Physics Department, Princeton University

Physics addresses the material universe at its most fundamental levels. The laws revealed by careful study and experiment should apply from subatomic to cosmological scales. With currently-understood physical law and mathematics as a foundation, the goals of physics are to push to still deeper levels of understanding and to push upward, extending our understanding to more complicated systems: molecules, fluids, solids, galaxies, living things.

Concentrating in physics at Princeton will not only teach you about the structure of physical law, but it will allow you to take part in its discovery. Along the way you will learn to "think like a physicist" -- a hard-to-describe skill combining practiced intuition, the scientific method, and a knack for approximation -- and you will develop powerful, broadly-applicable problem-solving skills.

Physics majors are prepared not only for a career in physics, but many other fields as well. Physics alumni may be found in academic and industrial physics research positions as well as consulting, medicine, law, teaching, biotechnology, and engineering careers. In fact, the Physics Department has made a concerted effort to make its core requirements more flexible, allowing a greater variety of programs of study that satisfy the major requirements. There are certificate programs in engineering physics, biophysics, finance, quantitative and computational biology, as well as in other fields, and students are encouraged to explore multidisciplinary programs. Ideas for a course of study should be discussed with the Undergraduate Representative.

Princeton Physics for the Prospective Undergraduate
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Princeton Society of Physics Students