I suppose I can't really speak for academia in general. I work in an electrical engineering department that is filled with physics curriculum, problems, and cu

I suppose I can't really speak for academia in general. I work in an electrical engineering department that is filled with physics curriculum, problems, and culture. The EE grad students don't know many of the things I learned in EE undergrad, but have hefty physics chops. Most everyone is a combined experimentalist and theorist. The pure theorists are a little less grounded, but everyone else knows where the expertise ends and are content to not discuss things they don't know about. If my colleagues were more of the typical grant-driven hotshot type I probably wouldn't have stuck around for any amount of time.