Will studying Physical NatSci harm my future (Physics research) career prospects?

I'm currently in Year 12 and, as the title of this thread suggests, am currently looking to study Physical Natural Sciences at Cambridge. I would choose Physics, Earth Science and either Materials or Chemistry for my Part IA options, then Physics A and B (and probably Mathematics) for Part IB, and then most likely Astrophysics for Part II and III.

As things stand now, I'm planning to go on to do a PhD and then stay in academia doing research. However, what concerns me is that my lack of a pure Physics degree could potentially hinder my progression to a PhD in physics (which may not be from Cambridge) and career prospects from then on. I've been looking all over for an answer to this question and haven't been able to find anything - Cambridge themselves on their NatSci page only mention that their course's breadth makes it a valuable degree for people who want to work in interdisciplinary areas (eg. biophysics), which I don't want to do, and the lack of mention of the course's benefits to purely physical students seems conspicuous.

I do think that being able to study other subjects besides Physics in my first year, especially Earth Science, would benefit my personal plans for the future (as I'm particularly interested in the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, some of which may be similar to Earth, so a background in geology could well be useful), but it would be completely pointless to spend four years studying a very demanding course only to find that it can't take me where I want to go.

(Obviously, all of the above hinges on me actually getting in.)

Thank you in advance for any advice anyone can give me about this.

Reply 1

around

No. The point of Natural Sciences is that you get to study multiple science subjects to the same high level as single subjects at other universities. Graduates specialising in physics come out of the Natural Sciences program knowing just as much, if not more than single-course physics graduates at other universities.