People dreamt of speaking across continents, of touching the moon, of looking inside the very atoms of matter. Now we can. We are starting to keep a list of inspirational books describing more eloquently the deep attraction of physics and the experience of being a physicist. The physics major learns to start with an ill-posed problem, formulate it quantitatively, solve it, and communicate the results clearly. The skill transfers readily to many fields.
Physicists go on to become lawyers, doctors, and engineers.
We have come into considerable demand as investment bankers, particularly since it was realized that the Black-Scholes model for futures pricing is mathematically a diffusion equation. Employment opportunities for people with training in physics are manifold. An undergraduate in an experimental lab can expect to pick up several of these skills, taking Andy Pommer's machine-shop course, using the services of the helium facility , and learning electronic design and computer programming from the engineers and scientists supporting these services in the department. Computers find use in laboratories for data acquisition and analysis as well as in numerical calculations, simulation, and visualization. Even where computers are not needed for a particular theoretical or experimental work, we use them in typesetting papers and preparing figures for publications and presentations.