Is it better for me to study chemistry or physics?

Question

I might decide to pursue material science.

Aptitude and background

I am from the UK, and for A-levels, I am studying Maths, Further Maths, Physics and Chemistry, and I am predicted decent grades in all of them.

For my Morrisby Assessment taken a year ago: Numerical reasoning 70%, Abstract reasoning 80%, Verbal reasoning, 95% - This was slightly lower for numerical then I expected, but it does make sense since I have to try pretty hard in maths.

Physics:

• Pros:

  • Family likes the idea of me studying physics,
  • Like quantum, thermal, chemical and nuclear physics,
  • Opens the most doors out of compared to the other two, in that I can transfer into engineering/machine learning,
  • Well-respected known undergrad for non-physics jobs.

• Cons:

  • a bit more difficult for me (sometimes chem is a harder though)
  • Dislike electricity, EM, fields, waves which are integral topics
  • On the surface, there seems to be less direct jobs related to physics compared to chemistry, in/out of academia (please prove me wrong though, iIam only 18, hence why I am here asking!)

Chemistry:

• Pros:
  • Easier for me aptitude wise
  • Like all parts of chemistry, apart from some niche topics
  • (could be more transferrable to material science and nanotechnology? - therefore opening the 3rd option up as well
  • Right now quantum chemistry and orbital approximations are my favorite subject
  • Well-respected and known undergrad for non-chemistry jobs
• Cons:
  • Less transferrable than physics
  • Don't want to be stuck in an industrial/pharma job, where I am glorified lab rat following a list of instructions
  • Lower job satisfaction on the internet compared to the other two

Material science:

• Pros:
  • Very large interest for it since it combines chemistry and physics components I enjoy
  • Possibly better paid, due to the large amounts of engineering involved
  • Able to go into nuclear materials research, and medicinal too, therefore opening more opportunities than chemistry.
• Cons:
  • Less-respected well-known undergrad, and could always do it at postgrad level
  • Studying metals and ceramics seems boring, I prefer nanostructures!

Having considered the above information, which degree out of the 3 may be better suited for me?

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After the considerations made in the answers below, I think I shall lean towards a chemical physics degree, which has advanced material science modules :). It also allows me the option of switching to pure chemistry in 3rd year if I want to.

I will do further research as well, around more universities.

Thank you so much for the time and effort of your responses.

Answer 1

I just joined this community to answer you after I've randomly seen your post, because I think there are a couple of important variables you may want to consider: your feelings and your intuition.

You can rationally consider many variables, but you are very young and there may be topics that you like now that you will consider boring in the future, and the other way around. In my case, I started Physics because I loved Astrophysics. Then I realized that it was boring and I became interested in Particles' Physics, then in Computer Science, and then I ended up doing a PhD in Biology. Now I am a scientist working in complex biological systems, whatever that means: what I learned is that in a scientific job it is very important your motivation and passion, and that your choice will not be an all-or-nothing.

In this respect, Physics is a great degree because you will acquire 1) strong quantitative skills; and 2) an important training to solve difficult problems, which you can then use to solve ANY problem. These skills are increasingly important because knowledge is becoming more and more multidisciplinary and quantitative, and Physics will bring you a very flexible background to jump from one area to another. I know physicists working in almost any area, from finances to psychology, and including the design of vaccines (I highlight this because someone said above that physicists were not involved in this kind of research but this is not true, physicists are very important contributors in drug-design computational methods, just think in the physics behind a model describing an energy interaction term between a protein active site and a ligand). I also think that quantitative skills are  difficult to acquire autonomously (I basically learned biology reading books, and I don't think I could have learned maths at the same page reading books) so I would try to learn these skills in university.

As a final (very personal) opinion, there are some variables I would not take much into account, like how happy is your family with your choice or metrics about your capabilities (obviously as long as you are minimally comfortable with your choice). I am saying this because I can imagine that your family will be happy if you are happy, and because the fact that you are asking here shows that your motivation and initiative are stronger than any difference in the numerical reasoning % with respect to the best in this room.

Good luck with your choice!

Answer 2

As someone who did his undergrad in Canada, PhD in UK, and acquired post-PhD research experience in Japan, Singapore, USA, Germany, and again in Canada: I can say that the dilemma you're facing is a major disadvantage of the undergrad UK system. The UK system has many advantages too! But the flexibility is better in other countries such as Canada and US.

