One of the questions students who are offered admission or aspiring to get admission to study physics do ask is whether physics is a good course to study or not.
I know your fears and also understand the reason why this question must be answered by someone in this particular field.
Firstly, one thing I will like you to know is that physics isn’t one of the top 10 best courses that has high employability rate in Nigeria. However, that doesn’t mean the course isn’t good to study. Nigeria isn’t yet advanced technologically and we are still locked up in 19th century skills and that is why those courses that trend in the 80s are still trending till now. And also the high rate of unemployment which is as a result of not embracing some marketable and lucrative courses has made the country backward technological wise.
Material science is one of the trending courses in the world and physics is at the bedrock of the course. If you study physics at undergraduate level, you very much qualified to go for this option at the postgraduate level.
One of the things that made physics interesting is the diverse options or field you can major. The list of physics degree include
- Geophysics
- Radiation and health physics
- Atmospheric Physics
- Solid state/condensed matter physics
- Instrumentation
- Ionospheric physics
- Acoustic
- Engineering Physics
- Physics Electronics
All the fields named above are what make physicists fit into virtually all positions and sets the stage for you to skyrocket.
With what I have said above, I think the most important thing I need to tell you is that you must graduate with a good grade (at least second class upper) for you to have a good prospect in this field. The job market in Nigeria has made it difficult for graduates with lower credit to get a good job. However, if you can graduate with a good grade, you will land one of the jobs that pay most.
Some of the places where you can work as a physics graduate include:
- Oil and gas company (Shell, NLNG, Chevron, Total, Schlumberge, Exxon Mobil, etc)
- IT Companies
- NEMA, NASRDA or any space agency
- University or Polytechnic as a lecturer
- Banks
Lastly, what most graduate of physics do is to travel abroad for their postgraduate programme for them to be exposed to areas of physics that are in high demand. This is because physics is one of the courses that do receive huge research grant. And for this reason, most students on their postgraduate programme abroad are on scholarship.
On a side note, some of the trending skills required for future jobs which are already finding their ways and can be helpful to you are:
- Analytical thinking and innovation
- Active learning and learning strategies
- Creativity
- Originality and initiative
- Technology design and programming
- Critical thinking and analysis
- Complex problem-solving
- Leadership and social influence
- Emotional intelligence
- Problem-solving and ideation
- Systems analysis and evaluation
