What You'll Study

At the , in a  curriculum flexible enough to accommodate a wide range of career and educational interests, physics majors acquire a general understanding and appreciation of physics and astronomy. Majors develop valuable problem-solving and analytic skills allowing graduates to pursue a variety of options, including preparation for medical school, engineering graduate school, work in computer science or information technology, and further study of physics or astronomy.

Grow Your Future:

Physics majors have a remarkably wide range of career options which include academics, industry and even finance. A physics education provides a unique way of looking at problems that many employers value, a marketable set of skills, and foundational knowledge on which it is easy to build new knowledge as one’s career evolves over time.  

Physics majors who get hired into positions with engineering or computer science job titles get the same salary as those who earned a bachelor’s degree in those fields.  If you have a physics degree, prospective employers know that you are a person who has the background, knowledge and drive to succeed in broad range of scientific and technical fields.

Here are some of Kentucky employers who recently hired new physics bachelor recipients: CFW Associated Engineers Inc., Dow Chemical Company, Genscape Inc., Halton, Hitachi Automotive, Hydormax USA, Johnson Control, nGimat Company, S&ME Inc., ToolWorks.

Career opportunities in Physics:

• Astronomer

• Scientist

• Technician

• Acoustical engineer

• Meteorologist

• Aerospace engineer

• Navigation equipment specialist

• Optical design specialist

• Astrophysicist

• Particle physicist

• Medical physicist

• Nuclear physicist

• Development

• Professor

• Planetarium exhibit planner/guide

• Computer programmer

• Science writer

• National observatories

• Government laboratories

• Applied research