Hi, currently I'm working in Englang for a big multinational company, in the finance sector. The thing is that I'm bored of this kind of job and the life it gives me, so I want to change careers and follow my dream to be an astrophysicist.

The thing is I want to start working in the area right away. Any kind of job would do anywhere in the world, as long as it is in the field of astronomy / cosmology / astrophysics. Where should I look?
28 / m

I know it's not much help, but you could always try getting a hold of Neil deGrasse Tyson, a relatively popular astrophysicist here in America.

SpaceX is the hottest space industry startup in recent years.
Elon Musk (founded of Paypal and Tesla Motors) is the founder.

The era of privately funded space travel is JUST beginning and they successfully
transferred cargo to the International Space Station not too long ago.

IMHO, SpaceX would definitely be the way to go.

Problem is that until SpaceX starts to move into anything beyond low earth orbit; the need for astrophysicists seems small. There aren't a lot of jobs outside academia for astronomy/astrophysics.

Stay on the look out for companies talking about mining asteroids.

I don't think there are any jobs in astronomy. At least, not unless you're a genius with a Ph.d who has dedicated his life to science. It's not something that you can just get into. But you could do some citizen science at planethunters.org or buy a telescope and look at the stars. Probably not what you're looking for.

Just so that you know some of my background and that I have some idea of what I'm talking about. My undergrad was in physics and I specialized in astrophysics. I have some friends from undergrad who went on to do graduate physics though in other sub-disciplines. I have some acquaintances met from other universities who are actually doing astrophysics or are in various stages of the pipeline. I also went back to grad school in another field at an older age. I now do software and I have met a number of people in the software industry who were studying astrophysics and bailed out somewhere in the process - anywhere from completing undergrad to being a post-doc.

To be doing astrophysics you are going to want to get a tenured faculty position at a premiere or 1st division university (think of it like football - the non-American kind). If you are at a lower tier universities you will mostly be teaching and doing a little bit of puttering around research but you will have difficulty getting access to the big machines. You could alternatively get a position at a premiere non-university research institution (NASA, Perimeter Institute, etc.) - this is also just as hard.

It is in general a very long pipeline after high school unless you are both very brilliant and very lucky. You usually start off with a 4 year undergrad in physics making sure that you take the right courses to specialize in the field you are interested in and that you need for grad school (this doesn't prevent you from changing later but it makes it harder). This is then followed by graduate school. This is generally a 5 to 9 year process and may be about 7 on average. A lot of the time dependency can be big machine waiting time if you need access, such as an accelerator or a telescope. I had a friend who spent a few years drinking beer and chasing girls in Europe waiting for time at CERN. Not a bad way to spend time but your career is mostly on hold.

This is then followed by a post-doc where you work as a very junior researcher in somebody else's lab. You work mostly on their projects and try to squeeze your own in too. At this stage you want to make sure that you get your name on papers as much as possible. Write some good ones of your own, get added to ones coming out of the lab, etc. You want to do this as a grad student too but here it is really important because you are trying to win a temporary entry level faculty position at the best university you possibly can.

If you get a position now you've got about 5 years to prove your worth so that the university will make you a permanent employee (give you tenure). You need to publish a lot of really good papers. You need to get some grad students and have them doing good work too so that your name can go on their papers. You will need to work very hard. If you don't get tenure then at best you can drop down to a lower tier university and try again.

I don't know about your educational background but if you have to start with B.Sc. in Physics then you are looking at about 4 + 7 + 5 + 5 to get to a tenured position. That's 21 years and you'll be 49. If things go wrong on the way or your research takes longer then it's even later than that. Maybe you only have to take a qualifying year or two instead of a full undergrad if you already have a technical undergrad in something else (math maybe or some engineering) and you can shave off a couple of years.

You're going to be at a big disadvantage to others going for a number of these positions. You'll be older and that will be a double whammy - 1) you'll be looked as less promising by those with the positions to hand out; 2) you won't be capable of the all nighters or longer working hours that those you are fighting against and you will be more likely to have family obligations. Even without all that your odds of making it all the way to a tenured faculty position (or something equivalent at some non-university research organization like NASA) is rather slim.

You can take a run at it if you want but it will be very hard and very long and the odds are low. If you really want to do it then go for it but be realistic and have some alternative plans if it doesn't work out. Also, make sure before you leap that this isn't just some unrealistic "run off and join the circus" type of dream. Understand what is involved and it is a lot of sacrifice.

It can also be a hard process on family life so if you have plans for that think carefully too. One younger couple I know has the husband doing his post-doc somewhere else than here in the Bay Area and his wife and kids are here because she has a job that she likes and can't leave because they couldn't live on his post-doc income.

