In about 8 months I will likely have my masters degree in Physics and will be in need of a job. Problem is, I've never really known what kind of work I wanted to do when I grew up. Physics was my choice only because I wanted to know how the universe works, and I was good at maths.
I'm someone who likes to learn a lot about all kinds of different (often perhaps considered nerdy) things: physics, mathematics, economics, psychology, philosophy, rationality, programming, gaming, I can go on. I've come to the point in my education that learning more about physics costs a lot of time I find better spent on other subjects, and as such I don't feel a PhD is right for me.
I do however enjoy the freedom research brings: I just want it to be more interdisciplinary. My education has well prepared me as a problem solver, and I definitely want to apply this part of myself during my career. I love to learn, or rather, I love the realisation of finally understanding something. I want to know a lot about all the subjects I mentioned and more: I never want to stop learning new things.
Essentially I'm looking for a career that requires me to solve problems in all kinds of fields. Of course not on the level of 'figure out a theory of everything', 'prove the Goldbach conjecture', 'figure out how brains work', 'create a friendly AI', or other ludicrously difficult problems that take many brilliant people decades to solve. More on the level of 'well Google has decided they want to cure aging, look into that'. What 'look into that' means is sort of vague - I know - and even such a problem might be too ambitious, but I hope I'm at least painting a clear image of my wishes.
People such as Elon Musk - who've taken it upon themselves to solve huge societal problems (energy and multiplanitarity (that's probably a word) in his case) - inspire me greatly. While I don't think I can match them as a visionary, I like to think I can at least help.
It may be a very naive and childish view of the world, but I just have this imagine in my mind of being part of a team of people; and these people solve stuff, or at least help solve stuff.
Does anyone know of a good career path for me to look into, considering all of this?
Submitted October 22, 2015 at 06:32PM by Timsey http://ift.tt/1jD8zzg
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