Was told the "world would be my oyster" if I studied physics

The public thinks hard degree = guaranteed job.

>Literally no one is going to hire a fucking matlab programmer ffs.
Demonstrably untrue

I was told the same shit about a biology degree

If you really did graduate an ivy league school with honors, you can learn programming in a week buddy. Create some no-brainer pet projects (music tagger tool, graphing calculator, blog engine, whatever) in , upload them to github and attach it to your CV. Lie something about the missing years since graduation (e.g. that you were helping the fucking refugees in Africa or whatever) and get a comfy job as a programmer. You'll learn the rest as you go.

Did you try a quant route? Knowledge of stats with any programming language (python, matlab, mathematica) could get you there.

You are never going to ship a product in matlab. Matlab is strictly incapable of doing so.

Jobs that list matlab usually list other more solid programming languages and most likely only prefer people that know matlab aswell because it means they can test and prototype fast which means that production can happen much faster.

An example I found is:
ngc.taleo.net/careersection/ngc_coll/jobdetail.ftl?job=914130&src=JB-10200

Matlab is there (CTLR+F that shit because it is buried in a sea of qualifications) but only as preferred. The posting makes it clear that whatever you produce is meant to be made in C, C++ or Java as those are the actual requirements.

Matlab just like everything else that surrounds is, in my opinion, just there so that the company can confirm you are not a one trick pony.

But if it is possible then I'd like you to find a me a job that lists strictly matlab. As in your final products will be made in matlab.

could be worse. you could have a math degree.

b..b..but muh poster

what school?

If you are counting imperial/ucl/kcl as "Ivy League" you are sorely mistaken.

Also if you want to work with physics you need a grad degree. Undergrad is just for consulting etc

The fuck is wrong with a math degree?

But it's a pretty small niche. Companies usually list something else beside Matlab; usually Fortran and C.

Einstein did start working on a boring bureaucratic job, which was a patents office in Switzerland. Use those 2 years to study harder, get a programming course. You can do it, user.

>physics and math posters still think they are superior to CS
enjoy minimum wage, actually you probably wont get that either

its not hard to get get a job with good maths degree just deal with the fact your gonna have to become an accountant

>if Einstein can do it, you can do it too!

is mathematica a good programming language?

Same position as you op.
I'm thinking seriously about ending its not even funny.

Stay away from anything related to Wolfram.

You are bullshitting. I have a degree in mathematics and I am doing pretty well for myself working in software. Furthermore, I'm not even the only one with a degree in mathematics in the company I work at.

And unlike you I could easily switch industries from software to statistics to data science to finance, etc. because unlike CS, math is actually a transferable skill.

You are just buttmad that while you were handing in your 950th trivial java programming assignment, math majors were exploring the most wonderous concept the human mind is capable of understanding.

Lying. Man, payscale has a list of math jobs backed up by actual statistics so there is reason to be this ignorant in 2016.

It's ok for modeling. Usually researchers implement their ideas in Mathematica or Matlab and then have coders to reimplement them in C++.

>I don't know who spreads it
Physics departments looking for tuition money.

In the past the selling point used to be "you could go on to study in an engineering programme after this degree", now that the engineering job market has tanked and the pre-engineering selling point is less attractive they're trying to pretend like you can get a technical job with a amateur background degree directly.

The same thing happened to philosophy (ie pre-law) which is suddenly great for getting a business degree tier job and everything else oyster related.

>I have a degree in mathematics and I am doing pretty well for myself working in software.
>I am doing pretty well for myself working in software.
>working in software.
>software

How did you make the transition from math to CS? What kind of books would you recommend to get into programming and software development? Cormen et. al.? What else?

and surprise surprise in my country charted accountants 4th

>He said he graduated Ivy League
>He was talking about British universities
???

He's probably refering to that one Imperial faggot who used to have weekly threads bitching about the job market every fucking Sunday.

Imperial College is a really autistic place.

Why? It is true. Getting your foot in software is not hard with a degree in mathematics, specially for the most technically and mathematically complex projects which is how I'd describe what I do. Nothing too impressive though.

>How did you make the transition from math to CS?

I was always interested in CS and even before entering university I was already pretty good at the general concepts.