Based on everything you've said, if you were to apply to the university where I did my undergrad (University of Waterloo), there's the Chemical Physics degree that they offer. Or you can do what I did which is the Honours Science program, which allows you to take whatever courses you want as long as half of them are science courses. I took physics, mathematics, biology, geology, philosophy, anthropology, literature, music, computer science, engineering, and many other courses, and eventually I was even allowed to enter a customized "double major + double minor" program: BSc in Science, BMath in Applied Mathematics, Minor in Physics, Minor in Biology, plus I did all the elective courses that I mentioned, and all within 4 years.

In the USA it's similar, especially if you're in a liberal arts program, however it will cost you a lot more money. In UK there's still excellent options such as the Natural Sciences program at Cambridge University, but spaces are limited. My recommendation is for you to find universities that will allow you to be flexible, as in the Canadian, US American, or Cambridge programs.

Otherwise it is too hard to tell you whether you should choose chemistry or physics.

If you choose to stay in the UK, and select a university that doesn't have a program like Cambridge's natural sciences program, then the final things I'll say are the following:

• In a physics program you'll be surrounded by people that (on average) like mathematics and programming more, and this may lead you to more interest or even opportunities in finance, machine learning, data science, etc.
• In a chemistry program you'll be surrounded by people that (on average) are more interested in pharmaceuticals, bio-medicine, environmental science, etc.

Pfizer (a pharmaceutical company) made the first widely approved COVID-19 vaccine with no help from physicists, so don't underestimate how fruitful it might be to be in a program where you learn at least a bit of biochemistry and "life science". At the same time, many of the high-paying jobs in quantitative science go to physicists (more often than chemists).

Answer 3

As a Bachelor in Physics that do research in Material Science and in Drug Development, I have to recommend you to go for the Physics degree. Also, you have to be aware about the type/specialization of the Physics course. For example, my undergrad Physics course was focused in Solid State, so, we had Quantum Mechanics, Solid State Physics and Crystallographic, all of them will help you in getting a better understanding of Material Science. On the other hand, I had a colleague, also Bachelor in Physics, that is Astrophysics. He never took any of the courses that I mentioned before in his undergrad.

Answer 4

I'm a fellow Brit who did Chemistry as a first Degree, before moving into a hybrid chemistry/statistics PhD and now works as a software engineer. My suggestion is not to get too caught up in the exact subject that you are studying and consider the areas you are enjoying the most and find the course that fits your interests, regardless of course title.

A good way to help you understand what a department will focus on in the later years of your degree is to look at their research interests, as these vary wildly between departments at each institution. With your interests, you may find a physics department with a strong applied research focus is going to be more interesting overall, but you may also feel a chemistry department with a strong materials focus/strong physical research focus is right.

I would also recommend, that if you can, you choose to take the integrated Masters' version of the degree program that the university offers. The integrated masters programs are typically 4 Years and gives an MChem for Chemists and a MPhys for physics. These programs will give you a chance in your final year to get involved with real research and may give you the impetus to carry on with research into a PhD (exactly what happened with me!). Generally speaking you will follow the same program for the first two years as those taking a BSc and then only diversify in year 3. Most programs in the UK are also pretty flexible about allowing you to transfer from the Masters program to the BSc if you want to.

Although the academic content of your course is important, the phyiscal place is also really important and I could not recommend any more highly trying to get to the Universities that you are interested in for an open day and looking around the campus and the town/city they are located in. I know that is challenging in 2021 in the UK with the current Covid-19 situtation, but the feel of the place you will be spending a lot of time is incredibly important. I know from personal experience that although a course can be amazing on paper, it may not feel that way when you actually get to the city and tour the campus and facilities. If you are keen on a particular course, get in touch with the departments admissions tutor and ask questions. Admissions' tutors jobs are to answer questions and it shows alot of initiative to get in touch and ask questions. Admissions tutors do not forget those that show some willingness to do their own research and ask questions which might come in handy with getting offers later down the line.

Answer 5

An Engineer's perspective:

I started with a Bachelor's in Mechanical Engineering, and then moved to a Master's in Materials Science and Engineering. Worked for 4 years in the industry, and now came back to do a PhD in Materials Engineering.

