Re: Would Physics First Increase the Number of Physics Majors?

[Hugh Haskell <hhaskell@MINDSPRING.COM>]

At 16:33 -0400 4/28/03, Bob LaMontagne wrote:
> The number of responses to advertisements for college level physics teaching
> positions is overwhelming. It's nice to fill our departments with
> students, but
> it's somewhat unethical to send great numbers into a saturated market.
We could safely increase the numbers of physics majors if we didn't
insist on treating the undergraduate physics major as the farm club
for grad school. IIRC, physics has one of the highest percentages of
its baccalaureate students going on to grad school in physics of all
the disciplines (with the possible exception of pre-med, which is
advertised as a med school farm club.

Perhaps we could safely increase the number of physics majors if
every one of them didn't expect to eventually earn a PhD and work in
a research institute. David Goodstein, vice-provost at CalTech has
argued that we ought to be touting physics as *the* liberal arts
major of the 21st century--one which will prepare students to be
productive and creative citizens without expecting that most will
eventually get PhDs.

If all we expect a physics major to be when he or she graduates is a
professional physicist, then we shouldn't be producing more of them
than the physics research market can absorb. But in fact, a physics
education can be much broader than that, preparing students to work
in many diverse fields, not all of them scientifically oriented. We
just have to decide what we want.

Hugh
--

Hugh Haskell
<mailto:haskell@ncssm.edu>
<mailto:hhaskell@mindspring.com>

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