The applied physics plan is especially geared towards providing the physics graduate with specific expertise in preparation for immediate employment in the corporate research world or in government laboratories. Students obtain a solid physics background plus significant experience in one or more specialties of their own choosing, selected from a wide range of choices from Purdue's science and engineering schools. Seventeen recommended combinations of electives have been assembled, and are outlined below.
New combinations are also possible to arrange, in consultation with the department.
Four of the elective courses must involve laboratory work. The M.S. degree requirements can be completed in one year under the usual rules of the Graduate School. The 17 specialties under the applied physics curriculum are acoustics, atmospheric physics, coherent optics and quantum electronics, environmental health physics, geophysics, health physics, materials, medical physics, meteorology, nuclear energy, physical metallurgy, plasma physics, reactor health physics, scientific programming, small computers in research, solid-state device physics, and spectroscopy. Additional specialties may be chosen by the student in consultation with the advisor. A student who wants to transfer from other fields into a major in physics must have a grade-point average of 2.0 in all physics and mathematics courses and cannot have more than one D or F in physics or mathematics courses.