Computational physics is underrepresented

The subject "physics" can be divided into experimental and theoretical physics. In order to become excellent physicists, students attend numerous classes on these two subcategories of physics. The neverending "battle" between theoretical and experimental physicists on which group of people are the "real" physicists is being fought on (presumably) each and every university campus in this world.

But does the simple division into two categories, theory and experiment, do justice to this large and complex subject termed physics? Not really. How about computational physics?

Is computational physics just an offshoot of theoretical physics? Or do computational physicists actually carry out virtual experiments on their computers and hence may be regarded as experimentalists? Well, I would argue that it deserves to be viewed as a separate branch of physics, alongside theoretical and experimental physics. It is a comparatively young subfield, but technical advances and modern computers have pushed computational physics to become an extremely important approach to improving our understanding of nature. 

Unfortunately, the usual physics curriculum at many universities does not do justice to computational physics. For instance, here in Germany students typically attend four to five introductory courses on theoretical physics and the same number of lectures that would be considered as experimental physics. Furthermore, they have to complete two to three semesters of introductory and advanced lab courses, which counts as experimental physics, too. But where is computational physics? 

In Frankfurt, there is one mandatory class (duration: one semester for third-year B.Sc. students, about 90-120 minutes per week) on scientific computing, programming and a very basic introduction to numerical simulations. That's it for the Bachelor program here in Frankfurt. And it's similar at other universities in Germany and all over the world. Sure, you can attend some elective courses that deal with computational physics topics, but compared to experimental and theoretical physics, it is largely underrepresented in the curriculum.

This is really underwhelming because computational physics has become such an important discipline. Large-scale numerical simulations are possible with today's computers in all kinds of physics subfields like condensed matter physics, particle physics, astrophysics and biophysics. Not only does this open up exciting possibilities for young scientists to conduct research in academia, but computational physics also teaches students a myriad of skills that may be relevant in their future potential industry jobs. 

To conclude, I would like to appeal to physics departments all over the world: Please include more computational physics courses in your curriculum. And, dear students: Consider learning more about computational physics, because it will allow you to solve complex problems and get to know the exciting field of physics from an entirely new perspective.