Southern Gables

How Hard is a Physics Major in College?

I’m a Junior in high school and am enrolled in the IB program, which is the hardest high school program in the world. I’m making mostly A’s, and taking AP calc. I’ll be taking IB Calc II next year. I’m also taking AP physics next year. My passion is science, and I want to go into Astrophysics. Ever since I got my first telescope when I was 12, and looked into the sky to see all of the beautiful stars lighting the sky, I’ve been driven to figure out how it all works, and where the universe came from.

I’m planning on doing a double major in Astrophysics and Applied Mathematics at Virginia Tech. Would this be too hard for me? Could you give me the pros and cons?

Afterwards, I would plan on getting a PhD. What career positions would be available to me?

Thank you so much if you’ve read all of this, and I anticipate your responses!

P.S.- The schools that I’m thinking of attending undergraduate are Virginia Tech and Georgia Tech.

First off, if you’re going to be scientific then lay off the hyperbole. Unless you can show some universally-accepted, unequivocal assessment confirming that you’re in “the hardest high school program in the world” (here’s a hint – you can’t) then quit making those claims. IB is internationally recognized and rigorous, that is true – to claim more is disingenuous, and doing so on a college application will prove disastrous.

Second, physics and applied math go hand-in-hand. Even before you graduate you’ll be doing undergraduate research; which means the more you load up on physics and math in your lower division, the more tools you’ll have at your disposal when you want to start investigating interesting problems. When you enter grad school, a deep understanding of those tools and concepts will prove invaluable. And no matter how “hard” your double major will be, it will be trivial compared to your graduate research. The harder you work as an undergrad, the more prepared you’ll be as a grad student.

Pros and cons. Pros are that you probably have an excellent foundation with your HS to succeed in a double major – and that will, in turn, make the difference between a good graduate program and something truly outstanding. And if you have a fundamental love of science, then as early as your Junior year you could be doing undergraduate research, making discoveries that build on scientific knowledge. That’s heady stuff.

Cons are, of course, it will be hard. You’ll have precious little time for anything else, especially if your HS math skills aren’t so good (if you get 5s on AP Calc, you’ll do fine – if you get 2′s, you’re in for a rough patch). You’ll probably get conflicted when your 20 and still don’t have a girlfriend – or if you do, that you’re spending too much time with her and not enough on your work. And expect that feeling to follow you in grad school. Imagine you’re 24, your friends are making tons of cash and have nights and weekends free, and you’re working unbelievably hard – 80, 100 hours a week – and it’s still a year before you submit your PhD thesis. It sucks, and it’s depressing. Every PhD feels that way. The doctorate is 25% brain power and 75% willingness to spend so much energy on a goal. (Again, that’s another reason to do the double major as an undergrad – the better you do, the better the graduate program you get into, the more interesting the research…) Finally, don’t expect to become rich. You’ll do well, you’ll probably have a steady income. But expect to see your friends who majored in crap like marketing, who had far more free time and spent a minimal fraction of the effort you did, making more money, taking vacations, and getting laid. Life isn’t fair that way.

The biggest Pro is that, if you have the love and the passion, nothing can compare to fundamental discovery. I have a friend who is a researcher at Sandia National Lab. He LOVES his job – he never outgrew his PhD lab, now he runs a multimillion dollar lab himself. I have another friend who works at JPL – he’ll be in the control room when New Horizons takes the first pictures of Pluto. Finally, while in Hawaii, I got a chance to visit the Keck Observatories on Mauna Kea, and talked to a couple of researchers who happened to be there. They loved their job. For a brief moment, you know something that no human being has ever known. You have contributed to the collective knowledge of the human race.

That’s the real payoff for all the very hard work you’re going to do.

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