Physics Minor

Written by Siddhant Tripathy, B.Tech 3rd year (July 2021)

I am personally interested in pursuing research in physics as a career, and being in Electrical Engineering I have had to find other avenues of attaining prerequisites that I would require to apply for PhD programs and so on. While the best way to do this is through projects and taking electives in the physics department, a minor definitely complements one’s resume. The Physics minor is rather easy to complete as the Physics department offers several basic courses one can choose from. One thing to note is that the EE core courses often clash with crucial physics elective slots, hence an EE student interested in physics as a career will have to do a lot of self study anyway.

I personally have taken up Celestial Mechanics, Introduction to QM, and Thermal and Statistical Physics as part of my minor so far. All three are not very advanced, but Celestial Mechanics is perhaps the most important basic course, and must be taken by everyone interested in physics, irrespective of any particular field. The other two were very basic and did not add much value to my knowledge, but they definitely help in attaining a good minor CPI. In addition I have taken up Nonlinear dynamics, Quantum Information and Computing, and General Relativity as electives. NLD provides good mathematical tools that are useful in most dynamical systems (you may also find some applications in core EE control system courses). QIC will not complement your EE stream but provides a good bridge between theoretical quantum mechanics and computing. GR on the other hand is more advanced, and requires more time commitment. It is extremely mathematical and the tensor algebra introduced is again applicable in most areas of physics.

In summary, if you are looking for an easy minor to complete, physics is a good choice. If you are looking to do this minor to assist career ambitions in physics, while the minor degree and associated courses may not seem very helpful, it does look good on the resume, and since you will be taking up multiple physics electives anyway, might as well tag a few (five) of them as minors.