What type of student might consider a Physics degree? Famous UC alumnus, Ernest Rutherford, was intrigued in childhood by seeing a stick apparently bend when dipped into a farm bucket of water; Albert Einstein asked how his face would appear in a hand-held mirror if he ran at some significant fraction of the speed of light. A budding physicist may share this fascination with and curiosity about the natural world. Physics aims to understand the behaviour of matter and energy from the scale of subatomic particles to that of the Universe itself. From computers to communication systems, architecture to agriculture; modern life is overwhelmingly built using the understanding of nature that physics provides. We are currently in an incredibly exciting period in Physics. The technological advances of the last 20 years have had an enormous impact on all our lives and almost all of these advances rely on advances in Physics. Modern physics provides a framework for understanding – and contributing to – major advances in technology now and in the future.

Many of our graduates are employed as physicists and can be found at Crown Research Institutes, the National Radiation Laboratory, medical physics departments of hospitals, or universities and the Meteorological Service among others. Some Physics graduates are not employed as scientists however – their analytical skills, numeracy and all-round thinking ability are in demand in many industries. Some of these graduates are snapped up by the IT and electronics industries, but those same skills are equally valued by merchant banks, stock brokers and other financial services companies, as well as by the armed services, police and aerospace industries (including airlines like Air New Zealand). Teaching, journalism and science communication also need people with physics training.