Going into Astrophysics (currently in 12th grade)

meanaster

What other fields besides this?

Also: NGT (Neil deGrasse Tyson) one stated in a talk show that there are roughly 8,000 astrophysicists (or something like that) in the world.

If this were true, wouldn't job availability and demand for it be higher?

One can only assume it's not true?

ZombieFeynman

I started off doing research in particle astrophysics. I stopped because I wanted to continue work in science later and knew I wasn't good enough to continue work in particle astrophysics. I discovered I really, really like condensed matter!

My suggestion is to get your feet wet in an undergraduate program and see how you like it. I think you will discover that physics has a multitude of fun areas to do work in.

meanaster

This 'discovery' came during University yes? I'm assuming going into the 12th grade I won't fall inlove with anything, in fact, given who my teacher is I'll end up hating it all.

Jokes aside, define 'good enough'.

ZombieFeynman

I would not trust myself to be able to produce profound enough research to obtain a faculty position. The discovery came in my first year of graduate school.

Edit: In condensed matter, I have many more options. Although there is more competition, there are also many times more applications. I find all areas of physics to be quite fascinating. I, in fact, had a huge trouble narrowing down to a specific field.

Double Edit: I should also add, I changed fields also because I became more interested in CM and less in particle astro. It was NOT merely a pragmatic change.

meanaster

Didn't you find the sudden switch from astrophysics to condensed matter physics to be overwhelming? Stressful?

I can't imagine myself focusing on one area than switching to something else.. especially in grad school.

ZombieFeynman

Not really. My undergraduate education was fairly comprehensive and not too focused. Although I had done substantial research as an undergraduate in particle astro, that served to also show me it wasn't everything I was looking for. I had barely picked a group in graduate school, so the change wasn't very difficult to make up for.

My interests are all over the map and so I wasn't completely heartbroken by the change. I actually found I am much better suited to this field.

ZombieFeynman

If anything, I have better perspective for having spent some time in another field, albeit as a lowly undergrad at the time.

meanaster

Let's just hope if I have to switch.. it'll be as a breeze as yours.

Another question: Would the name/reputation of a Uni/college affect your chances of employment/funding? Currently I plan to attend a very reputable university, but I could go to another one that isn't as well known but they have a CO-OP program which let's you get experience in your field while at school.

ZombieFeynman

That depends. Are we talking about MIT versus University of South North Dakota? If so, yes. Generally, the name itself isn't going to matter as much as the education you receive. There does seem to be a correlation between top name universities and good education. But, how much of this is selection bias, I don't know. In general, I would suggest the more reputable university, all things being equal. But in your specific case, it's impossible to say without more information.

I went to a fairly bad undergrad institution and I am making out fine where I am now. Your milage may vary.

Edit: I also want to stress that if you truly want to do astro, go for it. Give it your all. Just know the statistics. Know the alternatives.

twofish-quant

Well you aren't starting completely from scratch. You know that X doesn't work.

Doesn't really work that way. Once you get the Ph.D., then you are either applying for post-docs or getting a job in industry.

Sure.

Computers are everywhere in the field. If you do observation then you'll be working on a lot of data processing programs. If you do theory then you'll likely being doing lots of computer related data processing.

twofish-quant

Yes, but the name/reputation of the university is not necessarily the general reputation. For example, University of Virginia is better in radio astronomy, Florida Atlantic University is better at computational general relativity, University of Arizona is better at optical astronomy than MIT.

Now MIT is great at some things (cosmology theory to name one), but reputation is different from "general reputation."

Also who your adviser is is more important than what school you go to. The other thing is that as a Ph.D. you will have more impact on your schools reputation than your school's reputation will have on you.

Undergraduate school won't matter at all.

twofish-quant

Quantitative finance. Also one reason that investment banks hire Ph.D.'s is specifically because of our "scientific skills". One thing about finance is that the rules change.

Suppose I write down the equation for neutrino diffusion in supernova, that's not going to change. Now I write down the equation for interest rates yield curves in 2006. In 2008, the rules changed a lot so people are scrambling figuring out the new rules.

There's something that I call the "second Einstein" effect. One physicist like Albert Einstein can come up with a theory that will change the world. The trouble is that once Einstein comes up with general relativity, there's no need for another Albert Einstein to do the same thing. So you having five Einsteins doesn't produce more science than having one Einstein, because once one person figures out the theory, there isn't more work for other people. The other thing is that one super-smart physicist can do the work of two or three less smart ones.

Finance and computer programming don't suffer from the "second Einstein effect." Computer programming involves mostly debugging. I don't care how good a computer programmer you are, if you are looking at 1 million lines of code, you are going to need lots of programmers. Finance needs more physicists than physics, because the laws of physics do not change whereas the laws of finance change constantly. If you have a "financial Einstein" figure something out in 2005, it's likely to be wrong now.

meanaster

I doubt i'd be an Einstein at all. But that's not why I want to.

What about the individuals who are researching about space? Did they continue in their field until they switched to something else? I keep getting the idea that astrophysicist end up where they didn't plan to be (from my POV).