EE or Physics PHD

[kcat]

Hi all,

I am an graduate from Taiwan who got admitted in UCLA EE, UMD Physics for the PhD program (although I received like 15 rejections...). UCLA gave me fellowships for the first academic year of entry while UMD offered me TA or RA with Dean's fellowship through the end of second academic year. Both offers cover almost all of the tuition and give me stipend every month. 

For the research part, for UCLA EE, my advisor is doing applied physics research, the research topics covers Graphene Photonics / nonlinear dynamics in semiconductor lasers, which I am interested in. As for the UMD physics, as you know, they got many different research areas, I am also very interested in topics such as quantum information / mesoscopic physics.

I know that LA has far nicer weather, although it is more expensive and traffic can be a pain. UCLA EE is more highly regarded in EE than UMD Physics is in Physics. In addition UCLA degrees have better brand value in general, EE degrees are normally more marketable than physics degrees, because they are more specialized. And the professor in UCLA EE also interviewed me before the admission, he did help me for getting the fellowship offer.

As for UMD, UMD physics is very good at quantum information, they have the joint quantum institute in addition to lots of connections to the NSA, NIST, and military/defense funding. That's important for lots of quantum research. Also UMD I know produces at least some faculty.

My future goal is to become professor in physics/applied physics, but I also heard that it is possible to teach physics with EE PHD degrees if you have firm basis, besides, I know it is not easy at all to find jobs in academia, I also looking forward to work in some companies.

I am not really sure which would be a good fit. I am very hesitate between choosing these two universities, and as the decision deadline is approaching, the more info I got, the more I hesitated. Could you guys tell me about the factors which I should take into account for a great graduate life? 

Any help would be appreciated, thanks in advance.

[blacknighterrant]

On 4/2/2016 at 10:47 PM, kcat said:

Hi all,

I am an graduate from Taiwan who got admitted in UCLA EE, UMD Physics for the PhD program (although I received like 15 rejections...). UCLA gave me fellowships for the first academic year of entry while UMD offered me TA or RA with Dean's fellowship through the end of second academic year. Both offers cover almost all of the tuition and give me stipend every month. 

For the research part, for UCLA EE, my advisor is doing applied physics research, the research topics covers Graphene Photonics / nonlinear dynamics in semiconductor lasers, which I am interested in. As for the UMD physics, as you know, they got many different research areas, I am also very interested in topics such as quantum information / mesoscopic physics.

I know that LA has far nicer weather, although it is more expensive and traffic can be a pain. UCLA EE is more highly regarded in EE than UMD Physics is in Physics. In addition UCLA degrees have better brand value in general, EE degrees are normally more marketable than physics degrees, because they are more specialized. And the professor in UCLA EE also interviewed me before the admission, he did help me for getting the fellowship offer.

As for UMD, UMD physics is very good at quantum information, they have the joint quantum institute in addition to lots of connections to the NSA, NIST, and military/defense funding. That's important for lots of quantum research. Also UMD I know produces at least some faculty.

My future goal is to become professor in physics/applied physics, but I also heard that it is possible to teach physics with EE PHD degrees if you have firm basis, besides, I know it is not easy at all to find jobs in academia, I also looking forward to work in some companies.

I am not really sure which would be a good fit. I am very hesitate between choosing these two universities, and as the decision deadline is approaching, the more info I got, the more I hesitated. Could you guys tell me about the factors which I should take into account for a great graduate life? 

Any help would be appreciated, thanks in advance.

Go with UCLA EE PHD. An EE PhD is far more useful than a Physics PhD in the field (physics is a bit too broad for what most employers look for, they prefer EE, for instance if you check listings for companies such as raytheon, they actively search for those with ee degrees, but the only physics degrees they want are physical engineering and even then there are far fewer job listings and the ee degree would allow you to apply for any of them. Even outside of engineering an ee degree is actively looked for in fields like consulting, investment banking, and finance.). People are also right in saying that you can teach and do physics research as an EE PhD (for instance, the head of undergrad physics in my undergrad school was an EE PhD. Even MIT has a subcategory of applied physics within their EE school and honestly, there is plenty of overlapping research that you could do and in addition there are many EE departments that do quantum information and devices research (like Purdue), so even if a specific school won't let you be a Physics professor you can do the research you want. In addition, a PhD takes a very long time, do you really want to live in Maryland over Los Angeles?