Undergraduate degrees
Explore your degree options
The Department of Applied Physics and Materials Science offers a variety of undergraduate degrees. See an area of study that catches your eye? Click the corresponding link for a more detailed description and prerequisite information.
- BS Physics
- BS Physics and Astrophysics
- BS Ed. Physics: Secondary Education (extended major)
- Physics Minor
Additional information
Info for prospective freshmen Accordion Closed
Welcome to the Department of Applied Physics and Materials Science at Northern Arizona University. We hope that you will take some time to browse our web pages. As a prospective first-year student, you will want to read about the various degrees we offer, as well as suggested progression plans for the different degrees. You might also want to check out what some of our alumni have done, or the research that we do.
The best advice we can give you is to work hard at your math before you come. Your path here will be quicker if you can place into first-semester calculus when you arrive. Note that math courses you have taken in high school don’t count in the sense that they do not transfer. You either have to take a math placement exam, or you can take pre-calculus at your local community college, and that course will transfer.
The Department also highly recommends joining our first-year Learning Community. Each fall a group of incoming freshmen live together in a dormitory, have regular meetings with a peer mentor, and engage in various activities such as field trips and dinners with the faculty.
Info for prospective transfer students Accordion Closed
The Department of Applied Physics and Materials Science at Northern Arizona University welcomes transfer students, but if you wish to finish your degree in two years after obtaining an associate’s degree, we highly recommend the following. Before you come to NAU, take the entire introductory sequence of calculus-based physics, three semesters of calculus as well as differential equations, and an introductory computer programming class. Without completing these courses you will not have the necessary pre-requisites to take our upper division course work and it will delay your graduation date.
In-state transfer students can use the Arizona course equivalency guide to determine what courses at their community college will be equivalent to our courses here at NAU.
If you would like to discuss your academic plan in Applied Physics or Materials Science at NAU, even years in advance, please contact Gabriel Montaño.