The career paths available to those with an education in the physical sciences are just as varied as the different areas of study within this vast field. Some areas with largely scientific applications tend to lead towards jobs in academia or education. For instance, astronomy majors with bachelor’s degrees often become high school teachers or work at planetariums, while many others continue to graduate school to pursue a career in research answering questions about the extraterrestrial universe.
By contrast, physics is an example of a field that can lead to a wide range of jobs both inside and outside of academia. If you want to do laboratory research at cutting-edge facilities like CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research), you can aspire to become a particle physicist and study the behavior of the subatomic world. On the other hand, if you want to solve more practical problems on a (much) larger scale, physics is also highly useful for careers designing buildings and other structures as an engineer.
Geoscience backgrounds can also lead to a variety of non-academic careers, depending on which area of this field you are interested in. Geologists are employed by mining and drilling companies to help determine where to find valuable resources under the earth’s surface, and experience in this area can also lead to work providing insights to various companies in finance and as an energy consultant. Specialists in hydrology can find work studying the composition of bodies of water for environmental agencies or advocacy groups.