With all due respect, I am afraid your cousin and your physics teacher know not that much about job prospects concerning a Photonic Engineering undergrad.

I spent about a year in the optical communication industry, and believe me, their first priority, in terms of fresh engineers, goes to Photonic Engineering undergraduate. Yesiree dude!

Also, how sure is your cousin regarding the development of the photonic industry? Let me draw some lights on this matter. When we talk about communication, especially on data transfer, the "in" thing now is fiber optics. Gone are those days where we use analogue data cables. Intruders can easily tap into those data transfer and steal confidential information.

Fiber optics technology deals a lot (and I repeat, A LOT) on the knowledge of photonic. The design of the device, its calculations, all the tests and debugging involved, revolve around photonic. Even the production of these devices and technologies has something to do with photonic.

And mind you, the optical communication industry is only one of the many industries that require photonic engineers.