Graduate Prospects | School of Physical Sciences

Undergraduate Programmes

Graduate Prospects

Where do physics graduates work?

It is always interesting to follow the progress of our graduates as they depart the university, degree in hand, and venture into the 'real world' to pursue their dreams.

Indeed, to know what becomes of these 'forerunners' is of tremendous value to those thinking about physics as a career choice and also to those already taking a physics degree.

What are the prospects? What sector of industry do physicists fit into? What companies employ physics graduates? These questions and more must be answered in order that the physics degrees in DCU continue to flourish and attract the physicists who will guide science into the 21st Century.

Telecommunications, computer hardware/software, optical applications and semiconductor manufacturing account for the initial career paths of a large number of graduates for Applied Physics graduates to date. Medical, financial and advanced materials industries are also popular choices.

Some students continue to study for higher degrees in physics by research. All of these options may be viewed as just starting points as physics training encourages adaptability and may be used in a large number of numerical or technical areas.

The graduates of the Physics with Astronomy programme compete strongly for jobs in areas traditionally filled by physicists but also in areas such as meteorology, image processing and analysis (e.g. medical physics companies/organisations), signal acquisition instrumentation, optical instrumentation, photonics design, statistical analysis, validation, etc.

The graduates of the Physics with Biomedical Sciences programme will be a unique brand of graduate with dual technical competency in physics and biomedical sciences. 

The Irish economy has seen an emphasis over the past ten years on high technology industries and has witnessed unprecedented levels of growth in the two areas of Biotechnology (BioT) and Information & Communication Technology (ICT). These areas offer a wide range of diverse opportunities from the design of high-tech medical equipment to the development of software for digital communications through the fabrication of ultrafast flexible displays based on nanostructured-film technology or nanofluidics devices.

Positions held by DCU physics graduates

In this section we'll show how successful physics graduates from DCU have been and highlight just a few of the positions and companies within which our graduates have excelled.

Activities Officer
Assistant Engineering
Assistant Technical Administrator
Associate Software Engineer
Auditor
Build Manager
CAD Operator
Chemist
Computer Consultant
Computer Consultant
Computer Engineer
Computer Laser Engineer
Computer Operator
Computer Programmer
Consultant
Consultant Physicist
Consulting Engineer
Control Engineer
Customer Service Engineer
Customer support manager
Dancer
Data Re-Engineering
Design Engineer
Electronic Engineer
Engineer
Engineering Manager
Engineering Manager
European Sales and Marketing Manager
Executive engineer
Fabrication Engineer
Fire Prevention Officer
General Manager
Hardware Engineer
I.T Analyst
I.T Engineer
Implementation Consultant
IT Manager
Lab Technician
Laser Researcher
Laser Texture Engineer
Lecturer
Manager
Manufacturing Manager
Marketing executive
Medical Physicist
Micro-contamination Engineer
Oilfield Engineer
PC Support
Pilot
Planning Manager
Post Doctoral Fellow
Post Graduate Student
Postgraduate student
Printing Manager
Process Engineer
Process Engineer
Product Manager
Product Marketing Engineer
Production Manager
Project Engineer/Cell Planner
Project Manager
Quality Control engineer
Radio Engineer
Research Physicist
Research Scientist
Researcher
RF Planning Engineer
Sales & Marketing executive
Sales Engineer
Science Consultant
Science Consultant
Science Teacher
Scientist Technical Advisor
Secondary school physics teacher
Senior Analyst Programmer
Senior Development Engineer
Senior Instrument and Control Supervisor
Senior Process Engineer
Service engineer
Site Coordinator
Site Co-Ordinator
Software Designer
Software Developer
Software Engineer
Statistical Process
Statistician
Support Engineer
System Test Engineer
Systems Engineer
Systems Engineer
Team Leader

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