Help me with grad school ideas

May 11, 2006 12:34 AM

What are some cool/interesting grad school programs for someone with a B.S. in physics and 7 years of programming experience but which would be outside of those fields.

I'm looking to take my degree and work experience and apply them in a new direction. Some directions I'm kicking around are

1.psychology/physiology as they relate to personality disorders, depression and moods etc..

2. Renewable energy technology

3. Business school.

4. Finance & Economics

5. Possibly law

I'm still in the exploration phase, and just looking for anything to get me excited. I know there are some really interesting schools out there. I just don't know where to start. I know I've always liked research.

posted by zgott300 to Education (8 answers total)

Brown's Institute for Brain and Neural Systems brings together people from Physics, Cognitive Science, Psych, Applied Math, etc. So it might take you in a new direction that would use many of your old skills.
posted by dseaton at 4:24 AM on May 11, 2006

Yeah, Like dseaton, my first instinct is Cognitive Science, which is (basically)the study of just about anything that makes decisions, from the brain to computers to social networks to a thousand things in between. Tons of overlap with your expertise.
posted by ChasFile at 6:42 AM on May 11, 2006

From your descriptions alone, seems you would have more interest in number 1. And considering your background, I too would have to recommend a cognitive science program.
posted by thandi at 7:59 AM on May 11, 2006

Have you given thought to Systems Bio or Computational Bio?
posted by Good Brain at 8:41 AM on May 11, 2006

Take a look at the list of professional science masters. Financial mathematics (if I didn't like calculus least of the maths I'd consider it) or something closer to informatics might be of interest. HCI can also be similar to cognitive science, though I've found the grad programs can vary greatly.
posted by ejaned8 at 8:58 AM on May 11, 2006

Renewable energy technology is VERY different from the other options unless you're thinking public policy. Otherwise, it can easily be a full-on hard science program, which seems to be exactly what you don't want.
posted by JMOZ at 9:03 AM on May 11, 2006

Meteorology, perhaps? I've worked peripherally with these guys, and some of it is really interesting and fun.
posted by landtuna at 10:32 AM on May 11, 2006

"Computational Finance." Then you could go to Wall Street and become a "Quant."
posted by ZenMasterThis at 1:10 PM on May 11, 2006