Eikyu Wrote:I don't think there are any jobs in astronomy. At least, not unless you're a genius with a Ph.d who has dedicated his life to science. It's not something that you can just get into. But you could do some citizen science at planethunters.org or buy a telescope and look at the stars. Probably not what you're looking for.

If the OP wants to do observational astronomy then there are things they can do as an amateur. Quite a number of discoveries have been made by amateurs. There are only a small number of professional large telescopes and they can't be watching everywhere at once. Getting involved with this might be something for them to consider.

Hyperborea Wrote:I don't know about your educational background but if you have to start with B.Sc. in Physics then you are looking at about 4 + 7 + 5 + 5 to get to a tenured position. That's 21 years and you'll be 49.

Don't you mean 39 years old. You'll be 18 when you start that 4 year degree.
So 18 years + 4(B.Sc) + 7(Ph.D) + 5(junior research) + 5(tenure track) = 39.

chamcham Wrote:

Hyperborea Wrote:I don't know about your educational background but if you have to start with B.Sc. in Physics then you are looking at about 4 + 7 + 5 + 5 to get to a tenured position. That's 21 years and you'll be 49.

Don't you mean 39 years old. You'll be 18 when you start that 4 year degree.
So 18 years + 4(B.Sc) + 7(Ph.D) + 5(junior research) + 5(tenure track) = 39.

The OP said they were 28. Or at least that's what I took the "28 / m" at the end of the message to mean - a 28 year old male. They're unlikely to be working in finance at a large multinational firm in London at the age of 18 unless maybe as a mail room or tea boy.

Like Hyperborea said, astronomy is a field where amateurs can contribute in a meaningful way. So it may be a good idea to look for this path.

But if you choose a carrier path as a researcher in a university or research institute, you should be aware of how difficult it is. To make research as your job, you must land on a job at a top ranked university or institute or you have to compromise at least to an extent. What you should know is how ridiculously difficult it is to get a tenure track job in such a place. The typical path is

Step 1. get a BS degree from top university (e.g., Harvard, MIT)

Step 2. get a Ph.D. from top university

Step 3. get a post-doc research job at top university/institute

Step 4. get a tenure track job at top university/institute

What's really important is that each step is like 100 times harder than the previous step. So, finishing 4 year college education in Prinston or whatever is a piece of cake when compared to getting a Ph.D. from a university of the same prestige. And doing a post-doc at a prestigious place is 100 times harder than doing a Ph.D. program at one of those top universities. And if you're a post-doc researcher at a steller university now, you will most likely end up in a not-as-shiny place in the end. So it's like at each step you should be among the top 1% to climb up the ladder.

While this is the most typical path, the first step (where you got your BS degree) is actually not that important because college education is quite elementary. It's like how well a professional athlete did in a PE class at elementary school. Probably he did exceptionally well. But it doesn't really matter.

Also, during step 2 and after, if your research is purely theoretic and doesn't require the kind of equipment available only at prestigious places, you might be able to get in if you didn't follow the previous steps (e.g., get a Ph.D. in a related field from a very good university and then do a post-doc at a top university in your target field). But you should know that this is as rare as winning a multi-million dollar lottery, and it's not luck; you do it by proving that you're a better candidate than other geniuses with steller track records. Another merit of working in a theoretical field is that you may be able to do a half-teaching, half-research job at a good research university because you don't need equipment or hire many post-docs.

Don't underestimate the difficulty of getting a (half-)research job though. I'm working as a post-doc in an intersection field of math, physics, and comp sci, which might be slightly less competitive than the most competitive part of theoretical physics. Even then, having a Ph.D. from MIT/Stanford/whatever means pretty much nothing when climbing up the ladder to step 3 and higher. It's pretty much a prerequisite, and you should be among the top of those who finished equally steller Ph.D. education. And in a theoretical field, you have a few unexpected competitors who didn't go to the most prestigious graduate schools but proved their excellence by publishing excellent research papers in extremely prestigious academic journals.

My current place is among the top schools in my field. But I see geniuses who got/will get a Ph.D. soon here having a very hard time going up to step 3. They were certainly among the top students who went to the best universities. But it's a whole lot different story to stay among the top of those who got Ph.D.s in your field from best universities. You might succeed in being a best genius among geniuses with Ph.D.s, but you've got another step waiting in front of you, where you have to be the best among those who survived.

If that's what you really want to do, I won't stop you. But you should be realistic. I'm not exaggerating. It's ridiculously hard and near-impossible to survive in one of the most competitive fields.

Edit: you might want to check related stack exchanges such as http://academia.stackexchange.com/ and http://physics.stackexchange.com/ There might be more specific ones too.

Weren't you asking about becoming a quantitative analyst just a while ago? S:

@magamo
What do you make of the pyramid scheme-like nature of academic employment? Do you think it's necessary to maintain high standards or simply crooked?