The book that made me was obviously CLRS, a suggestion from /g/. Those were good times before the board was absolute shit and I had to migrate here.

The other big influence in my style and knowledge is 'The C programming language'. The way I think and structure my functions is entirely based on the content of this book. An absolute masterpiece.

Other than that I read various 100-or-so page manuals for various programming languages like Java, PHP, C# and Javascript.

After you know enough then you build a portfolio and that will make it pretty easy to get in.

It is a possibility but it is not the only job someone can get with a math degree. Implying that is simply wrong.

i wasnt implying that was the only job i was implying that if your struggling becoming an accountants an easy out.

>its not hard to get get a job with good maths degree just deal with the fact your gonna have to become an accountant

This wording does not even come close to the message you wanted to convey

It sounds like

>Yeah, you can get jobs as a math major but only as an accountant.

I mean you literally say that 'you are going to', as in it is going to happen all the time.

Holy fuck, do you not fucking realize how bottom barrel code monkey jobs are? You are not "doing well for yourself". You're doing irrelevant, soul crushing grunt work.

G'day mate!
Don't off yourself just yet. WHo gives a fuck if ou can't get THAT job, when you can get some other job and still land a girlfriend and get blowies from time to time!

Keep slogging on mate, ou've litereally got the rest of your fucking life to use that cunt hole degree you got. Go do some fun shit.

Go on a little holiday to fuck off the stress man, you'll come back feeling glad and shit and you'll tackle this problem with a bit more optimism!

Fuck yeah, ta mate.

What the fuck is this thing? Fuckoff you normie retard.

>i guess I should just kys t b h. society would be better off with less mouths to feed anyway
Fewer mouths to feed.

>do you not fucking realize how bottom barrel code monkey jobs are?

If this is your belief then why in the fuck are you in CS or even defending CS as a superior major?

Holy fuck do you not fucking realize how contradictory your statements are.

But such is the nature of things.

>You are not "doing well for yourself"

I am sorry but I will judge that for myself.

>You're doing irrelevant, soul crushing grunt work.

Ditto.

That you think Software implies Code monkeying means that the one buried in shit is yourself. I consider my job to be pretty good and interesting. It keeps me focused through the day, which means it is engaging, and it pays very well.

That sounds pretty good to me.

Have you ever actually done any professional work in software? Are there huge international companies running your code in hundreds of their computers right now?

If not then I do not think you are entitled to an opinion.

>bottom barrel code monkey jobs are
this is true
>irrelevant, soul crushing grunt work.
hey, it pays the bills

Fuck off.
Ta mate.

>why in the fuck are you in CS or even defending CS as a superior major?
I'm not. CS is a fucking degree mill joke.

>I am sorry but I will judge that for myself.
> I consider my job to be pretty good and interesting
These are the kind of arguments I usually hear from cashiers and other service job crud.

>Companies usually list something else beside Matlab; usually Fortran and C.
> usually Fortran and C.
>Fortran

low quality bait.

>I'm not. CS is a fucking degree mill joke.

I agree but there is nothing inherently wrong with the technology industry. If anything the best jobs for undergrads are exactly there and unless you are going for a PhD you should be looking specifically to get a job in the tech industry.

>These are the kind of arguments I usually hear from cashiers and other service job crud.

Well I can only speak for myself when I say that I mean it. When new projects are started I barely feel the pass of time because I get so engaged in my job.

Obviously, to me it helps that I work alone on my projects as a sort of specialist. If I did work in huge 20 people team when I just get told what to code I would probably be less proud of what I do, but fortunately things are not like that.

Also, thanks for the graph. It has been a year since I saw it and I have wanted to save it for a long time.

Also, get off your high horse and consider what I just told you. Unless you are going for a PhD or MSc in your field, absolutely look to get in the tech industry or you will probably regret it.

> company uses one outdated language
> suddenly a surprise when they use two

why?

>Also, get off your high horse and consider what I just told you. Unless you are going for a PhD or MSc in your field, absolutely look to get in the tech industry or you will probably regret it.

Oh, I'm physics grad-school just barely getting my PhD, I know I'm going to end up as a code monkey, I'm just not going to pretend I like it or that it was anywhere near what I wanted to do. I can admit that my career didn't work out.

