I'm currently in my first year of college ill be majoring

>>8082332
museum/planetarium jobs are extremely competitive due to the fact that universities pump out far more physics/astrophysics majors than are jobs created by the market

your best bet (and it's not a very good bet) is to go for grad school & pray you get into a good grad school, complete a phd & pray your phd is compelling/interesting, apply for post-doc positions & pray you actually get accepted/get accepted into another distinct good school, apply for tenure track jobs & pray you get one

note that schools also pump out far more phd graduates than empty professor spots per year

to be honest, if you're concerned enough about career paths then your best bet is to go into engineering and study astrophysics recreationally either simultaneously or after you're done your degree

>>8082332
The fact that having a PhD has become less and less powerful over the last century, to the point where it's highly unlikely you'll get a tenure position, is largely due to the relaxation of admission standards at the undergraduate level. Applicants are getting lower quality each year, class sizes are increasing, and yet professor positions remain largely the same number.

Alternatively, if you do work in some physics related field that employs advanced & interesting numerical methods then there's a possible career path in quantitative finance/investment banking for you.

>>8082345
is the stem field really that fucking depleted?

>>8082345
Is there even a benefit to formal education in physics?

Would you be better off to take a different degree and go autodidact if you are fascinated by it?

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>>8082332

No employer is going to even look at your resume or cover letter the moment they see you not capitalizing your I's

>>8082370
Sorry Is thIs better?

>>8082361

You mean depleted for careers outside of academia? In depends on the field. Statistics is a good one for careers, especially with some good algorithm/software engineering knowledge to back it up. Every once in a while I see postings by my federal gov't for mathematicians working in abstract algebra/number theory/other non-analysis pure path domains for cryptography. Any other math major can go into actuarial/banking pretty easy after a bit of coursework/accreditation (CFA, FRM, etc).

On the other hand, I hear chemistry careers for PhDs are getting pretty bad these days (maybe it was just undergrads?), and bio has always been a joke when considering career paths outside of medicine/pharma (pharma would also require chemistry graduate work). Engineering is obviously mostly safe from this, depending on your particular geographic setting and engineering specialty.

As a rule of thumb, the only value a lot of the "academic" parts of STEM fields provide is in their ability to perform interesting numerical/computational methods. If you must go into astrophysics then I highly recommend a minor in software engineering or computer science.

>>8082369

It depends what you mean by "better off". If you mean better off financially, then I would be willing to bet a lot of money on the proposition that a person w/ a degree in physics would have a lower salary than a person w/ a stats/engineering degree over the 10 years after they graduate, in expectation.

Resources for self-teaching are getting better each year, and a person's apprehension towards the idea of doing so is typically because they fear they will lack the motivation. In which case, you have to ask yourself if you're really that passionate about a subject if you're not able to get yourself to study it on your own.

That said, I can appreciate the value in studying physics for its own sake. It's an interesting topic (I'm not a physics major, but I really do like to read about it), but with an engineering degree you'd be in a good position to build up the physics from the knowledge you had learned in class.

There's a certain point in everyone's life when they have to mature and wake up to market realities. Take it from someone who's completing a second undergraduate degree because my first was a dead field in the marketplace. And yes, doing a second undergrad sucks.

>>8082387
I'm just looking for another degree worth getting. I basically have a year before I can reapply to med school, and two before I can go. (I got fucked for having shit ECs/ no community service.)

I was to go into genetics research, so studying physics/biophysics seemed like a good bet, particularly since I want to learn advanced applied math.

>>8082393
If any degree is on the table then, If I were forced to go into a third degree then I'd go for software engineering. But I hope to fuck I don't have to do that.

Actuaries make good money and you don't have to have a math/stats degree to get those jobs, you only need pass the exams. So, if you're good at self-studying then consider that. HOWEVER, the actual job of being an actuary is shitty and awful from what I've heard (think excel monkey with babby-tier stats and accounting).

If you like applied math and physics then anything in engineering makes sense to me. But like I said, if you're not doing Software Engineering then go for a software engineering/CS minor in addition to your other major.

Don't do a CS major unless you want to be a code monkey for the rest of your career praying you get promoted to """"""team leader"""""" every day as you go back to your rent controlled apartment in a condemned neighbourhood, unable to crap together enough cash to make a downpayment on a mortgage since the garbage boomer generation has sucked them all up while interest rates were in their favour and are just sitting on tons of property while their useless aging corpses absorb public benefits & tax dollars. I can't wait until they all fucking die already.

>>8082332

spacex 300k starting

>>8082332
Better head straight into grad school cause a bachelor's in physics ain't worth the paper it's printed on

If this is news to you and you don't want to be in school for 10+ years straight, then switch to an engineering major, something like mechanical or aerospace or chemical so you won't be competing with a million Pajeets for some shitty front-end engineering job at some tech firm

>>8082623
I don't understand why the applied market would be so much better.

I know for a fact tens of thousands poor into those degree programs.

>>8082637

the applied market is better because despite still being competitive, it has the distinct advantage of actually existing. something the theoretrical market can't claim

>>8082406

I got my CS degree from a shitty school and now I make enough on an entry-level salary to live in a luxury-ish apartment in an area that I severely doubt has ever known crime.

The trick is to
1) Learn fucking C++ instead of JavaScript or Ruby. Pretty much every tech company doing anything remotely interesting (you can usually tell if a company's working on something interesting by checking whether or not they call it a "web app" or use the word "cloud") is starved for good C++ programmers (or even mediocre ones like me), and if C++ is too hard for you you weren't cut out to be a programmer anyway. (Java will also do in a pinch, or Ada if you want to get one of those sweet, sweet tax-dollar-sucking aerospace jobs.)
2) Don't go to Silicon Valley or the Bay Area. Why? Because EVERY OTHER money-hungry programmer-wannabe is going there and driving the cost of living through the ceiling. Basic fucking supply and demand.