> I'm not sure how it's gotten this way, but I've actually been told as much by another grad student that my field should be moved to the engineering department because we aren't doing real physics.
That's a touch unkind of your friend ... but I think it hits the heart of the problem.
"High-energy physics" is pretty much "uniquely" physics and so is easy to describe to laymen as "physics".
Conversely, the line between something like "solid state physics" and "solid state engineering" can be really blurry (the solid state EE's and solid state physics folks at my alma mater took almost exactly the same classes at the graduate level). So it's a lot harder to describe the differences to laymen even if you point out that solid-state physics is what gave us semiconductors and computer chips.
That's a touch unkind of your friend ... but I think it hits the heart of the problem.
"High-energy physics" is pretty much "uniquely" physics and so is easy to describe to laymen as "physics".
Conversely, the line between something like "solid state physics" and "solid state engineering" can be really blurry (the solid state EE's and solid state physics folks at my alma mater took almost exactly the same classes at the graduate level). So it's a lot harder to describe the differences to laymen even if you point out that solid-state physics is what gave us semiconductors and computer chips.