I'd tell you not to kys but if you're too dumb to realize you can learn programming anytime you like, then perhaps you should.

If you are going for a PhD then that is for a reason.

Just stay in academia.

>Just stay in academia.
You say that as if there aren't a few hundred or so superior candidates vying for the same postdoc positions.

Obviously I would go academia if I could. I'd take any job even slightly relevant to my degree. But after sending out hundreds of applications every month you start looking towards what programming certs you need for the code monkey jobs.

You're just a lazy faggot afraid of competition

>superior candidates

Then I do not understand why you went for a PhD if you knew you were not the next Einstein super genius from heaven.

Also, do not and I mean DO NOT start looking programming jobs after you get a PhD in Physics no less.

The moment you get a PhD very few companies will even want you and those are obviously the more research oriented ones like Google. So this will of course imply that you will stumble in the problem of superior candidates.

If you have given up in life just drop the PhD and get your certs as you say you will.

That said, I have no programming certs myself so I would advice against wasting money on them. Just learn programming on the internet and build a portfolio. You definitely do not need an institution guiding your education when it comes to programming. It is literally just a tool.

Studying CS or going into programming bootcamps for "official" qualifications is like getting hammer certifications to become a construction worker.

I'm not lazy my supervisor fucked up and I was basically working on a project that were already "scooped" on a few decades ago. If you're asking why I didn't do a proper lit. review; I did, that's how fucking old the paper was and why I didn't know about it untill the reviewers rejected us.

I had to start from scratch and now I look like a retard that took 5 years to get 3 mediocre publications out.

>Then I do not understand why you went for a PhD if you knew you were not the next Einstein super genius from heaven.
"You'll never know if you're good a researcher or not until you try."

Worst. Fucking. Advice. Ever.

Also my professor told me I had potential and I was stupid enough to believe him.

>If you have given up in life just drop the PhD and get your certs as you say you will.
That's the plan, but thesis is already done I just need to get through the defence. I can always just not put my PhD on my CV, but if I get nothing else out of this I at least want a title that no one will ever use ;_;

>Just learn programming on the internet and build a portfolio.
I do have a GitHub with my project code on it, but I don't know if scientific programming will help me with vanilla programming jobs.

Also I'm not blameshifting to my supervisor, I don't want to go in to details, but basically we had no real way of knowing, he was lucky to get the grant for a project outside his field and I was unlucky with how it turned out. But don't fucking pretend anyone is capable of working through every single hard copy journal publication in their library for their lit. review there was nothing I could've done. I know I'm going to get shit on anyway but whatever...

>I don't know if scientific programming will help me with vanilla programming jobs.

It depends on how complete your knowledge is. Being good at math will only carry in the "middle stage" of developing a program. You need to be able to start a project which means having the technical knowledge of the platform you are developing in, how to call different resources and what libraries to use. Then the end stage is all about technical knowledge of how to make your product not crash and burn and be able to make a running executable that can stand on any machine.

So to see if you are ready or not I will use the 'twitter test'.

Can you, using only notepad, create twitter?

It doesn't matter if your client runs on a browser like the actual twitter or strictly MacOS, as long as it is twitter.

If not then you are not ready and should look into what parts are you missing.

When the answer to this question is YES then build something similar to twitter but not twitter and then apply for jobs.

Why would have a PHD be a negative?

>C
>outdated
Oh boy, it looks like someone just took data structures.

>Why would have a PHD be a negative?

It is a quirk of the 21st century. Nowadays because of CS university degrees and coding bootcamps, average programmers are a dime a dozen and most companies only need average programmers.

The moment they see you have a PhD they will know or assume that you will expect a higher pay and will just ignore you.

After all, you don't need a PhD in anything to even create something as complex as the operating system I'm running right now so why bother hiring the PhD guy will expect 6 figures when you can hire the guy with a bachelors that will be comfortable with 50k a year.

If you think about it for a second it makes sense. 'Over qualified' is a shitty reality.

Alright thank you for the advice, I'll try to get some more relevant projects on there then.

>Why would have a PHD be a negative?
Employers don't like it when you have higher qualifications than them and they assume you'll leave them as soon as you get a better opportunity,

Sounds dangerously similar to how life is going, except I can still make a choice without incurring extra years despite being two years in.

