Judith Pollard

What does a physics undergraduate education give you? A perspective from Australian physics

In a study to assess how effectively undergraduate physics studies have prepared students for the workplace, we attempted to locate and interview traditional 3-year or 4-year physics students who had graduated in the past five years (2000 to 2004), and the employers of these graduates. The study was limited to recent graduates who have majored in physics and not obtained further or concurrent degrees. Overseas studies of the destinations of physics graduates referred to in this paper have not isolated the group we interviewed as a distinct group. A major finding was that the number of these graduates was unexpectedly low. Indeed, most physics graduates have two degrees. Interviews with graduates and employers suggest that physics graduates have particular strengths in problem solving and are good at applying their skills at the workplace.

First Year University Physics: Who Succeeds?.

Abstract The question of the wastage of talent is addressed in relation to first year physics at the University of Adelaide, South Australia. Using data for the 1989 intake, three hypotheses are examined: that a relationship exists between school achievement and success in first year university physics; that tertiary success is a function of the motivation and metacognitive strategies of the learners; and that a weighted combination of indicators will allow significant discrimination between levels of tertiary success/failure. A fourth hypothesis raises the question of the generalisabil‐ity of results to the identification of potential wastage in future years, and a test is reported using the 1990 intake. The results support generalisability. Intervention strategies are proposed with the potential for decreasing wastage.