 is a physics degree worth it. This is a video that I firmly believe is cursed. I have tried to record this video three times now and for whatever reason, whether there was audio issues or video issues, I've always had a problem and I haven't been able to get the video out. So this is either my third or fourth time trying to record this video. So for all those people who commented over and over again that they wanted to see this video, I hope this one actually gets done and makes it to the YouTube channel. And if you appreciate my effort trying to get this video out over and over again, go ahead and gently tap that like button in order to defeat the evil YouTube algorithm. And let's jump right into it. So first of all, what exactly is physics? Physics is a study of matter, motion, space and time. And as you can imagine, that encompasses quite a bit. A good definition of what you would be going over if you were to get a physics degree would be a physics degree focuses on the nature and properties of energy and matter, covering topics like mechanics, heat, light, radiation, sound, electricity, magnetism and more. Preparing graduates for physics degree jobs in fields like science, engineering, healthcare, education, et cetera. And according to the National Center of Educational Statistics, a few years ago there was about 6,800 people who graduated with a bachelor's degree in general physics. Now some careers you might find yourself going into if you get a bachelor of science and physics would be a physicist or astronomer, atmospheric scientist or meteorologist, biochemist, biophysicist, chemist, material scientist or hydrologist. But to be honest with you, there's actually a lot of different career paths you can go into with a physics degree. And I'm gonna get to that a little bit later on in the video. And by the way, if you're wondering about what career path you should go down or you're just really confused about what career path you should choose, I did actually create a six step guide to choosing your dream career. Okay, so this basically encompasses my entire philosophy on choosing a career in six easy steps. Highly recommend you check it out. It's completely free. It's gonna be down in the description below. All right, so let's talk about salary because with the price of college degrees, especially in the United States of America, salary or the pay is something you absolutely need to consider. So people who graduate with a degree in physics can expect to make about $62,000 a year starting out and 113,000 in mid-career pay. You can compare this to the highest paying degree which is petroleum engineering and a very low paying degree which is recreational therapy. And you'll see that it is definitely on the higher end of the spectrum. A physics degree would be considered a math related degree and you can see that math related degrees make about $3.1 million over a lifetime which is the second highest out of all different types of degrees only below engineering. Keep in mind that is over the last 40 years so over the next 40 years we don't necessarily know if that's going to repeat itself. Now one career path you might go down is becoming a physicist or astronomer and they can expect to make about $122,000 a year. However, keep in mind that you have to get a doctoral level degree generally speaking to become a physicist. Material scientist wasn't on BLS however a similar career which is materials engineer makes around $93,000 a year and this is a bachelor's level degree. And biochemist slash biophysicist make about $94,000 a year. So you can see that there are a lot of high paying careers that people who get a physics degree tend to go into. So overall when it comes to the pay I'm gonna give this one a score of nine out of 10. Next let's talk about satisfaction. Now keep in mind that satisfaction is by far the most subjective section and for one person a career with a physics degree might be extremely satisfying and for another person it might be horrible. So just take this one with a grain of salt. But with that being said one of the most important parts of job satisfaction in my opinion is meaning. And that is how much you think your career positively impacts the world. And people who get a physics degree tend to go into careers that have relatively mediocre levels of meaning. About 49% meaning score. You can compare that to radiation therapy at 91% which is very high and plastics engineering technology at 31% which is very low. And if you look at the job satisfaction scores of someone who becomes a physicist the meaning is 79% and the satisfaction is 77%. Both of those are relatively high. You can compare that to one that's really high, clergy and one that's very low, parking lot attendant and you'll see what I mean. So we're kind of seeing high levels of job satisfaction and okay levels of meaning. Biological and physical sciences are one of the most regretted types of degrees that people get and a physics degree is sort of a physical science but it also falls under mathematics as well. And mathematics related degrees are the least regretted type of degree. So we'll call that one a wash. Overall job satisfaction is gonna vary greatly depending on the industry you work in, the career you go into, what you personally like, the company you work for, et cetera. So overall I'm gonna give this one a satisfaction score of eight out of 10. Next on the list we're gonna be talking about demand. And demand might actually be the most important out of everything because demand tends to determine how satisfied you are with your job and also how much you get paid. So overall for physicists, BLS projects are gonna grow about 7% over the next 10 years, which is faster than average. Materials, engineers will grow at 2% which is slower than average. Atmospheric scientists will grow at 6% which is faster than average. Biochemists and biophysicists grow at 4% which is about as fast as average. And states that have high levels of employment for physicists are California, Maryland, New Mexico, Texas and Illinois. But one of the nice things about a physics degree is it tends to be extremely flexible. And one of the big reasons for that is very similar to engineering degrees. Physics degrees tend to be very well respected. In order to graduate with a physics degree you have to be extremely smart and really hard working and employers know that. So you'll see a lot of the time, for instance in the finance industry companies will have this strategy of they just want to hire the smartest people and then they'll train them on how to do the job. Right, so instead of hiring someone with a finance degree or an accounting degree, maybe they just decide to hire someone with a physics degree and then they can teach them some of the finance or accounting stuff while they're on the job. And so for that reason there's a pretty decent amount of demand for physics degrees even if it doesn't appear that there's a lot of demand for physics specific careers. So overall I'm gonna give this one a score of eight out of 10. Next we're gonna talk about X factors and this is anything that's important that doesn't fall under any of the other categories. Now when you look at the Zipper Cruder skills index you'll see that the skill of physics is relatively highly valued. So it has a score of 48 with the highest being software engineering, 88 and the lowest being industrial sewing. So it's in the middle, it's a little above middle. If you look at will robots take my job they say there's about a 10% chance that physicists will be automated which is very low. And honestly it's probably lower than that very low chance of automation in my opinion. If a job like physicist is ever automated that means that robots can just do everything for us and we won't really have to worry about anything. We won't really have to work. Same thing in my opinion goes when it comes to outsourcing. This is not a job that's going to be easily outsourced because it's gonna be very important for you to be able to clearly communicate with your colleagues. Now when it comes to the level of difficulty physics is gonna be one of the most difficult degrees by far. And I actually made a video on this and physics came in at number one. Physics was the hardest degree. You can check that video out right here wherever I put it. So that can be a pro or a con depending on the way you look at it. It can be a pro because of the fact that not very many people can do it. It can be a con because of the fact that maybe you can't do it or maybe if you do it it's gonna be incredibly difficult. Now one thing that's really cool about physics degrees you see a lot of people graduate with this degree and then they go into all these different industries. So for instance they might go into finance they might go into tech and you see them doing very well in many different industries. Now you could say it's because they're super smart and so they can do well no matter what they do. Or you could say maybe learning physics helps them in other areas of their life. It's really impossible to tell whether it's correlation or causation it's probably gonna be a little bit of both. So overall when it comes to the X factors I'm gonna give this one an 8.5 out of 10. So some of the pros here are going to be problem solving and analytical skills are enhanced pushes you to rise above challenges and search for answers and career flexibility. Some of the cons here it requires a very solid grasp of mathematics it's very difficult. Some high paying careers are gonna require you to get a master's or a doctorate and did I mention that it's really difficult. So the overall score here is gonna be 8.375 out of 10 a very solid degree can be great for the right person. Keep in mind if this is just my opinion always make sure to do your own research. Hope you enjoyed the video check out my other videos right here I made them just for you. Gently tap that like button hit that subscribe button ring the notification bell and comment down below any thoughts comments criticisms and I really hope this video makes it to YouTube. Bye for now.