I graduated in physics in 1976, went to medical school and am now an ophthalmologist doing research in tropical eye diseases. HMC was a great education - can't say I really use a lot of physics, and I'd choke if I had to do a Fourier transformation, but I do rather enjoy optical problems (unlike a lot of my colleagues) and I repair the odd broken instrument...

Regarding the employment opportunities for physicists; I've found that physics offers a great deal of flexibility in choosing a career path. When I decided to return to the west coast and join IBM, I was also actively recruited by a teaching college, research university, national lab and I had a tenured position at Argonne if I had chosen to stay there. Presently, the job market is very strong for Ph.D.s.

I'm currently finishing my PhD in Biology here at UCSD. This was a big change from physics and I am not directly doing much physics related research. However, I think my physics training was very important. I learned how to be a clear, critical, scientific thinker which has served me well here. Having a physics background in no way hindered my applications to biology graduate schools. I think most schools considered it an advantage. The field of biology is becoming much more analytical and the perspective I have with a physics background is quite useful. Now that I am looking for a job, I think having a background in both physics and biology will help a lot.

The scope of my technical education at Harvey Mudd made it possible for me to design products in physics, mathematics, chemistry, and electrical engineering. I felt confident enough to teach myself new subjects... My current team covers a lot of technical ground, and I think that the broad scientific training I received in physics at Harvey Mudd continues to contribute to my ability to successfully educate myself in new subjects and to understand the post-graduate-level work being done by the group.