In a study to assess how effectively undergraduate physics studies are preparing students for the workplace, the project attempted to locate and interview recent (since 2000) physics graduates and their employers. The study was confined to graduates who majored in Physics whilst completing a 3-year (Bachelors) or 4-year (Honours) degree (not part of a double or combined degree), and instead of continuing on to postgraduate or other studies went directly into the workplace.

The handful of interviews conducted reflects the small number of students who met our criteria, despite two years of persistent effort to locate possible interviewees. In the end we chose to be somewhat flexible with the criteria.

The interview questions developed for this study and the accompanying explanation letter to participants can be found in the Project documents section. You can view the summaries of responses obtained in individual graduate and employer interviews by clicking on the links below.

graduate interview #1

graduate interview #2

graduate interview #3

graduate interview #4

graduate interview #5

graduate interview #6

employer interview #1

employer interview #2

employer interview #3

employer interview #4

employer interview #5

employer interview #6

employer interview #7

A paper from this study has been submitted for publication in the European Journal of Physics. It will be available here once published.