The Department is also dedicated to providing students with the essential skills and knowledge required to pursue a wide range of professional careers. A large number of physics majors have been admitted to highly ranked universities to pursue graduate studies in physics. Examples include the University of Maryland, University of Pennsylvania, College of William and Mary, Purdue University and Washington University at St. Alumni of the Physics Department have also gone on to succesful professional positions in private companies, industry, engineering, the US Army, and local software companies. All physics majors are encouraged to participate in directed physics projects.
Interested majors play an active role in the research programs of faculty.
Students gain hands-on experience with the latest research techniques in the fields of Solid State Physics, Nonlinear Optics, and Physics Education. Students interested in becoming engineers can complete three years at Western Maryland College and then pursue an engineering program for two years at either of these schools. The Physics Department has 10 brand-new Gateway Pentium III computers and several Macintosh computers which are available for students' classwork and research projects. The computers are interfaced with laboratory equipment, and students learn a significant amount of computer programming in all physics classes. A popular physics course available to first year students involves performing exciting experiments in mechanics using the computer, motion, sound, and pressure sensors, VideoPoint, and graphing sofware packages.