If I could go back, I would definitely do the same thing, but maybe invest more time in Physics along the way. Basic chemistry goes a long way here, as the relevance is mostly for inorganic chemistry rather than the large field of organic chemistry.

While from physics, you don't avoid or "waste" much when you come to materials science. Of course, this is from an Metal engineering perspective. I have colleagues who come from a Physics background before getting into Materials Engineering, but they don't necessarily find any advantage, since current doctoral studies are more towards engineering in materials than towards the science side. This of course is one man's (engineer's) perspective.

I realize this answer maybe neither here, nor there, depending on your exact interests, but I hope it helps in some way.

Answer 6

I'm not working in material sciences but as a (particle) physicist I came into touch with solid physicists a lot. To elaborate: In particle physics, one of the main components is usually the scintillator crystal which is a very high advanced material. The material for it for an upcoming particle accelerator was entirely researched by our neighbour working group, means, the theoretical department was involved as well as the according experimental department. I know that the latter consists of roughly 2/3 physicists and 1/2 material scientists. The theoretical department is mainly composed of physicists with a few mathematicians alongside. However, in addition that a new chair of the theoretical department is only involved in finding new materials for the circuits resp. processors for supercomputers and from my impression, according to the welcome lecture, this topic is far away from "material science/chemistry". It is very, very mathematical.

Despite from that, I know some physicists who are working for Infineon who specialized in solid / semiconductor physics. On the other hand, the girlfriend of my colleague owns an engineering degree in micro mechanis and worked for Infineon ~since the beginning of her study but they didn't keep her afterwards, though she did her bachelor and master thesis there in addition to further researches along her study. They clearly prefer physicists on an official level.

Official, because, as she obviously really wants to stay in this field (and there are no similar companies where she is living), she got her steps into the company again via an engineer personnel service provider (and Infineon is now paying much more for her work as when they would have given her a regular contract in the beginning..).

What I want to add here: It depends on what you want to do on a daily basis, respectively, which tools and in which worlds do you think. I know mathematicians working in optic fields, physicists working as AI engineers, my girlfriend is a biologist and is working as a quality manager and software tester for electromechanical devices for the chemical industry. My boss is a mathematician and supervises a lot of engineers together with a few scientists. To conclude: From my feeling, you should choose material science while, from my pov, a combination of a bachelor in physics and a master in material science/engineering would be the best fit.

Answer 7

I studied physics and three of my family members studied chemistry.

Don't worry too much about the choice. Any of those subjects will provide you with interesting study and enough career opportunities.

Any scientific subject gets more interesting the harder you look at it (even Biology).

You don't need lots of career opportunities, you only need a few.

Many people study physics and then gradually move into more chemistry-based work, and vice-versa.

Although getting a good chemistry degree is just as difficult academically as a physics one, psychologically physics is harder because you spend more of your time grappling with aspects that nobody understands. You also have to deal with aspects that not very many people understand, and where their understanding is entirely mathematical: Feynmann for example said that he couldn't explain his ideas to non-mathematicians, because he didn't understand them in non-mathematical ways.

You might want to take into account that undergraduate chemistry labs require students to wear lab-coats and gloves and eye-protection, and to deal with dangerous chemicals and fume cupboards If you are clumsy or nervous, you might not like that.

If you study physics, you will be spending a lot of time with physicists. If you are happy in a majority-male, geek-friendly environment, that might be perfect for you.

Each of those subjects needs more people with communication skills, so your verbal reasoning will be valuable, and valued by employers.

Answer 8

Being great at what you like doing will open far more doors for you. You will find that there is a lot more variety of jobs than you think, and you will find interesting opportunities by being at the top of your field. It sounds like you will really excel at chemistry, and being in a field you are excited about is a lot better (Personal satisfaction and for interviews) than being in a field that you think has better opportunities.

You have a lot of great pros and cons, but you will have to work in that field everyday. You should follow you passion and the job opportunities will follow.

Answer 9

I think Natural Sciences could be a good fit for you. I studied almost the same A Levels you did and couldn't decide whether I preferred Physics or Chemistry. Studying Natural Sciences allowed me to take courses in both, and to choose the areas I liked most and leave out the ones I didn't

It's worth bearing in mind that these subjects change in content when you study them at university - the maths content of Physics increases a LOT - you'll find yourself using a lot of matrices. Equally, I found Chemistry had more maths content than at A level, but that may vary from course to course.

