Can I be in a Ph.D program?

[lucerne]

I have been in physics Ph.D program for 4 years, didn't find the department supportive, and lost interest in my studies. I am very interested in going into another field, like mathematics, geophysics, environmental physics, economy, and law. I have a decent math background, but I lack experience in each. With my criterions:

undergrad GPA: 3.6

grad GPA: most graded on Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory, received all satisfactory

GRE: 1500

Letter of Recommendation: 1 letter from grad school advisor, the only grad advisor I found very supportive of me, 2 letters have to come from undergrad

One undergrad publication, no grad publication

Not a Ph.D candidate

what are my chances of switching field?

I'm very unconfident about applying to Ph.D because I'm very worried that my GPA is too low.

[Seeking]

Perhaps you can present a conference paper or publish a paper or two in the field you want to switch to.

A couple of well-researched papers will enhance your chances. Of course, this means you apply in the next season.

[Agradatudent]

You are all over the board. I'm not sure if a physics PHD student would have a good enough mathematical background for a phd in pure math. Applied is possible, but it's just totally different areas. You need to give us more details on your backgrounds.

[jeffster]

Whatever program you were to choose, the main thing you'll need to figure out how to address is if you made it four years into one PhD program and then quit, how do they know you aren't going to do that in their program too? Why would they invest effort and money into you, when they could accept other students without this? That seems like a huge obstacle to me, I would be curious if anyone else has been successful doing such a thing. Seems like you would need to put serious thought into your statement of purpose, and how you can frame this.

Also, those are some really, really broad areas you mentioned there. How do you know you would be interested enough in one of those to make it all the way through?

Edited June 11, 2012 by jeffster

[ISEngineer]

Can't you contact potential advisors in the same school but in other departments and transfer smoothly over. I actually saw one PhD transferring from Operations Research to Computer Science as his interest changed. I mean especially in academics you must be passionate about your topic so I would say professors understand that. They rather have a very famous and strong scientist they know in a neighbors department than having an average performer in their own rows.