An annual survey was conducted of the career plans of 1992 recipients of bachelors degrees in physics and astronomy. The survey has been carried out every year since the 1960s and is a reliable indicator of the graduates' postbaccalaureate intentions and how those trends reflect America's changing economy. For the 1992 survey 2715 of 4965 physics…

Information on the characteristics of 1980 college graduates in the fields of physics and astronomy and their postbaccalaureate plans is presented. Among the survey findings are the following: a 10 percentage-point increase in civilian employment and a 9 percentage-point decrease in graduate study have occurred since 1975; over 80 percent of the…