I’ve long toyed with a mid-life pivot into a different field. Mostly, I lean towards IT as the most practical for me, but I love the idea of finally studying a hard science, which I grew to love, but never really got a good formal education in.
I’ve heard/read, for example, that there aren’t necessarily tons of astrophysics jobs out there, so if you only have a bachelor’s degree, you might have a tough time. I don’t even know that this is true, but I use it as an example.
What are the hard science fields that would be the opposite of this? I could imagine there might be a lot of Chemistry-related jobs, for example, maybe? But I have a hard time imagining what you could do with a pure Physics degree (without also focusing on Engineering or something supplementary)? Would Biology get you anywhere by itself?
Or is it just the hard truth of all hard sciences that you’re pretty much worthless with just a four-year degree, from a job perspective?
I’ve got a bachelor’s degree in geoscience, which got me a job without issues - in IT.
No, as much as high school guidance counselors try to tell you different, there’s nothing magical about any STEM degree that will reliably get you a job.
For most jobs, the “filter” is getting the job itself. Not having a relevant degree might prevent you from getting a job, but having the degree doesn’t mean you will be selected. There are exceptions like getting into medical school really sets you on a pathway where as long as you stick with it, you should end up with a job, bit that’s cause it’s really hard (and expensive) to get into med school, so that part is the “filter”.
You might hear of a particular skillet being really hot that guarantees you a job, and that does happen, but it is really ephemeral. By the time you get a 4 year degree, the landscape may have changed.
You can absolutely get a job with a 4 year hard science degree, but you can’t just go to class, get all A’s and step into a job. You need to be connected throughout the process. Also keep in mind what type of job you want to do, and where it is geographically. You might have good job prospects with a geology degree and fossil fuel expertise, but the jobs might be in undesirable locations.
Great thoughts, thank you. You addressed a lot of the questions I was getting at. For example, nursing and various related positions (running CAT scans, etc.) truly seem to be in-demand everywhere. But often when I hear about some supposedly in-demand field that pays well and check near me in the southeast, I’ll get maybe half a dozen results.
Yeah, nursing is probably a job that is always going to have steady demand, but it seems like (and I could be totally wrong here) there’s a pretty broad range of job opportunities where some might work you like a dog and pay horribly, while others are great.
If you are interested in jobs in your area, definitely reach out to some people to ask their opinions on long term job prospects. Your local hospital’s CAT scan technician (or whatever their title is) can tell you if they are hurting for people, or if all of their peers are close to retiring.
It’s shitty, but employers tend to use an expensive degree as a form of prescreening. You can get an HR job or similar with a bachelors in literature.
Or is it just the hard truth of all hard sciences that you’re pretty much worthless with just a four-year degree, from a job perspective?
Where did you get that idea? Engineers generally only have a four-year degree, and they famously make good money.
I think it was a video or article on astrophysics that I encountered some time ago. But the idea that stuck with me was, “Don’t bother with astrophysics unless you have a Masters or, ideally, Ph.D.”
I’m not claiming it’s the case, I just have no exposure to that path. I don’t know what it looks like to study a hard science and then enter the job field from that angle. Engineering is a helpful example.
If you want to work in academics, you need Masters at the very least, and a PhD if you want to be more than someone’s grading monkey. That’s true of hard sciences and it’s really true of softer subjects.
Astrophysics has no commercial applications that I’m aware of, with space forecasting for the government being the closest thing. So, if you want to use an astrophysics degree for astrophysics, then yes, 4-year is nothing. However, you can probably convince some finance nepobaby you’re a genius and make money as a quant with just a bachelors in (astro-)physics.
Do you want to work in astrophysics, or just in a hard science job of some kind?
This is helpful.
I meant it to be broad. Just a good job/realistic job prospects in a hard science-connected field. I potentially have the opportunity to go back to school and I’m wondering what scientific paths, if any, can lead to job prospects with a four-year degree. The reasoning being that I hope to transfer some credits from my previous degree and can’t really commit to six or eight years of additional study right now. But 2-4 is potentially feasible.
Yeah, then you can figure something out I’m sure. What is your background? If you can bring past experience “with you” to some extent, you’ll have a much easier time, even with just 2 years of education behind you. Everybody shits on hires fresh out of college.
This is the part where I make a disclaimer that I’m not exactly a career rolemodel, I just hear a lot of talk and know people from all kinds of backgrounds. And read the statistics on things.
My background isn’t really related to science. I got a degree in Broadcast Media, then worked mostly in Politics and Marketing/Communications. So I’m not sure a ton of credits will transfer, but I’m hoping to get an idea across a spectrum of possibilities.
Hmm. Well, if you do go IT, you could look for a UI/UX (user interfaces/experience) role where they might see that as an asset. Or maybe do marketing analytics - anything math heavy could potentially get you into that. I don’t even mean college credits, I mean job experience on your resume (since you were worried about finding a job afterwards) - it’s just as important in non-academic hard science as in other disciplines.
The academic credits are another thing, though. Hard science education can be pretty demanding, and the drop-out rates in some of them - like engineering - are sky-high. Then again, professors say older students almost always do well.
It’s not really about the degree. It’s the degree program that gets you in the door to the research and network with the people in the field. So, you could get your foot in the door some other way, and end up working without the degree.
IT is really the most practical, because you don’t need a lot of experience. But you could also work IT for someone doing science, whether that’s a biotech company, a university doing research, or a government lab.
IT is night and day depending on if you’re American. If you are, it’s a money printer. If you’re not you may or may not be better off in another sector.
It should be mentioned because Lemmy is all people in IT, so OP will get a lot of answers about it.
I’m going back for a degree. I’ll be over 40 when I graduate. I found that a lack of formal education was a filter for a lot of positions.
I wrecked my back a few years ago, and that made going back into heavy equipment or high access positions pretty dangerous. So I started looking outside my field and what I found was basically any bachelor’s degree open doors.
For physics specifically, a bachelor’s degree probably won’t be enough to get a job in physics.
You might be able to get a job as a technician in a lab, but they typically will look for people with a master’s degree for those roles. With just a bachelor’s , you’d need to get your foot in the door by already having some relevant experience, which is a possibility if you get some research experience in college and pivot that into an internship or something. But it would definitely require effort and luck.
Bioinformatics may suit, especially if you go hard at understanding biochem. In fact all the Informatics (Medical, Chemical, Geo, …) have good prospects, and at the very least will get you quickly past the bottom IT rungs and likely in interesting places. Mathematics (perhaps Computational) is surprisingly versatile and very much in demand if you can be creative about presenting yourself, you’ve proved you can handle some of the most complex shit out there.
But it’s probably worth making a mini research project out of exploring your options, weeks spent now might be very rewarding long term.
Super helpful, thank you. I will look into informatics. Yes, I’m trying to do as much research as possible between now and ~January, when I may have the chance to go back.
Several states have licensed geologists and environmental scientists.
You can also get a degree in biology and become a certified wetland delineator with some minor additional education.
