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I have always been a lover of physics but due to certain circumstances I was unable to take up a physics degree in my undergrad. I was aimless for a while but have now again decided to take a shot at actually studying theoretical physics and attaining that goal. However, I am in a no name college in a country that churns out engineers by the millions and do not have any opportunity to take up electives or physics centered courses. I also have close to no research experience bar co-authoring two conference papers (IAC).

I would love to know how to garner the experince required, research and otherwise. Which courses should I learn? How can I attain research experience?

(for context, I am interested in High Energy Physics but would love to participate in any other field as well

I am also in my second year of engineering.)

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  • Try to apply to one of the numerous opportunities at CERN: careers.cern/students you want to get into the physics world, but the physics world will never admit how strong they need engineers to design, build, operate and mantain such complex machines (at least the people active in research ... the ones managing the money absolutely know that, in fact as you can see there are miryads of opportunities). careers.cern/students Good luck!
    – EarlGrey
    Commented Jan 28, 2022 at 10:49
  • Thank you @EarlGrey, I'll certianly look into it!
    – curious
    Commented Jan 30, 2022 at 6:56

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Essentially, there are two approaches available to you: either get a formal education, to a degree writing off your earlier studies, or weasel your way in via some work experience. Experimental HEP needs people with engineering/electronics background, but you will have a pretty hard time adjusting your position in the lab afterwards (having to find another good engineer and train a newbie student is double the liability!). In theoretical HEP, however... Well, you would need something very close to formal education at least, and your engineering background would not really help here. I have done an MSc in (experimental) HEP after a BSc in a different field and it was extremely tough, with theoretical courses being the hardest to keep up with. Not to dissuade you; I just think it is one of the areas of modern physics with lots of domain-specific knowledge which will absolutely batter you if you go in unprepared.

If you are still very much open to the field, astronomy would be less rough but a lot of people are excited by it as well, so you would have to stand out :)

Whatever you choose, you would need a lab. Doing an independent research with no relevant background works if you are one in a billion genius I suppose but is a colossal waste of time and effort otherwise. Get in touch with someone and negotiate working for them. Good luck!

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  • Thank you so much for your response! I am certainly not insistent on HEP but I just dont want to give up on the physics dream. I'll certainly look into the labs available. In your opinion, are there any other fields besides astronomy that would work out given my situation?
    – curious
    Commented Jan 30, 2022 at 6:54
  • @curious That depends on how much are you willing to invest on your re-education and how open are you to the risks of being involved with electronics for longer than you wish for. I've gotten an impression you wished to get on a more theoretical side of things, and this requires an extensive and detailed background in most fields. With experimental labs, it's easier - just being generally good with equipment smoothens the transition a lot. Still expect to spend a while in a lab assistant position, essentially (thankfully, a PhD is often not much different from that...).
    – Lodinn
    Commented Jan 31, 2022 at 17:13
  • In your case, probably not biophysics (although who knows...). But more generally, start from the other side of the equation - find topics that interest you, get in contact with some lab, offer your workforce for relatively cheap, earn a living while pursuing something you are actually excited about, PROFIT! Your situation is not common but given no commitments so far you are not in a terrible position for such negotiations.
    – Lodinn
    Commented Jan 31, 2022 at 17:16
  • I'm very happily abhorrent to biophysics :) Thank you so much for your advice!
    – curious
    Commented Feb 5, 2022 at 16:34

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