Congratulations on the department's recent vigorous activity! It sounds great in that it provides more research opportunities for undergraduates....

I can't speak highly enough of the broad-based physics education I received at HMC. I have done a lot of things over the years, and virtually all of them were made possible by my physics education. Yes, a job after graduation is important, but the broader your education, the more likely you are to be able to keep up with the rapidly changing times.

I've felt for quite some time that an HMC physics major can do anything he or she wants. The mere fact of making it through the program attests to a certain amount of natural ability, but at least as important is the fact that much of what we learn is many methods of approaching problems. The flexibility and open-mindedness which results is of great value in (I believe) any career option, from physics to software engineering to investment banking. So, though physics doesn't apply directly to writing software, the training I got has helped indirectly in a great many ways, most of which I don't realize until I stop and think about it for a bit.

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.