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Breaking Away from Programming?
Captain Numerica asks: "I've been working as a programmer since I graduated from high school. I've been paying my own way through college, and now I'm about to graduate with a BS in Physics. I plan on continuing my studies to a PhD in Physics, but first I need to get on my feet financially, as a fellowship/TA position isn't yet sufficient for the debt I've accumulated in my more irresponsible years. I'm leaving my university with a great deal of programming experience -- a fact that I might want to advertise to potential employers. However, at the same time I don't want to become type-casted as just a programmer, as my real skills involve analytical and experimental physics. Has anyone working as a research engineer/scientist come out of college under similar circumstances?" For those of you with significant programming skills, but the wish to focus in areas more suitable to your education, how did you avoid falling into the Programmer IT Trap?
1) - Good paycheck! I was making more than enough to survive and pay off debt.
2) - Opportunity to build your resume for grad school. (all of the people I worked with went to Tier 1 schools when they left)
3) - Ability to do research in your spare time. Researchers are always willing to accept free labor
4) - Ability to take classes for free. (or at signifigant discount)
5) - Chance to go to conferences and present research (ie, make a name for yourself)
I can think of a few more but I actually have to get to work now. Give me an email if you want some specific suggestions and places I personally know of.
MR
--Keeping the flame wars alive, one post at a time
Apply for research positions in companies, and not for development ones. At least where I work, the two are clearly distinct. Product research is done by HW&SW researchers, and generally requires a Masters or PhD. These people make patents, algorithms, or fairly raw prototypes. Product developement is done by HW&SW developers, and generally requires a degree. These people develop products for sale, and sometimes productize the ideas that come from research. If you are looking to go back to academic research, then the research angle is the one to pursue. Development (and I speak as a developer) is always same old same old, even when it's a new product, since it's all about "the process". Following the process, renewing the process, refining the process, documenting the process, auditing the process, ignoring the process when it comes to crunch time, .... blech.
... if you are absolutely, positively sure that physics research is what you want to do with your life. Your debts, if they're student loans, can be deferred while you're in grad school. (And if they're not student loans, then get all the loans you can and put them toward paying down your other debts -- 3% student loan interest beats 15% credit card interest any day of the week.) In the long run, you'll come out ahead, financially, professionally, and personally.
OTOH, if you're not absolutely, positively sure, then just get a job and work hard and make as much money as you can for a while, and then after a few years, when you've paid down your debts and hopefully have some money in the bank, you can decide if you really want to commit yourself full-time to research.
In any case, don't worry about being typecast, IMO. Grad school admission committees aren't going to look at your work history and say, "Oh, this guy's just a programmer, we can't possibly teach him physics." If anything, they'll be more impressed by a wide variety of experience -- not to mention that there is a desperate need, in just about every scientific field, for researchers who also know how to program. And once you have your Ph.D., nobody cares what you did for a living beforehand. One of my best professors put himself through school, from day one as a freshman to the day he got his doctorate, as a short-order cook. Nobody in the department ever asked him to fry up some bacon and eggs.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Good research programmers are hard to find, and places like JPL, Los Alamos and Ames are pretty much always looking for people in this area. They're also on the bleeding edge of research and closely integrated with some of the best grad schools in the country.
Look for a job with a government agency that does both research and computer-based simulations. Examples: NOAA, NIST, NREL for unclassified work. Out here in Colorado a fair number of grad students similar to you go to Los Alamos for summer jobs.