I can't help but feel less funding should go to PhD students who are mostly going to drop out of academia in 3-10 years and more to providing long term employment... maybe this is because I'm a field where having lots of PhD students doesn't provide much benefit to a professor, but even if it did it seems exploitative and incredibly wasteful of human talent when you consider that majority will end up in comparatively menial/unrelated careers afterwards.

chamcham Wrote:SpaceX is the hottest space industry startup in recent years.
Elon Musk (founded of Paypal and Tesla Motors) is the founder.

The era of privately funded space travel is JUST beginning and they successfully
transferred cargo to the International Space Station not too long ago.

IMHO, SpaceX would definitely be the way to go.

You make it sound so straightforward. :lol:

dizmox Wrote:You make it sound so straightforward. :lol:

Well even a marathon is straightforward. Just a bloody long way while you're in that direction, lol.

dizmox Wrote:Weren't you asking about becoming a quantitative analyst just a while ago? S:

I'm not in physics, but I have a former classmate who went into quant finance after completing his PhD in astrophysics at Cornell because he couldn't get a decent post-doc.

First you could do a simple test. Take a practice GRE. If you don't get into the top 5th percentile in the quant section you just don't have the "right stuff" as defined by top-10 PhD admissions standards and you can forget about the whole plan. But as a financial analyst you might well have it.

dizmox Wrote:@magamo
What do you make of the pyramid scheme-like nature of academic employment? Do you think it's necessary to maintain high standards or simply crooked?

I can't help but feel less funding should go to PhD students who are mostly going to drop out of academia in 3-10 years and more to providing long term employment... maybe this is because I'm a field where having lots of PhD students doesn't provide much benefit to a professor, but even if it did it seems exploitative and incredibly wasteful of human talent when you consider that majority will end up in comparatively menial/unrelated careers afterwards.

I'd be interested in that as well, magamo. I feel that at most public universities, it's a bit of a scam. PhD students are primarily needed as TAs for undergraduate classes, and the ratios imply you'll end up with way too many PhD students. They will admit enough PhD students to fill all TAships, regardless of quality of the applicants or the supervision that can be provided. At well-funded private universities, it still seems necessary to have too many PhD students because it's hard to know ex ante who will do well in the long run. Some places, however, are known for not admitting more students than they have placed in good jobs in the past, taking into account that some people actually want to leave academia after completing the PhD. Stanford has that reputation.

Could you tell us what about astrophysics interests you? You say it's your dream to become an astrophysicist, but I don't buy it until I hear specifics. Given the magnitude of the challenge before you, it's much more realistic to work at a planetarium, science museum, or even as a science journalist.

I don't mean to discourage you, but to encourage you to be cautious and comprehensively consider your options. As others have mentioned, your goal is not easily achieved. If you fail, you'll probably be deep in student debt and overworked and emotionally unstable from the rigor and pressure of a competitive field. Go read any of the numerous blogs by grad students or adjunct faculty so you can taste the bitterness of their experiences.

Anyhow, I recommend keeping your day job and taking a few relevant courses. After that, you can consider starting a degree program.

dizmox Wrote:What do you make of the pyramid scheme-like nature of academic employment? Do you think it's necessary to maintain high standards or simply crooked?

I can't help but feel less funding should go to PhD students who are mostly going to drop out of academia in 3-10 years and more to providing long term employment... maybe this is because I'm a field where having lots of PhD students doesn't provide much benefit to a professor, but even if it did it seems exploitative and incredibly wasteful of human talent when you consider that majority will end up in comparatively menial/unrelated careers afterwards.

What you describe is really only a problem in fields that have no direct jobs anywhere but in academia (or a limited set of research institutes). In physics that's mostly astrophysics and high energy physics. There are no companies out there hiring people to do things that somebody trained in one of those two sub-disciplines do. There are plenty of other sub-disciplines of physics where there are industry jobs - laser physics, condensed matter (really matter in a solid or liquid state - superconductors, materials science, etc), atmospheric, etc., etc.

People who have studied in any of the other areas are directly employable. You may not be doing as much theoretical research as somebody in academia but you are still doing work in those fields. I have a number of old classmates doing work in industry in the sub-discipline they studied.

If you don't go on to get at the very least a Master's or better still a Ph.D. you probably won't be doing much in the way of physics even in those other sub-disciplines. A lot of those who stop out of physics after a bachelor's degree end up in engineering or software. I mean, after doing differential geometry and quantum mechanics neither of those is really all that hard. From what I understand, engineering grad schools often prefer to take physics undergrads into their programs because the study of engineering gets more theoretical in grad school and somebody with a physics undergrad is more equipped to deal with that.

vileru Wrote:If you fail, you'll probably be deep in student debt and overworked and emotionally unstable from the rigor and pressure of a competitive field. Go read any of the numerous blogs by grad students or adjunct faculty so you can taste the bitterness of their experiences.

