write documentation etc.. but the core part of that job - the actual teaching or the actual creation of new software being something that they enjoy is what is more likely to lead to success and being happy in that role.

I could see myself entering the physics industry, but I'm not really sure what that means or what jobs are available to be honest.

Well, I guess there isn't one per se, rather there are physicists who work in industry/some fields that directly employ physicists as physicists + some other fields that value physicists for non-physicist jobs.

For example, if you like the nuclear side of things then there would be two obvious fields; medical physics and the nuclear industry - in the latter case AFAIK you can be employed as a physicist or as a nuclear engineer, and in the former case you'd be employed as a physicist.

IIRC with medical physics you can get a free master's degree and work on a PhD part time + continue to conduct research and publish while earning an NHS clinical scientist salary. Worked out well for a relative of mine - also had a part-time lecturer role at a Russell Group uni too.

For non-physicist roles where a physics degree is still highly valued:

Engineering: There's bound to be scope to convert to an Engineering role in various fields from optics to electronics to working on small satellites/space engineering etc.

Also Machine Learning/AI - especially if you've covered some statistical physics - plenty of well-known researchers have a physics background. Not only is it a useful undergrad to have to understand ML in general + obviously directly applicable w.r.t energy-based models but there's also some fringe areas there to look at perhaps - thermodynamic computing for example.

Lastly, perhaps not so hot anymore: quant finance. The traditional area for physicists and applied mathematicians was modeling/pricing derivatives in "sell side" firms (banks, brokers) - there are still quant roles and quant developer roles out there that do require that. The other type of quant/researcher role is more focused on stats/ML and more often found in "buy side" firms (hedge funds, trading firms). Some firms will be a bit snobby about where they initially recruit from and will have *target* universities + recruit from people who already did a summer internship at the firm but there are still ways in via smaller, less well known firms or via software vendors or small consultancies etc.

I guess also you could train to become an actuary - they value people with a strong mathematical background, it's a well-paid career and within the insurance industry has established career progression that can lead all the way to CEO positions even + you could even sit an exam or two on your own initiative first.
 
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Hi, I'm stuck.

Go to this open day in May:


That was my client until a year or so ago, they do a lot of the things you mention. The staff are generally really nice and I'm pretty sure the pay is decent too.

The open day will give you a good feel for the place and what they do, if you like it, chuck your hat in the ring. They're always looking for new folks.
 
Project management in Software.

They all love to code but are really **** at meeting a deadline :)
 
Do you think AI is writing this stuff? or are there really people are making this stuff up?

Makes my mind boggle Dowie wasted loads of time replying, needs to get a new troll radar
 
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Do you think AI is writing this stuff? or are there really people are making this stuff up?

Makes my mind boggle Dowie wasted loads of time replying, needs to get a new troll radar

But there was nothing obviously trollish about the OP, he laid out some pretty specific details, maybe he just didn't want to stick around on the forums beyond using this subform.

It's only retrospectively, after he's not replied, that you can say oh that was a bit rude to not follow up or maybe it was some weird spam.

It doesn't take that long to type out a reply though, it's just a few mins of chain of thought suggestion stuff typed out in one go.
 
It's some kind of spam because it's not the first kind of post you would make on a computer forum and way too detailed. Hence no reply.

You guys are forgetting that OCUK is high on google search results, it's not uncommon for someone to make a first post in a non-computer subforum, especially if this came up high in a google search for career stuff.

See just last month too, someone asked about degrees/degree apprenticeships with their first post and a detailed one:

If they'd chosen not to post any follow-up replies would you conclude that it was spam too - if so what's the purpose of the spam? Sometimes people just post questions and don't bother engaging with a forum again. In the case of that poster, he's only followed up a couple of times in that thread and then vanished.
 
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Mind boggles that you still think this is genuine, who wakes up one day and thinks I know what I am going to do, go and get loads of degrees with no idea at all what job I want to do..

Who the **** goes to uni with no idea of what job they want to do after coming out the other side

Guy really loves himself aswell must spend most of the day looking at him self in a mirror
 
Mind boggles that you still think this is genuine, who wakes up one day and thinks I know what I am going to do, go and get loads of degrees with no idea at all what job I want to do..

Who the **** goes to uni with no idea of what job they want to do after coming out the other side

Guy really loves himself aswell must spend most of the day looking at him self in a mirror
A significant proportion of the graduate population do this.
 
Mind boggles that you still think this is genuine, who wakes up one day and thinks I know what I am going to do, go and get loads of degrees with no idea at all what job I want to do..

Who the **** goes to uni with no idea of what job they want to do after coming out the other side

Guy really loves himself aswell must spend most of the day looking at him self in a mirror
His English skills are better than most native speakers though.
 
At least he has a LinkedIn account: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joseph-davidson-b2b4161a1/

Hi, I'm stuck. I think I am a fairly employable individual (or soon to be, once I graduate), but I have no idea what I want to do or what is even an option for me.

I am going to graduate with my master's in an integrated master's course next year. It is an MPhys in Physics with Philosophy at the University of Lincoln (above average but fairly standard UK university, but it has an exceptional school of maths and physics and runs a high-tier philosophy programme too). I am at the top of my class and expect to graduate with a first.

1. As a result of my studies, I have very good English skills (better than most native speakers), good math and physics skills, and I'm quite computationally literate with a small amount of programming experience.
2. I'm very good generally at problem solving (whether that's philosophy- or math-based or philosophy-based).
3. I was a course representative for most of my 4 years at my university and spent a lot of time working with the staff and other students to improve my course, and I was a school ambassador, which meant being one of the students on open days who interacts with prospective students and offer-holders in order to convince them to enrol at my university; being a course rep was voluntary, and the ambassadorship was a paid role. I was extremely committed to and enthusiastic about both.
4. I also did an academic project at my university in which I was given a research grant of £1000 to spend 6 weeks across my summer working on a project that delved into the intersection of physics and philosophy and eventually had my report published in my university e-journal, as well as presenting a poster at a conference.
5. I have some work experience at a paragliding school where I helped run training sessions and sometimes gave instruction; at a hospice where I volunteered for a year and a half working alongside nurses to provide palliative care to patients; and I did a 6-month stint as a contact tracer during the pandemic where I spent most of my days on the phone with people who might have COVID, providing medical instruction on how to self-isolate, do tests, and get help.
6. I'm talented at writing and am fairly knowledgeable across a range of fields (psychology, philosophy, math, physics), and I know a little in terms of politics, history, geography, art, and literature.\
7. I have good social skills (I have a lot of friends, and I am active in the philosophy society).
8. I am also reasonably well travelled and have visited a number of countries on my own accord, and I am reasonably well-read and have gone through a lot of classic literature.

What jobs would you recommend someone like me for once they graduate? I could see myself entering the physics industry, but I'm not really sure what that means or what jobs are available to be honest.

I could also see myself becoming an academic, but the prospect of living near poverty (which is often the case amongst academics) is intimidating to me.

I am also extremely tempted to move abroad for work. I do not like it in England; I honestly feel like this country has been left for the dogs.

The world is your oyster..

I'd personally recommend CERN, broad range of roles and they lap up grads like this.. a good chance to get out of the UK (you'll soon find the UK is not what you think it is) and also get exposure to a broad range of roles. I think Science Communication would be a good area that plays to your high level of expertise, but play it by ear.
 
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