I’ve long toyed with a mid-life pivot into a different field. Mostly, I lean towards IT as the most practical for me, but I love the idea of finally studying a hard science, which I grew to love, but never really got a good formal education in.
I’ve heard/read, for example, that there aren’t necessarily tons of astrophysics jobs out there, so if you only have a bachelor’s degree, you might have a tough time. I don’t even know that this is true, but I use it as an example.
What are the hard science fields that would be the opposite of this? I could imagine there might be a lot of Chemistry-related jobs, for example, maybe? But I have a hard time imagining what you could do with a pure Physics degree (without also focusing on Engineering or something supplementary)? Would Biology get you anywhere by itself?
Or is it just the hard truth of all hard sciences that you’re pretty much worthless with just a four-year degree, from a job perspective?
If you want to work in academics, you need Masters at the very least, and a PhD if you want to be more than someone’s grading monkey. That’s true of hard sciences and it’s really true of softer subjects.
Astrophysics has no commercial applications that I’m aware of, with space forecasting for the government being the closest thing. So, if you want to use an astrophysics degree for astrophysics, then yes, 4-year is nothing. However, you can probably convince some finance nepobaby you’re a genius and make money as a quant with just a bachelors in (astro-)physics.
Do you want to work in astrophysics, or just in a hard science job of some kind?