Actually, debt is not likely to be too much of an issue for grad school in a science field. You should be getting full support that will cover your tuition and living costs. It won't generally provide for a full and rewarding lifestyle but you can get by. Having a family on it though is not that easy. Also living on that money is much easier when you are 25 than when you are 35.

Also, making a living afterwards if you drop out before achieving a tenure track position shouldn't be too bad. You've got plenty of skills learned during your time in school. Just learn how to market yourself in the right way.

For the bitter grad school experience have a read through Ph.D. comics - particularly the early ones when the writer was a Ph.D. student. The later ones after he finished and left don't have the same bite. The little movie trailer they have is also pretty funny especially if "you've been there and done that". http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php

Hyperborea Wrote:

vileru Wrote:If you fail, you'll probably be deep in student debt and overworked and emotionally unstable from the rigor and pressure of a competitive field. Go read any of the numerous blogs by grad students or adjunct faculty so you can taste the bitterness of their experiences.

Actually, debt is not likely to be too much of an issue for grad school in a science field. You should be getting full support that will cover your tuition and living costs. It won't generally provide for a full and rewarding lifestyle but you can get by. Having a family on it though is not that easy. Also living on that money is much easier when you are 25 than when you are 35.

Also, making a living afterwards if you drop out before achieving a tenure track position shouldn't be too bad. You've got plenty of skills learned during your time in school. Just learn how to market yourself in the right way.

The OP needs a BA, or some university level physics classes at the very least. Both usually do not include tuition waivers, fellowships, or any kind of stipend or living allowance. Tuition at a top ranked university, such as MIT or Caltech, is around $40,000 USD annually. It's going to be a lot of debt.

Hyperborea Wrote:What you describe is really only a problem in fields that have no direct jobs anywhere but in academia (or a limited set of research institutes). In physics that's mostly astrophysics and high energy physics. There are no companies out there hiring people to do things that somebody trained in one of those two sub-disciplines do. There are plenty of other sub-disciplines of physics where there are industry jobs - laser physics, condensed matter (really matter in a solid or liquid state - superconductors, materials science, etc), atmospheric, etc., etc.

From my impressions there isn't even enough demand from industry for PhD graduates in science fields, given how so many PhD graduates just end up employed as generic "smart guys" eg. in software engineering, finance, etc. due to not finding anything more relevant (or due to the pay for their field being poor).

vileru Wrote:The OP needs a BA, or some university level physics classes at the very least. Both usually do not include tuition waivers, fellowships, or any kind of stipend or living allowance. Tuition at a top ranked university, such as MIT or Caltech, is around $40,000 USD annually. It's going to be a lot of debt.

OP lives in Hungary

dizmox Wrote:

vileru Wrote:The OP needs a BA, or some university level physics classes at the very least. Both usually do not include tuition waivers, fellowships, or any kind of stipend or living allowance. Tuition at a top ranked university, such as MIT or Caltech, is around $40,000 USD annually. It's going to be a lot of debt.

OP lives in Hungary

Okay, I'll be quiet now...

Err, whoops, I meant comes from Hungary. My fingers slipped. >_>

How about a US government job? During times of war, physicists are the most sought after people.
They invent much of the technology used for weapons.

Maybe the government even has some secret space agencies.
They've done similar for other agencies in the past.

Thanks for the reply guys. I`m currently living in the UK in Brighton, doing some shitty job in the financial services area...so I`m really not happy with the situation atm.
As far as the top universitiy thing goes, you got to be joking. I`ve got acquaintances who finished off their degrees in Hungary from hungarian universities and still got jobs in astronomy. As for the PHD thing, I also highly doubt that there are too many PHD students, specially in the hard sciences, although I do not have any statistical data to back this up, it`t just a hunch I guess.
So my options are right here in the UK now, and since there is no way I could afford to be a full time student (although there might be some scolarships which would help) I can only do it as a part-time thing. So only the open university and the Brick (or whatever it`s called) come in question. The real question is, will I be able to cope with the workload, and will I be able to finance myself, cause my job right now pays pretty low. I wish I could be a full time student somehow, but that doesn`t seem realistic from this point of view.

[Zgarbas]

I'd say just choose something and stick to it, since no matter how cool something is in theory unless you're willing to dedicate yourself to it it won't get you anywhere.

Basically you want something interesting cool and well-paying, without having to work much for it but you want it to be in a field where you get a guaranteed job after a minimum of time spent working for it, and somehow that shouldn't take up most of your time cause you need to work since your decisions so far have not been well-rewarded. Yes? Long story short, that doesn't exist. Unless it's in the shape of an old and rich lady, of course.

And I said it last time too, please stick the "random questions about what I should do with my life" to one thread. I will be closing future threads as soon as I see them, without waiting for all the great advice to be posted first =).