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Is Effort Enough to Succeed in Astrophysics?
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[QUOTE="eri, post: 5540373, member: 106754"] I am an astrophysicist. I majored in physics and astronomy in college, then earned a PhD in physics at a university with a combined physics/astronomy department. Looking back, I'm glad I did that. In my experiences applying for and interviewing for jobs, they always assume a physicist can do astronomy, but they never assume an astronomer can do physics. Having the PhD in physics gave me far more options when it came to applying for jobs, even ones where I'm doing astronomy anyway (such as my current position as a professor of physics, doing research in astrophysics and teaching the odd astrophysics course with a lot of physics courses). I work in both the observational and computational parts of the field. My university has no useful telescope, and that's true for most schools. You can apply for time on most telescopes, satellites, and observatories, and work with larger collaborations that do own telescopes. That's how I get my data. I used to actually spend weeks at a time at observatories in the middle of nowhere, but I was one of the few who did that, and I don't do that anymore. Most of my work is done sitting at a computer. Computer science skills (programming, Linux, etc) are a must for this field, pretty much everyone needs to be competent in programming. Actually running a telescope or instrument, not so much anymore. I spend my time teaching, doing some research, go to 1-2 conferences (in the US or abroad) each year, maybe take 1-2 trips to work with collaborators each year, and I typically accept one invitation per year to review grants for a large funding agency. I also review papers for journals, typically a few per year. Oh, and university committees. That's never-ending, and takes up far more of my time than I anticipated. Most astronomers work for universities and colleges these days. As far as grades go, I had a pretty constant 3.7 from high school through college and grad school, and was not the most competitive applicant by far. If you're working really hard and still only making B's, you might have to see how college goes for you before considering graduate school. In grad school, anything below a B is considered failing, and I really struggled to make B's in some of my graduate courses. Graduate level physics is neither easy nor intuitive (but necessary). Do I like my job? I love it. But I got lucky. I live in a beautiful area not far from where I grew up, some family nearby, nearby cities but not living in a very urban environment, lots of other people around in similar situations. My university pays far above the average and doesn't require I earn millions of dollars in grant money to keep my job. I really enjoy teaching, and it's most of my job these days. But there are very few jobs in the field, so you tend to take whatever offer you get, no matter where you end up living. You end up with very little choice as to where you'll live (even in terms of the country sometimes!) depending on your specific field and whether or not you're the superstar in your field (I'm certainly not). Keep that in mind if you're going into a very small competitive field like astrophysics. Fortunately, if I get sick of it or want/need to move at some point, a PhD in physics is a very employable degree. [/QUOTE]
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