Advice on pursuing physics faculty position

[elimelon]

Hello,

I am a high school senior wanting to eventually become a professor of physics. Right now, I am doing research at my state university at a lab trying to harness the Hall effect for use in room temperature devices. My role is the detection and characterization of magnetic domains. I will stay at the university over the summer for three months, where room and board, researching funding, and a stipend will be provided. I should have something published by the end of that, as well as being a contributed to the larger papers that the group produces.

I’m doing all I can now, but I would like to ask those of you who have become / are on the path to professorship, what is the advice that you would give me to maximize my chances of succeeding in such a competitive field? I plan on applying to a PhD from undergrad. My first choice for undergrad is Williams College, which I hear back from in 2 weeks.

Of course, I won’t close off other options and there is a large possibility I may change my course, but for now, I would like to do everything I can to get ahead.

I appreciate your responses!

 

[berkeman]

Welcome to PF.

Right now, I am doing research at my state university at a lab trying to harness the Hall effect for use in room temperature devices.

But the Hall effect is a room-temperature phenomenon, no?

 

[elimelon]

Welcome to PF.


But the Hall effect is a room-temperature phenomenon, no?

My bad, I meant to say that the purpose of the lab is the first use the Hall effect in devices, and eventually and more broadly induce quantum phenomena at room temperature and realize day-to-day quantum devices. Of course, the larger goals are outside of my responsibilities, and I only work with the preparation and characterization of material.

 

[jtbell]

You know it's a long multi-stage process, right? First you get a bachelor's degree, then you get a Ph.D., then you work as a post-doc for some number of years (2 to 5, maybe?), and then you're able to apply for tenure-track assistant-professor positions at research universities.

At each stage, focus on doing well in that stage. Don't get too far ahead of yourself. As you said, you may very well change your mind along the way. Develop skills that you can use in other kinds of careers, if you do bail out of academic physics at some point.

Ending up with a research professorship probably requires a lot of luck (having the right position open up at the right time) along with everything you have some control over. Keep in mind that the professor who supervises you in grad school probably supervises on the order of a few tens of people like you over the course of his career. It takes only one person to replace him when he retires or dies. The number of physics professorships is probably approximately constant; it's not a fast-growing field.

I went to a small college myself for undergraduate, not as prestigious as Williams, but I enjoyed it there. I did well enough to get into a decent grad school (Michigan). When I was finishing my Ph.D. about 40 year ago, I decided to look for a teaching-oriented position at a small college. It turns out that (at that time at least), such positions are about as competitive as research professorships at big universities. I got lucky twice. I ended up with a two-year temporary visiting assistant professorship (analogous to a post-doc on the research track) at one school, then a tenure-track position at another one, where I did get tenure and eventually retired. In both job searches, I had two invitations to interview, and one job offer.

My Plan B was to go into a programming career, because I had done a lot of it in grad school (this was back in the FORTRAN days) and had gotten good at it. This helped me get my final teaching position, because the college wanted someone who could teach both physics and computer science.

 

[pines-demon]

I find that wanting to get to faculty position before even starting university is the wrong way to plan goals in this day and age. You should do physics because you like math, physics, science and tinkering. It should be its own goal to learn more about the universe around you. If you are good at it you might be lucky to be in the right track to unlock a good tenure track. If not, you will still learn a lot and if you like you will find ways for it to be useful for you in other areas or continue on it in your past time. Money and positions in physics research are limited, there are too many smarter people out there and statistically you are at a loss. If you want money or stability look for something else. All that said learning physics is totally worth the path (if you can afford it).

 

[Choppy]

It sounds to me like you're on the best path you can be on.

I would just add that it's important to take the time to explore your own interests. Don't get too vested in any particular path too early.