BSEE to PhD in physics?

TomServo
Tue, 09 Jul 2013 18:52:55 +0000

Plenty of people got a PhD in physics after engineering. Grad schools will accept promising engineering grads for physics but will often require they either take some undergrad classes or encourage them to self-study the material. You apparently have missed out on the usual two semesters of classical mechanics.

The core that physics grad schools want is:

classical mechanics
E&M
quantum
stat mech/thermo

At least one semester of each should have you “covered” but like I said they may admit you but expect you to take the grad class prereqs. Since EE covers a lot of what modern experimentalists are into (it’s heavy on quantum and E&M, especially in condensed matter), being deficient in classical mechanics and stat mech is not as big a deal as being deficient in E&M and quantum.

I should add, the physics GRE (a requirement at all the “good” physics grad schools) covers mostly material from first-year physics, so get a copy of a Halliday and Resnick book.