Do you think materials science would be better for jobs? It's pretty fun but the reasons that make physics less practical also make it more interesting.

>materials science
Think ochem in terms of the job market health.

What field are you in?

Except it's not bait. You'd be surprised how much scientific software (and more) is written in Fortran. Here, this is the first result from Google

>indeed.com/m/jobs?q=Fortran
>680 jobs

Fortan, contrary to what the know-it-alls on Veeky Forums think, is still very much alive.

SS

>You're doing irrelevant, soul crushing grunt work.
So says the guy who has never had a real job...

...

As a comp sci phd I respect you much more for the fact that you used excel instead of matlab.

I doubt you'll have any difficulty picking up enough python to at least string together some numpy code

>Fortan, contrary to what the know-it-alls on Veeky Forums think, is still very much alive.
Yes, it is, and it is still very, very good at doing what it was designed to do.

Pro tip: approximately 100% of jobs fall into the category "irrelevant, soul crushing, grunt work".

If you believe this then you already forgot why you even got into STEM.

dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2304096/Graduate-physics-PhD-31-fell-death-block-flats-taking-job-centre-qualified-for.html

I don't understand how OP scenario happens, I honestly don't. It's entirely your fault, OP.
I have a physics degree (+ masters) and by the end of my degree I was so fucking employable. Undergrad had 4 semesters of python, c, c++, matlab, a fairly large c++ modelling project and picked up mathematica while doing homework problems.
This combined with stats modules and a good project landed me a comfy set of job offers at the end of my degree in banking, data analysis and an offer to do a PhD with the guys working on the SKA.

I don't know what OP's school replaced computing with, but holy shit you missed out.

Must-Needed Skills that Schools do not teach:

Socializing.
Schmoozing at parties.
How to use Nepotism effectively.
How to increase and maintain job security.
How to select the right type of favors to give to management.
How to lie about and fake ability while remaining outwardly positive.
How to gain usable work experience, you can add to your resume, prior to graduation.
How to get your foot in the door using unrelated skills in order to switch over to what you really want to be doing.

>And winner of the most faggoty post of the day goes to....

I got into STEM because I found it interesting, I've never in my life had any delusions that I would change the world or use my degree to do anything meaningful. Sure if such an opportunity presented itself I'd take it, but lets face it that's almost certainly never going to happen, not to me, not to you, not to that overwhelming majority of people doing STEM. So that leaves us with getting a job in the real world, here we have to accept that we're just a cog in a larger machine and, like all cogs, we're replaceable. In that respect what we're doing is completely irrelevant since there are large queues of people who could do our work just as well as we could.
>Soul crushing
Sure you might start off in a job that you find fun and interesting, but after sometime doing the same thing over and over again (try X, approximate Y, try Z) you'll become familiar with your job and your role. Eventually you'll begin to hate it and look for some new challenge in some other company, which is fine while you're still young, but once you hit 40, that's it you're locked in.
>Grunt work
You might have noticed that the majority of people in any company aren't management, if you aren't management you're a grunt (that's the literal definition of grunt), thus you're doing grunt work.

The vast majority of jobs, in STEM or not, are tedious, boring and are only done by people to make ends meet, you should think yourself very lucky if you find a job you don't hate. You'll do well to ditch these pretensions to doing something great and noble before you finish your undergrad, else you'll end up offing yourself.

> that I would change the world or use my degree to do anything meaningful.

You do not need to change the world to have a fulfilling career. Here you should think selfishly. If your job works for you then it is okay.

I do not feed african children but when I'm at the office time usually flies because I consider what I do to be entertaining for me. It keeps me focused and it keeps me engaged and that is all I need to feel like I'm not wasting my time.

> we're just a cog in a larger machine

True but this is not inherently bad. Here is where it serves to separate your identity from your profession. You do what you do to get money and as long as your job is not killing you from the inside then you will be fine.

Furthermore, no one is stopping you from starting your own business. Free market.

> we're replaceable

True but such is the nature of competition. There is also nothing inherently wrong here. If you are at a company then you already have experience in dealing with the specifics of that company so you will be preferred over someone from outside unless you majorly fuck up.

