TEXAS SOUTHERN UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS

Dear Prospective Physics (or Applied Math) Major:

We are pleased that you have identified physics as your preferred major discipline. As Chair of the Physics Department at Texas Southern University, we are committed to ensuring that you have a supportive environment focused on your successful completion of our rigorous and very demanding program.

We have six new tracks in physics, designed to offer you a competitive immersion in the discipline. Each of these results in a Bachelors of Science degree. They are in: Health Physics, Medical Physics, Engineering Physics, Computational and Mathematical Physics, Physics Education, and Pre-Pharmaceutical Physical Sciences. You can review these programs at physics.tsu.edu. We would like to stress that the important field of Health Physics (i.e. producing professionals who can monitor and manage safe working environments involving radiation producing devices, as encountered at hospitals, nuclear power plants, etc.) can result in a six figure salary even with a B.S. degree. TSU’s Physics Department is the only Health Physics program in all of Houston!

In addition, through the Engineering Physics program students can develop in the exciting area of nano-materials research important to micro-electronics companies, etc. A proposed Dual Degree program would also allow students to pursue some engineering options with partnering schools. This has yet to be approved. However, any student aspiring to become an engineer should pursue the first five semesters of the published tracks, which appear at the above link.

The study of physics is one of the most challenging and rewarding of all undergraduate academic studies. The study of physics will significantly boost your advanced mathematics abilities. This is because you will be quickly exposed to multidimensional vector calculus, differential equations, linear algebra, etc. by your first year. The rigors of a physics undergraduate degree will prepare you for any professional career you might wish to pursue upon graduation, be it in the sciences, engineering, mathematics disciplines, or in such different areas as law (i.e. patent attorney, etc.), finance (i.e. “Quants”, or quantum physicists using their advanced math skills on Wall Street), etc. Physics is simply a Quantitative based Philosophy for understanding nature.

Our new curriculum (refer to physics.tsu.edu) interleaves mathematical physics courses with basic physics courses in a manner to better prepare students for the required mathematics skills before they are used in a particular course. All of our tracks are essentially identical for the first five semesters. The last three semesters offer different course options related to the particular track chosen.

TSU-Physics has faculty competitive with those of any other school in the nation. For instance, if you do a Google search on the “BMV Conjecture” (which stands for the Bessis-Moussa-Villani Conjecture, one of the top ten unsolved mathematics problems), you will realize that Dr. Daniel Bessis is an eminent scholar who is also a member of our department. We have strong researchers in computational physics, mathematical physics, theoretical physics, physics education, and nuclear physics. All our faculty have Ph.D.s from the top institutions in the world.

All of our students are on scholarship, and eagerly sought after for summer internships.

We encourage you to think seriously about the one on one mentoring you will receive at TSU, the scholarship support available, the quality of the curriculum and faculty, and our commitment to do everything to ensure your success.

Please feel free to contact me if you have any additional questions.