Last month, we looked at how well students who majored in physics did on the MCAT exam. This month, we will start a five-month examination of the initial outcomes of students who earned a bachelor’s degree in physics. Every year, we contact physics degree recipients about one year after they have graduated to ask what they are doing.
For the classes of 2019 and 2020 combined, we found that about 6% were unemployed. The remaining 94% were split almost evenly across employment (46%) and graduate study (48%). Among those going to graduate school, about one-third (35%) enrolled in graduate programs outside physics and astronomy. This is pretty typical of recent graduating classes.
Next month, we will take a closer look at the graduates who entered graduate school. These data are taken from a recent compilation of publicly available data. All our data and reports are available at www.aip.org/statistics. Susan...