How do I become an astronomer?

[Erios]

I'm still in high-school and am looking to pursue a career in astronomy. What are some tips and things I should know about this career?

 

[ramparts]

Take every single math and physics class your high school offers. If you can finish those before you graduate, go to a local university or college (a community college is especially affordable and you're bound to have one nearby) and take more advanced courses. Learning astronomy is fun, interesting, and what you're in the field for, but as a high school student (and, for that matter, a college undergrad) what you really need to know is the physics that underlies astronomy, and the math that underlies physics. Once you have that under your belt, you're in a position to both understand and make discoveries in almost any field of astronomy.

Go to a college that has a good physics program, for the same reasons. If it has an astronomy department, or a joint physics and astronomy department, that's a definite plus, but not really necessary. But if you get into a good school that has more than a few astronomers working in several different fields, consider that school strongly. Do research every summer you can, which might very well be all three summers of college, and if you have time, do research over the school year, too. Getting good grades in your physics and math classes is really important, but if you have a strong research background, a published paper or two, and good recommendation letters from research advisors, you'll really stand out in grad school applications. Astronomy is all about research, and it's never too early to get experience.

Along those lines... as I mentioned in your other thread, it is possible to do astronomy research in high school. I would highly recommend it. As I said in that post, PM me if you want some advice on that front.

Just for your reference, the path to a career in astronomy is college (4 years), grad school (usually 6-8 years), followed by a postdoc (3-5 years I think) and then you go look for faculty positions. So it takes quite a while. But once you're in, it's a great job. You probably won't be rich (marry well!), but you'll be able to live comfortably, especially after the first few rough years, you have an incredible amount of flexibility and independence (get results and put out papers, and you can come into the office whenever you damn well please), and most importantly, if you really love astronomy then you get to spend every day doing something you love, and there are very few people who can say that about their jobs.

Good luck! See you at the conferences in a few years

 

[SteveCNC]

Be sure to cover geometry/trigonometry , and algebraII or whatever it is that teaches you to use quadratics these days . I used to see many people in my college days that thought they could get by without either of those , and they were in a physics class :roll: well not for long but I couldn't believe they even considered taking physics without knowing at least those as bare minimum .

 

[Erios]

Take every single math and physics class your high school offers. If you can finish those before you graduate, go to a local university or college (a community college is especially affordable and you're bound to have one nearby) and take more advanced courses. Learning astronomy is fun, interesting, and what you're in the field for, but as a high school student (and, for that matter, a college undergrad) what you really need to know is the physics that underlies astronomy, and the math that underlies physics. Once you have that under your belt, you're in a position to both understand and make discoveries in almost any field of astronomy.

Go to a college that has a good physics program, for the same reasons. If it has an astronomy department, or a joint physics and astronomy department, that's a definite plus, but not really necessary. But if you get into a good school that has more than a few astronomers working in several different fields, consider that school strongly. Do research every summer you can, which might very well be all three summers of college, and if you have time, do research over the school year, too. Getting good grades in your physics and math classes is really important, but if you have a strong research background, a published paper or two, and good recommendation letters from research advisors, you'll really stand out in grad school applications. Astronomy is all about research, and it's never too early to get experience.

Along those lines... as I mentioned in your other thread, it is possible to do astronomy research in high school. I would highly recommend it. As I said in that post, PM me if you want some advice on that front.

Just for your reference, the path to a career in astronomy is college (4 years), grad school (usually 6-8 years), followed by a postdoc (3-5 years I think) and then you go look for faculty positions. So it takes quite a while. But once you're in, it's a great job. You probably won't be rich (marry well!), but you'll be able to live comfortably, especially after the first few rough years, you have an incredible amount of flexibility and independence (get results and put out papers, and you can come into the office whenever you damn well please), and most importantly, if you really love astronomy then you get to spend every day doing something you love, and there are very few people who can say that about their jobs.

Good luck! See you at the conferences in a few years

Definitely will!

If there is something I love more than everything is astronomy. I love to research the unknown and present that to people. I have pretty good presentation skills and am one of the top students in my class when it comes to math and science. I have to admit to not be the best one but I am very interested in the subject. I have good leadership skills. I was a second lieutenant in my ROTC class with only a year in there and am very interested to learn. I have a very different way of research though. I'm interested in time travel and unknown entities. I believe there are other entities in other planets other than advanced living things.

I was unfortunately not recommended for HS physics. I really don't know why. I showed vast interest but I did not get it. I will definitely get it in college though. I will not give up!!!

I received an 81 in my advanced algebra and Trig. I don't know if that's good or not but I'm still very interested in it!

Will be in Ap Calculous next year though!

I do research everyday! I actually stayed up all night tonight again since I found this website.

I am very appreciative of your response and am looking forward to learn as much as I can. I will graduate in Dec this year and will proceed to more research to find a good college.

Now, about the Pm ing I don't know what that is so I would definitely appreciate how to do that. Thank you much and looking forward to your reply!

