In this post, we’ll be discovering the difference between physics and psychology and which is the best major to choose.
which is better physics or psychology
According to BLS, the median salary of psychologists is $81,000 a year, physicists earn way more than that. The average salary of a physicist is $147,000 a year which is 45% bigger than a psychologist but it is not easy to earn this amount of money as a physicist.
The physics majors are so competitive and the numbers prove that around 20,000 is the global number of physicists in the US which is a poor number when we compare it to psychology.
In psychology, there are more than 178,000 people working in this industry which is almost 9 times bigger than physics occupations, these numbers have a big influence on whether to get employed easier or not.
To clarify, every year 13,500 new opportunities are offered for psychology majors, while only 1600 occupations for physics occupations. So based on the calculations and numbers you will have 9 times better chances to find a job easier as a psychologist than a physicist major.
Even though physics is paid well, there are limited Opportunities in this industry, most physicists are interested in working with governments like being professors in universities or working with spatial centers like NASA which is so competitive and time-consuming.
To reach this position you must have to spend 10 years after getting your bachelor’s in physics preparing for your Ph.D. which could be risky and not worth it sometimes.
To summarize, finding a job in physics is more difficult than in psychology. If you are caring and interested in getting hired as soon as possible psychology is going to be the best choice for you, but there are still other factors to consider, which will be talked about later in our article.
Should I do physics or psychology?
There are many criteria that will allow you to make your decision between physics and psychology, but the most interesting one is passion and financial rewards. Passion is interesting to keep going and facing hardships and financial rewards is a significant form of recompensation.
1 – passion
If you love to study human behavior and know more about culture and society, it will be worth doing something for the rest of your life that you enjoy and bring you happiness. Because psychology is a domain that involves reading a lot of essays and digging deeper into the details.
If you don’t love psychology you will easily get bored and this is what happens to many graduate students who end up quitting their Ph.D. due to the extreme and boring workload.
But to find a job in a psychology major you are not required to do a Ph.D., having a bachelor’s in psychology is enough to get you on the right track to work in social work industries.
On the other hand, physics is a completely different topic to psychology, in physics, you will be required to be good at math and science, physicists study a lot of math topics like calculus, algebra, linear algebra, multivariable calculus, it very heavier in math the only math you will be needing in psychology is statistics.
physics requires people who are loving math and do well on it, while psychology doesn’t require that.
If you find yourself attracted to the universe and ask how things are made or how to build stuff, you are likely made for majoring in physics or engineering, but physics majors involve a lot of math that you should prepare for.
2 – financial reward
Both physics and psychology are demanded according to the number we mentioned in the first article paragraph, but the opportunities to find a job earlier in psychology are higher than in physics if we compare the numbers, but in the other side, physicists are demanded and can be working in others unrelated topics or industries like manufacturing or IT companies.
If you graduate with a physics degree you are supposed to be smart because the physics branch is even harder than engineering. It is more concerned with math. As a result, you acquire critical thinking skills allowing you to work in any industry.
In addition, there are some branches where you could mix engineering and physics, and become an engineering physicist doing both sides you could find more details in the article.
In general psychology and physics are financially rewarding jobs, you don’t have to worry if you choose psychology or physics, the most interesting thing is to complete a prerequisite for each branch.
which is harder than physics or psychology
Physics is harder and more difficult than psychology, in physics courses you will be required to study all math courses including calculus, algebra, statistics, and probability. While in psychology students should only take statistics it is the most difficult math subject you will find in this course.
So for students who are not loving math or are not good at it, physics could be hell, but at the same time if you don’t like to memorize and read a lot of essays and do research you will find a topic very boring and difficult to complete.
So it will depend on your abilities and what you like and what you don’t, if you enjoy math and love to know what is behind the scenes and ask questions about the inverse, science, and engineering staff, physics is for you.
If you are fascinated by human psychology and love to read other people’s behaviors, you will find this branch interesting, not boring as many people find.
were going to give a general idea about what students study in psychology and physics
in psychology, you will be taking courses like:
- Statistics
- memory
- cognition
- sensation
- perception
- human development
- social influences
in physics, you will be taking courses like:
- college algebra
- calculus
- multivariable calculus
- quantum mechanics
- thermodynamics
- kinematics
Psychology will give you the opportunity to work with people directly like coaching or doing private sessions of teaching. While in physics you are taught to work for organizations and companies, this is an interesting point to take into consideration.