[ad_1]
I’m a physics grad (MS Physics 1st semester) in CSU Fresno and have a bachelor’s degree in physics as well.
Initially as a kid, I was really fascinated by science and wanted to become a physicist. I had planned that my career path would be a bachelor’s in physics, then a masters and a PhD in a field of interest within physics (probably astronomy). But now, when one practically enters the field and studies the hardcore material which is way more abstract than I imagined, it’s a lot more difficult to keep up (not because of the sheer level of difficulty but the final output one gets as a physicist). Also, I’ve known for sure that physics is not a high paying field of work (especially theoretical physics, which I’m least interested in) when one compares it to other technical STEM jobs. I won’t say I’m the cream-of-the-crop in physics otherwise I would’ve joined a premier institution for grad school. Even then, I sought out to do a masters to see how things are in reality.
Now I realize physics is not so fun to be honest. Not because it’s complex, but because it’s not practical. Ofcourse, that’s what I should have expected before stepping into this field. But I have become a bit more money-minded nowadays, and a PhD would definitely not be an optimum path for this. I’m not so great in research, in fact, I haven’t been able to write papers at all. My undergrad got spoilt because of COVID and online classes. The exams were easy to pass since we only had multiple choice questions and it was barely an inconvenience. Since studying was just for passing exams and nothing else, I never got motivated to do something extra out of the exam course ever. I regret that my undergrad wasn’t so great.
Now I think I wanna change my major from physics to something more practical in STEM. I’m considering data science as it pays well and I love math (not an expert, but I still love it regardless) and it’s a lot more practical since the amount of data is increasing each day.
So I’ll probably finish my masters in physics and then maybe do a diploma/another masters aimed towards data science/analysis. All I wanna see is whether I’ve got the skills (or at least the ability to learn it quickly) to be able to dive deeper into data science or not. What do I actually need to do in order to make this transition from physics to data science in terms of knowledge and application?
I have been doing a bit of coding in C++ in this semester (and 2 years in high school as well) and I’m gonna take undergrad python class next semester. But other than that, I would really love to get feedback from the experts on this and things to take care of when entering this field, expectations and reality as well.
[ad_2]
View Reddit by Quiet-Aspect5373 – View Source