 

[MeteorWayne]

If you look under the user's name on the right, you'll see a little box that says PM. Just click on it.

It stands for private message. You can then communicate with just that user ( or moderator) wit hout posting it in the publicically viewable part of the forum. Those communications are meant to be just that, private so can be used to discuss things you wouldn't want others to see. It also can be used as suggested above to communicate a complicated or detailed discussion on a specific issue that no one else would probably be interested in.

As a new user, probably a good idea to glance at the Community Guidelines (A link in the upper right, right next to "Text Size").

Welcome to Space.com!

Wayne

 

[ramparts]

I find it bizarre that your school would let you take AP Calc but not any kind of physics course. If you can handle calculus, you can handle physics, especially the typical high school intro physics course which is algebra-based rather than calc-based. I would strongly recommend you talk to your school and try to get into a physics course, and if they seriously won't let you take it (which I doubt; most high schools have intro physics classes which just about anyone can take) then find out why. That's a really important thing to know. If your high school doesn't think you're suitable for a high school physics class, then on the one hand they might (as many high school administrations are) be made of up idiots or bureaucrats, but they also might see something which will be a turn-off for admissions committees at the much higher undergrad and grad levels.

And when I say research, maybe I don't mean what you think I mean. You're not doing research every day. You have almost certainly never done real scientific research in your life I'm talking about the kind of research where you're devising experiments/doing math/looking through telescopes/whatever your field entails and discovering something completely new and publishing those results in a peer-reviewed paper, not the kind of research where you Google something and read up on it like for a school research paper.

 

[Erios]

Thanks for the info!

Yeah, I requested Physics but the school gave me chemistry. I became good acquaintances with my Trig teacher and he thought I should take that class. I was appreciative because it would at least bring me closer to my goal.
I will definitely try to demand I take the course and hopefully I will. That is very true about the research lol
I have been googling and watching documentaries. lol
I would really appreciate more info about how to carry on with these researches and be able to publish something. I was thinking about starting a Video Blog through "u tube" and present some of the info I had learned but I don't think it will be a good idea.

Thanks for the help and would appreciate the info!

 

[ramparts]

Tell your school you want to go to college and get a physics or astronomy degree, and you need to start taking physics ASAP. That should help.

Again you bring up the info you've learned. Is this the same stuff you wanted to send to NASA? I'd be curious what you mean. But as I think I've said, in order to do publishable research for the first time in your life (or the second, third, fourth, etc.) you really need to be under the supervision of a Ph.D. scientist at some university. It's not something you're going to do on your own; any field in astronomy or physics where new discoveries can be made is by definition highly specialized, and you need to learn the ropes both within that field and of research in general before you can start making discoveries.

 

[Erios]

Thanks! I'll definitely will try to get the physics courses necessary. Are you an astronomer? If so, what schools did you attend and what do you specialize in? Have you written any published articles?

Thanks for the info and will definitely do better research with specialists.

One more question! How do I know if I want to become an astrophysicist or an astronomer? Also, what kind of jobs will I be able to obtain with a phd in either field?

 

[SpaceTas]

Hi Erios,

there really is not much difference between astrophysicist and astronomer; the latter then to be more observational, while the former a little more on the theory side. There are those that just do theory. Most people start specializing in their PHD years.

So get through high school. A high school level there are some research possibilities but really requires a dedicated teacher.
NASA has such opportunities. Sometimes uni departments have "work experience" programs. There are several distributed computing projects GalazyZoo etc.

Community colleges often have a university preparation set of courses, but your grades are good enough go onto uni directly.
Yes pick a uni with a strong astronomy/physics department. Keep an eye out for summer research experience.

 

[ramparts]

Yeah, as SpaceTas says, it's a fuzzy line between astronomer and astrophysicist, and it's not like one day you have to choose. In grad school, you choose a PhD thesis project which will probably determine what field you end up in for the next few years at least, and that can be more observational or more theoretical, but there's a whole range.

With a PhD in astronomy or physics.... well, the most common route by far is to go into academia and be a professional researcher (and likely a professor, eventually). But, you get some skills which are highly prized in finance and all sorts of other places so your options remain open. A physics PhD is an impressive thing.

For a high school student, I'm unaware of any programs which really get you set up with legitimate astro research... well, I suppose some universities have some (MIT's ultra-selective RSI comes to mind), but your best bet in high school is usually to find your own way. It's tough, but it's good for your soul In college, you can and should do that too, but there are more options in terms of organized programs, REUs and stuff. But it's way better to go find research yourself. The upshot to those programs is they usually set you up with an advisor (which they shouldn't have to do for you) and give you guaranteed money (which by all means let them do for you!). GalaxyZoo is fun and doing it certainly will help you learn quite a bit, but it's not exactly what I'm talking about when I mean research.

I'm not an astronomer or an astrophysicist (yet). I just finished my undergrad with an astronomy/physics related degree and am starting grad school in the fall.