I have a few friends in the process of getting either their
Master's or PhD's in theoretical physics right now. Two are
women right here on FB I'm friends with. It's a tricky field if
you want to work in it directly job-wise, but you can command
nearly double the salary of someone with an MBA if you have a
PhD in Theoretical Physics 'cause damn, it looks good to have
someone like that working for you. [I was gonna do it in
college - Theoretical Physics - back in 1990 - but the guy who
gave the prospective-students talk called "Quantum Mechanics For
Millions" that so inspired me was on sabbatical that year, so I
chose child psychology instead. Didn't finish but in any case no
regrets either 'cause I suspect I would've ended up working
somewhere on string theory... which wouldn't have been all that
bad, but there was a glut of people working in string theory at
the time I would've graduated at the right level. Yeah, I
think that's why they keep it. I mean, there's no NEED for the
mathematical language to be so obtuse - it's just tradition.
Helping my 10 yr old nephew through common core math today;
compound fractions simplification. What kills him - which killed
me back in my time - is the whole "show your work" part. He can
stare at it and get the answers right but showing your work the
way THEY want to see it is what kills him. I spent more time
listening him rant about the unfairness and ridiculousness of
"show your work", repetition, and scheduling equal amounts of
homework on 'off days' than him actually doing it. He was right,
which is why I listened. Yeah, at this point if I had the
resources to go back to school, Neuroscience would definitely be
hot on my list, particularly Cognitive Psychology. It has the
best mix of 'story explanation' and measurable stuff to help
people understand what's going on up there.
