If you are deciding between majoring in physics or accounting, you might want to know more about what each major has to offer. This post will show you the key facts about each major and help you to decide which would be a better degree for you.
At a glance:
| | Accounting | Physics |
| Payscale reported average pay | $70,762 | $86,600 |
| Ease of finding a job | Moderate/Good | Moderate/Good |
| Types of jobs you can qualify for | Project Manager Marketing manager Account manager Operations manager Financial analyst | Software engineer Data scientist Physicist Data analyst Mechanical engineer |
| Difficulty of the major | Moderate | Hard |
| Key things to note | Often necessary to complete the CPA exam to progress into senior positions and to get the more lucrative jobs. A master’s degree will also help significantly. Lower level bookkeeping roles are likely to become automated. Has good overall job prospects. Can be a path into a number of different fields including finance and business. | A difficult major. Very employable if you combine it with a more applied minor such as computer science. Also employable if you combine it with programming and data analysis skills. |
Source for accounting salary and jobs
There are many things to consider when choosing between the two degrees. There are also alternative degrees that you might want to consider and there are some things you should consider doing when you choose either of the degrees.
Details about a degree in accounting
Below are some details about the accounting major.
Pay
According to payscale, the average pay of someone with a bachelor’s degree in accounting is $70,762. This is higher than most other majors but lower than the reported average pay for physics majors. This could be because a physics degree can qualify you for a lot of in-demand jobs that pay well such as with data science or even software engineering.
Something to consider is that completing the CPA exam and getting an accounting master’s degree will increase your earning potential significantly.
Jobs
A degree in accounting should give you good opportunities with just a bachelor’s degree. This is because the degree can qualify you for a number of accounting roles and it can also qualify you for roles in related fields such as finance and business since accounting knowledge is useful in many business applications.
However, a lot of the more lucrative accounting roles require you to be a CPA and most people that become a CPA also get a master’s degree in accounting.
Jobs that you can qualify for with a bachelor’s degree in accounting can include:
- Accountant
- Account manager
- Financial analyst
- Tax manager
- Financial advisor
Some other jobs that you can get with a master’s degree would include:
- Forensic accountant
- Managerial accountant
- Auditor
- Chief financial officer
Difficulty
An accounting degree can be difficult especially in the junior and senior years when the classes become more specialized. Overall, accounting is generally considered as a moderately difficult degree. When compared with a physics major, you can expect accounting to be easier.
Things to consider
If you are thinking of majoring in accounting, it could also help to minor in finance. This is because many people with accounting degrees end up in finance. Getting a finance minor should help you when looking for jobs within finance. Getting an internship, in the field, could also help a lot.
If you want to go far in accounting, it would help you to complete the CPA exam as soon as you are able to. This is because many of the more desirable jobs require that you have completed the exam.
While accounting is a degree with good job opportunities, it can still be competitive. With that being the case, it would help you a lot to try to get some summer internships while you are completing the degree.
Details about a physics degree
Below are some details about a degree in physics.
Current pay
According to Payscale, the average pay of someone with a bachelor’s degree in physics is $86,600. This makes physics one of the best paying degrees available and only certain engineering degrees and computer science are able to match it.
However, something to be aware of is that the average pay of someone fresh out of college, with no work experience, will likely be a lot lower than that.
Job opportunities
A physics degree can give access to a wide range of job opportunities. However, a physics degree can be quite general in nature and it can be difficult to find a job with just a bachelor’s degree in physics. However, this will depend a lot on the classes that you choose to take. You can also greatly improve your job prospects by minoring in something more applied such as computer science, completing programming projects and getting summer internships.
Jobs that you could get with a bachelor’s degree in physics could include:
- Software engineer
- Data scientist
- Physicist
- Data analyst
- Mechanical engineer
Physics can give good job opportunities if you combine it with more practical skills. Currently, data science is a popular career path for physics majors. If you are interested in data science, it would help to learn programming, data analysis, machine learning to complete data science projects and to take a number of computer science classes including data structures and algorithms.
Another popular career path is a software engineer. To get these jobs, it would help to take a number of computer science classes, to learn programming in languages such as javascript and Python and to complete software engineering projects such as to create a web app.
Difficulty
A physics degree can also be a very difficult degree and you will have to put a lot of time into the degree. A physics degree will involve a lot more math than an accounting major and the actual physics classes can be difficult. Overall, you should expect the degree to require a lot more time than an accounting degree.
Classes
You can expect to take math classes such as:
- Differential calculus
- Integral calculus
- Multivariate calculus
- Differential equations
- Linear algebra
- Partial differential equations
In addition you can expect to have the option to take more math classes if you would like. You might also have the option to take some classes from related disciplines such as statistics, engineering and computer science.
You can also expect to take multiple physics classes including:
- Introduction to physics
- Mechanics and waves
- Electricity and magnetism
- Quantum physics
- Statistical mechanics
- Thermodynamics
You can look here to see an example of required classes in a physics degree.
Conclusion
Currently, you can expect an accounting degree to qualify you for a number of different jobs especially if you complete the CPA exam. Also, an accounting degree will require a lower time commitment, when compared with a physics major, this should help to give you the time to apply for summer internships and to complete projects related to the jobs that you are interested in.
However, the demand for people with physics degrees is climbing due to companies getting more and more data that they need people with mathematical skills to make use of. A physics degree combined with statistics, data analytics, data science and machine learning skills will likely put you in a very good position in the job market.
Additionally, physics can also qualify you for many jobs in other disciplines including software engineering, finance, and engineering.
An additional way to improve your job prospects would be to minor in another degree that also has good job prospects such as computer science. Doing this could help you to qualify for more programming type roles and could help you when applying to graduate school for things such as machine learning or computer science.
Ultimately, both degrees come with good job prospects. It would help to consider what sort of job you would be interested in the most and to choose your major and classes accordingly.
