Brasil Final Report - Department of Physics - The Ohio State University

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In industry, physicists work as members of multidisciplinary teams. Industrial research
increasingly focuses on product development and away from basic physics. Many of the major
discoveries of the last century have been made at the interfaces of the traditional scientific
disciplines. Independent subfields have grown up along these boundaries. Computers have changed
the way we do research as well as teaching. Computational physics has joined theoretical and
experimental physics.
Although physics produces a stream of exciting discoveries and lays the foundation for new
technologies, the general public cannot understand these breakthroughs. Perhaps this is because
physicists have traditionally done a poor job of explaining their discoveries to the public. Perhaps it
happens because the introductory physics courses taken by engineers and other non-major students
of physics rarely treat any discoveries in physics more recent than 1930. Certainly this lack of
public understanding contributes to the impression among educated men and women that physics is
a dead discipline.
Only thirty percent of physics majors go to graduate school in physics. Another thirty
percent pursue further study in other fields such as engineering, medicine or even law. Forty
percent go directly into the industrial job market where they will eventually be joined by about half
of the students pursuing advanced degrees in physics. This is not new. What is new is the set of
skills today's physics students need to survive in industry where work is conducted by teams from
several disciplines including not only the various sciences but also business staff.
In the workplace of the 21st century, physics students will continue to need traditional skills
in translating real-world problems into mathematical models. They need more advanced computer
skills than their predecessors. Increasingly, they need a breadth of experience in science so they can
work effectively with engineers, chemists, geologists and biologists. They need excellent
communication skills: oral to present their ideas to committees and executives and written to
prepare grant applications and reports. Very talented researchers who cannot work as members of a
team will not thrive in modern industry. Finally, many physicists benefit from acquiring basic
business skills and some training in management.
Not only is the workplace that physics graduates enter changing, the students entering
introductory physics classes differ from students in those classes when we professors were
students. More high school graduates enroll in college which is no-longer only for the elite. Many
students consider education as a necessary ticket for a lucrative career. They resent courses that
they consider extraneous to their career goals. Many students are older with family responsibilities.
Even young, unmarried students work long hours to help finance their education. They consider
work time as part of their preparation for their courses and spend less time in conventional
studying.
College freshmen today can build a homepage, but they have never taken a motor apart.
They handle computers skillfully but cannot do simple algebra. Eighteen-year-olds acquire
information from videos not books. They absorb knowledge in short segments rather than
concentrating for hours on a lengthy chapter. Modern physics textbooks use sidebars to provide
information in the short bursts to which our students are accustomed. Physics faculty, who teach
on the assumption that beginning students have worked with machines and have conventional math
skills, find themselves frustrated by these newcomers. Many beginning physics students have
succeeded in high school with minimal effort. They become quickly frustrated with the demands of
typical college physics courses. This mutual frustration quickly leads to a bad climate in physics
classrooms.