Career related to Astrophysics and Astronomy or other space

[Salman Ranjha]

So what I want to ask is that I will be entering a university next year so career selection is one of the very tricky and difficult decisions. MY question is that what if I do Some PhD in astrophysics or astronomy what type of job can I get other then a professor.?
And as an foreign I may not have opportunity to work for NASA so what else can one do ?

 

[Choppy]

Lots of people struggle with this question. Physics is an academic subject and physics programs are generally set up to give you an education in physics, but not necessarily give you training for a specific profession - other than further study of physics. When you specialize in something like astrophysics, you get very good at studying things like stellar evolution, but there isn't a huge demand for that in the industrial world. So outside of academia (which you can't count on as a career option) you'll have to figure out how to transfer that set of academic skills into something that you can get paid to do.

On top of that you also have to figure out how to convince people that you have skills they want in an employee. Lots of physics majors go into engineering, for example, but they have to struggle to get their foot in the door because they are competing with people who have engineering degrees.

There is a lot you can do if you choose that option. But it's often a path that you have to figure out rather than one that's laid out for you.