A Physics Department exists for its students. You are our most important stakeholder in the learning process, and your most important resource are the people in our Department. Getting to know your instructors and other people in the department is one of the best investments you can make for your future career. This is as much your responsibility as it is theirs. Make sure you use every opportunity to connect with our faculty and staff. Our UG Office, including Hala Larizza-Ali (Undergraduate Coordinator) and April Seeley (Undergraduate Assistant), are here to support you.
Our program in Physics has much to offer you, in this era of transition. Your generation will decide how our society evolves during this period of rapid technological, social and environmental change. Flexibility of thought, adaptability, use of knowledge and deep insight are urgently needed now and in the future. Physics provides these within a broad, rigorous scientific framework. Physics is much more than just the study of certain topics such as light, mechanics and electricity. It provides the fundamental conceptual tools needed for a detailed, quantitative understanding of physical phenomena at every scale in nature. These tools take one beyond the specifics of the particular problem being examined and can be applied in many, diverse situations.
Physicists are employed in a broad range of industries, wherever quantitative problem-solving skills and an ability to communicate challenging ideas are valued. You will find people with physics training in all the obvious occupations such as teaching, research, medicine, geophysical exploration, and atmospheric science. You will also find many of them in a range of business sectors – telecommunications, finance, machine-learning and quantum information are just examples. Physics training will give you the intellectual toolkit to shape your future and to hammer out solutions to new challenges, many of which we don't even know exist yet.
Prof. Pekka Sinervo, C.M.
Associate Chair,
Undergraduate Studies
ugchair@physics.utoronto.ca