Competence profile

With a Master’s degree in physics, you have the following competences:

• You have general knowledge of physics and detailed knowledge of key disciplines, methodologies, theories and concepts within physics.
• You can independently plan, manage and implement projects and apply the results in scientifically relevant decision processes.
• You can assess the applicability and appropriateness of theoretical, experimental and practical methodologies for the analysis and solution of scientific questions and issues.
• You can structure your own competence development independently and critically.
• You are able to systematically and critically familiarise yourself with new subject areas.
• You can communicate academic questions and issues to both a scientific and a general audience.
• You can collaborate constructively on a scientific basis to solve subject-related issues.

Job profile

The University of Aarhus educates physicists for a wide range of jobs, and graduates from the Department of Physics and Astronomy are employed in many different job areas and institutions.
A large part of the graduates work with research and development in highly specialised companies in the business community, where they can use their insight into subjects like modern optics, material physics, surface physics, etc. In recent years, it has also become more and more common for large IT companies, patent agencies and the financial sector to increase their staff to include one or more physicists.
The teaching sector also employs a large amount of graduates, mainly for teaching at upper secondary school or training colleges. If you would like to teach at upper secondary school, you must supplement your Master’s degree in physics by taking additional qualification packages to gain teaching proficiency in one more upper secondary school subject.
In recent years, the number of graduates employed as physicists at hospitals has increased dramatically. Most work primarily with radiation physics in connection with radiation therapy, but it is possible to specialise in many other areas.
Finally, a number of physics graduates enrol in a PhD programme, typically as PhD students. An increasing number of graduates go abroad, where they mainly work in research positions in either the business community or public research institutions, e.g. at universities, CERN, the European Southern Observatory (ESO) or the European Space Agency (ESA).
The rate of unemployment among physicists educated at the University of Aarhus is very low.
For more information about job opportunities, go to: phys.au.dk/studier/job and nat.au.dk/erhverv.

Studievejledningen for Fysik