What field of physics should I go into?

Burton: What field of physics should I go into?
I’m presently an undergraduate sophomore majoring in physics and math. I was planning on studying particle physics in graduate school but lately have been hearing about the poor job outlooks in the field.
What would be a more promising physics-related field?

Answers and Views:

Answer by Officium
Geophysics :). I like it a lot and job outlooks are great.

Answer by fizzix_rules
Space weather. TONS of funding, as it effects satellites, communications, astronauts… You can get a job in space weather fairly readily.

So, take classes in plasma physics, e&m, etc. And tons of math.

Answer by Jason
Most of these are branches under applied physics.

1. Soil physics and Geophysics. Not so much a hot field anymore. Many still love this kind of work though.

2. Space physics. Space is probably the future it seems to be where we are going.

3. Communication physics. There will be tons of work in this field for at least the next 40-60 years at least. We thrive on communication, especially internet based.

4. Agrophysics. Not a lot of work in this field, but the work is very rewarding, what little there is.

5. Biophysics, Medical physics, and Sports physics. This seems to be very popular right now. Lots of work in this area, but the work is sometimes hard to find.

Answer by Geoff S
Solid state physics is almost always a pretty good field to go into. Two friends of mine did their MASc theses in this area and both are now employed by private companies working on silicon electroluminescence. One did his work using molecular beam epitaxy and the other using plasma ion implantation.

There shouldn’t really be anything wrong with the particle physics route. With the LHC and the ILC presumably coming online in the future there should be quite a few jobs. I almost did my Grad work on the ATLAS detector for the LHC.