• This program provides a broad and rigorous physics education preparing students for graduate programs anywhere as well as for the many career options of professional physicists in industry and government.
  • For the first three semesters of physics courses we offer honors sections to well prepared students. These small courses of 10-15 students explore the course materials more in depth and with more advanced applications.
  • We hire physics majors with good grades as part-time teaching assistants in the introductory physics courses. Participating students find their own knowledge deepened and their skills much improved.
  • In the junior lab the students are taught the intricacies of planning and designing an experiment, and of collecting and analyzing data with the most modern tools.
  • The special focus on quantum mechanics and condensed matter physics in the senior year enhances our students' knowledge and skills in critical research areas including nanotechnology.
  • The two-semester research experience (senior project) of our BS program prepares students for dissertation work in graduate school as well as for research and development work in government or industrial laboratories.
  • Many of our best students choose to take one or two physics graduate courses in areas they are specially interested in or wish to focus on later in graduate school.

    • This curriculum provides a general background in both theoretical and experimental physics. It forms a foundation for further study at the graduate level toward an advanced degree, and also prepares the student for a career as a professional physicist in industry or government. Initiative, independent solution of laboratory problems, and research are encouraged in the advanced laboratory courses.In addition to the major, students are encouraged to use the large block of elective credits to develop a program of study as a minor in applied or interdisciplinary fields. A completed minor will be recorded on the student's final transcript.A list of required courses and their placment in the 4-year program are found in the detailed course sequence. Exceptions and/or substitutions are possible, and can be arranged by consulting the undergraduate program director of the Physics Department.A total of 129 credits is required for graduation. PHY 483 and 484 are the capstone courses in this program.