While physicists and astronomers only hold about 16,000 jobs in the US, and almost all of those are in basic research or in teaching more people to become physicists and astronomers, there’s two very interesting reasons to highlight the professions.

Both jobs, and thus their training, are heavily (even hugely) math based. Typically someone will hold more than one college degree, their first, then a Master’s and if they want to do either research or teach college degree programs themselves, then a Ph.D as well.

That it is hugely math based means that, along with mathematicians themselves and software programmers, we’re dealing with the extreme end of the male brain spectrum here. Other than that amount of empathy required to carry on normal life (and often not even that much) we’re very definitely looking for the extreme systemizers here, as measured by our EQSQ personality tests.

To those of us who aren’t highly systemising (after all, these people are in fact trying to work out why the universe works the way it does, it’s difficult to think of something more inquisitive about systems than that) this might actually sound a little boring. It isn’t, as anyone who has read Richard Feynman’s memoirs will know. It’s also pretty well paid, around $100,000 a year for those who have the specific talents required.

However, there’s a second reason why physics as a college degree can be recommended. Those who get a really good degree in the subject are in very high demand on Wall Street where they are known as quants. You can, if you’ve got that right sort of mathematical brain, earn quite literally a fortune, building the mathematical models of the markets which the traders then use. There are even rumors around of people who take that first degree, go work in the markets for a few years to build up their bank balance and then go back into academia to do what they really want to do: research and teach.