Programs Question about degrees and studies.

[makesnosense]

Hi, I'm wondering if there is such a study field which has to do with optics. meaning I've always wanted to work with stuff that looks into space and brings back images. Is this astronomy? or is there another thing. I'm really confused about everything since for now I'm just going to a community college my gpa is 3.9 and I'm having a hard time focusing what I want to pursue in the future. I'm really interested basically in optics, imaging, astronomy, the satellites and projects that bring back incredible images of outer-space. If I'm making any sense would someone explain any of these things if they have careers or degrees linked to them? thank you.

 

[JesseC]

"work with stuff that looks into space and brings back images" <--- lols :D that's astronomy alright.

Most physics degrees will teach you some optics, astronomy and imaging. It is usually possible to specialise in the latter part of a degree.

If you're more interested in the idea of building things that fly, then you should look into aerospace engineering.

Bear in mind doing any of those things will require maths!

 

[makesnosense]

Another question I forgot to ask in the first post was.. is there any money in it if you graduate with a degree in astronomy? will you get to work with satellites and getting images? observatories and stuff? or is that all a dream and the reality is you'll be some boring space museum worker? I'm just asking this because the whole planet is in debt.

 

[eri]

It depends on what degree you get. If you want to do research in the field, propose new instruments, you'd need a PhD in astronomy or physics. While the pay isn't fantastic and there aren't many jobs, if you do get a job you'd live comfortably and be hopefully doing what you love. But if you're only getting a bachelors or masters, you could work for observatories or labs but you'd be doing more grunt work - running telescopes, maintaining instruments, reducing data, writing code. It's certainly not going to make you rich either way.

 

[Floid]

Electrical engineering also does a lot of optics and image processing.