>doing the same thing over and over again

This is why you study something you like doing over and over again, which is why you study STEM.

Furthermore, companies are not static. Projects come and go and the specifics are always different. There is always something new to do in STEM jobs.

>but once you hit 40, that's it you're locked in.

Not necessarily and this has not been the case for many people, Nothing ever stops from moving forward.

>if you aren't management you're a grunt

Then that is a really weak definition that basically means nothing. Furthermore, the company I work at doesn't even have set managers. There is literally no manager structure. This may be a quirk of smaller software companies but it is still true.

I do not hate my job, I'd even say I like it very much.

It helps that I've literally wanted to work in software since I was like 15 and I made it.

op i realized that physics was a meme my junior year. still finished my degree, but took the MCAT and destroyed it, especially the physics section. went to med school and in my gap year got a high school teaching cert in case that didnt happen. u can be a physics teacher making like 60k/yr in FL with only a 3 month certificate cause they are so short on physics teachers.

Well said. It's just a job like any other at the end of the day. All these Veeky Forums kids with delusions of grandeur when they will be spending their career drawing mundane parts on CAD. Who cares if it's not world changing? I'm getting paid.
Yes and this is where you make a name for yourself. it's unlikely to be when you're working for someone else.
You seem to enjoy your job so whatever keep at it. but don't get a big head.

>>mfw a programming course was never offered or encouraged when I was studying physics

Because you're expected to be able to learn it on your own.

What are you wasting your time here for, pick up a book on C++ and start learning.

u r a troll
any decent physics program would have computational physics courses where you would hone your coding skills
your mathematical methods courses should have required Mathematica programming for hw
most job openings say cs degree or math physics similar background

no one gives a fuck about the condescending opinion of an underage tripfag

Way to miss the point.

>do physics at an ivy
>never took any programming courses

I find this very hard to believe. When I was doing my undergrad for biology I was told I had to take four comp sci courses. To be fair my undergrad degree had a serious focus on computational biology but still...

This. Everyone knows that you need a PhD is physics to find work outside of being a h.s. teacher.

Has /sci failed to spot a shit posting faggot? Anyone with a STEM degree would only need 4-6 months of self study to be a full blown web code monkey.

...user you're scaring me

I'm going to an Ivy next year to study physics...have I messed up?

What Ivy did you go to?

>was told the "world would be my oyster" if I studied physics
Fucking this, the bastards told me the same thing. Didn't go to an Ivy but did an internship in a very renowed research centre. I liked research but the academic job market is clogged, and the postdoc treadmill life doesn't really appeal me. But all I can hope straight away is some codemonkeying work that I would hate.

I think I'll just study actuarial science.

All these STEM grads bitching about how there aren't any jobs.

You'd think they'd be able to make their own jobs. Just start prototyping inventions, patent them and... Oh, you didn't say engineering.

We thought there was more to life than filling spreadsheets and drawing things on solidworks in your cubicle everyday for the next 40 years of our lives.

Of course we could've become plumbers if we wanted to. Getting "a job" isn't the problem. Getting an interesting one is.

Well, if places like CERN won't hire you, grab a shovel and build your own collider.

C'mon buddy. Bootstraps, etc..

>getting an interesting one is

I agree. I work in regulatory affairs it's boring as shit but it pays well.

That's unfortunately most jobs though...

You need to be the next issac newton to get an interesting job these days

>physics major
>can't learn how to program
Suck my pointers, cuck.

That or we could team up and build a game, your choice.

w3schools.com/js/default.asp

ceebot.com/ceebot/load-e.php

1. Daily Mail is a horrendously shitty source
2. As far as I gathered from the other threads this was posted in, the university he chose was dog shit. As of a few years ago they don't even have a physics department anymore

A pretty significant chunk of high-performance computing is still done in Fortran. I worked for a HFT company that had a whole team of physicists and statisticians tweaking their models and writing code in Fortran. It's pretty much the industry standard.

You guys are fucking kids.
I have studied STEM because it is interesting and the most important, I have gotten a job that wont fucking utterly destroy my back every day, a job that is just mentally code monkey grunt work, but when I am at home I still have energy to hang out, cook, clean and work out. My health is top notch and it would not be that way if i were to destroy my body every day working my ass of in MacDonalds.