Expert: Daniel Mazur - 8/31/2009

Question
QUESTION: I'm currently in an associates bio-tech program. but my love is physics, i like black holes, light speed and wormholes. i want to major in physics but it seems like MD's get paid a whole lot more than physicist holding PhD's. i never understood why? is there any physicist that get paid 200k a year like doctors? money isn't everything but, it takes about the same time to earn a MD degree as a phd. another question i have is since im going to have a A.S degree in biotech, would it be harder to earn a B.S in physics within 2 years without taking any physics classes?

ANSWER: Dear Karl,

M.D.'s are paid a lot because they have a lot of responsibility in their work - their decisions directly influence people's health and lives. In countries, where people do not sue doctors as often as in the U.S.A, medical doctors are not paid in such high multiples of what society's average or university-graduates' average is. They also spend many years after degree earning next to nothing before they are allowed to specialize/have license for private practice. We physicists have responsibility for equipment, for the professional function of our teams, but our work is not based on making the difference between life and death, health or permanent disability. There are physicists, who earn ~$200k a year, those are the research team leaders or full university professors at good universities. We have to work successfully for many years before we get to that salary level.

I might note that it is a falsehood that higher education equals higher salary - our parents and teachers tall us this falsehood in order to motivate us to study hard. The honest form of this "rumor" is that higher education better protects you from unemployment and sufferings related to it.

I do not know, how much physics you have had in your bio-tech curriculum, so I cannot reliably answer that question. You did not write, at what institution you are, so I cannot check either. I suspect that you will not be allowed nor able to skip all physics from a Physics B.S. curriculum. The best probe is the following: try and find some Qualifying Exams for M.S. in Physics. If you have taken all physics tested there during your associate degree, then you can skip the undergraduate physics from Physics B.S., otherwise not.

Good luck,
Daniel

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: i meant, by me taking all the bio classes for my A.S degree would it be harder changing degrees? from biotech to physics. i have no physics classes on my college record. when i transfer to a university would i have enough time to earn a degree in physics in 2yrs? Thank you.

Answer
Hello again, Karl,

the answer is "almost certainly no". In my opinion no-one can learn all the undergraduate physics in 2 years. If you have an excellent foundation in physics from high school, you might be able to just about gobble down all the college-level theory. However, there is such thing as practical physics labs, through which future theorists must pass as well as future experimentalists. The labs normally take 3 years, they are mandatory, and I cannot imagine two of them squeezed into one year. Lastly, it is probably not just physics that you are missing in your curriculum. There is a lot of maths that we must learn and that takes time as well. All in all I think that squeezing 4 years of Physics Bc into 2 years is impossible and an A.S. degree in biotech will not be much help there sorry.

Good luck!
Daniel