It's also worth knowing that most Natural Sciences courses let you transfer in the first year to study either Physics or Chemistry if you decide you definitely prefer one at university level.

I'd recommend having a look at the Natural Sciences course at Bath to start, as it's highly customisable and lets you choose which elements of Chemistry to keep. There's also some good Chemical Physics courses out there too which have a similar structure!

Hope this helps, and good luck!

Answer 10

I think one thing missing from other commenters here is the fact that your university and PhD concentration diminishes in importance and relevance as you get older. This begins almost immediately out of your PhD. Nowadays, a successful researcher will work inside a highly interdisciplinary team and pick up skills in additional areas. You'll start out confused and overwhelmed but gradually learn from reading and asking questions. The academic differences between you and your colleagues will begin to blur and it may be that some small, half-forgotten, and unexpected part of your formal training really sets you apart. For example, I am a computational chemist and I work with chemical engineers and materials scientists, one of which also does computational chemistry while the others are experts in spectroscopic and spectrometric characterization (rechargeable batteries). They often use mass spectrometry (MS) or X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) to characterize materials formed as a result of parasitic reactions during the cycling of a battery. As a student, I became familiar with interpreting MS but never really learned XPS. Fast forward a few years working with this team and though I've literally never even seen an actual XPS instrument in person, I've become quite adept at interpreting the result to supplement and guide my computational experiments. My familiarity with organic chemistry sets me apart even though I focused on physical chemistry as a PhD student. The same is true for predictions of small-angle neutron scattering (SANS) from molecular dynamics simulations. I've never seen the instrument and learned next to nothing about it until my post-doctoral position. I picked up books off Amazon on topics in solid state chemistry and physics I was unfamiliar with.

Study what gets you to where you want to be via the path of least resistance, it is a necessary part of modern science to develop a strong interdisciplinary knowledgebase. Note, 'resistance' here doesn't just mean the difficulty of the classes (haha), but whether you're motivated to learn about it, relevance (also emerging fields like machine learning), maybe a professor's recommendation, the opportunity to join a lab with experimentalists and theorists alike, whether there's a market for the skill post-graduation, etc.

I can't say what is right for you to pursue, but if I were your age and wanted only to improve on my formal training and add a unique skill to my current team, I would do whatever is necessary to get me into courses on machine learning. This is much more difficult to develop an understanding of and keep up with out of school with all your other research and life duties competing for your time. This may mean a dual major in mathematics or computer science or maybe a minor concentration. I'd still pursue a chemistry degree. I'm pretty sure one of our previous post-docs in computational chemistry had a PhD in computer science and developed new methods to speed up density functional theory calculations. If nothing else, I hope my experience helps you feel more at ease choosing a degree knowing your career path isn't set in stone, there's considerable flexibility.

Answer 11

I was in the same position as you 3 years ago! I liked chemistry the most and physics the second, but my dad is a physicist so he wanted me to study physics. I ended up choosing chemistry because math was never my strong point.

My family eventually accepted me studying chemistry. I think what really matters is whether you can see yourself studying only the subject all year round. If you choose a subject that you don't have an interest in (regardless of whether or not you are smart enough for it), then you will quickly get bored at uni. Of course, as others said, your interest can change throughout your course. And you can also change courses if you wish. One of my friends studied environmental science for two years, and then switched to chemistry.

For example, after 3 years of undergrad, I now don't want to work in the lab, wheras in the beginning lab was the most fun part. I think that realisation came after the second time I stabbed myself with a syringe last year. Now, I am planning to do a master's in computational chemistry (sort of a crossover between computer science and chemistry).

Finally, some universities in UK offer a 'chemical physics' course which is a blend of physical chemistry and physics, with a little bit of organic and inorganic chemistry mixed in. You might want to look into those. Although, many universities are shutting down those courses (like my uni did), as there are so few people applying for them.

Answer 12

I would take a total different approach to solving this.

Rather than focusing on the topics and their relative difficulty etc. Try to envision a hard problem that you want to solve and work on for a long time and from that point of view you find the skills needed to solve that challenge. Eg., be problem focused rather than solution focused. It's a similar approach to what is used when building a startup, you don't take a technology and try to find uses for it because its dam hard to find a business model etc. that fits nicely. But rather focus intensely on a hard problem and from there you try different solutions and you reverse engineer the problem until you iteratively find an optimal solution.