Professional Astronomy II

How does one become a professional astronomer?



The process begins, I assume, by getting a Bachelors Degree, probably in physics from some accredited college or university. From what I can tell from perusing a few graduate astronomy program websites (like this and this), strong backgrounds in physics are usually expected and preferred, but experience in astronomy or studies in astrophysics are not (necessarily). This is interesting, but I think it makes sense: most colleges do not provide degrees in astrophysics, instead offering a more general physics program, maybe with the possibility of specializing or concentrating in astronomy (this is based on my experiences in applying for undergrad; don't worry too much about sample size, I applied to a lot of schools).

By asking for a background in physics, universities are probably ensuring that their new grad students have a firm grounding in the basic principles on which astronomy rests; if they don't have to worry about that, then they can jump right into teaching and researching the fun stuff. Though, it should be noted, lack of a really strong physics background does not seem to preclude one from becoming an astronomy grad student; indeed, Caltech's site noted that they sometimes liked to accept some students with varying backgrounds, like math or chemistry.

I guess I don't really have any data to prove this, but my assumption is that working as a professional astronomer or astrophysicist probably requires a PhD, so I'm basing my statements here on the presupposition that if one wants to be a professional astronomer, one will go to grad school (which we all know is all sorts of fun). My limited exposure to the subject informs me that grad school is composed of research, some classes, research, possibly some teaching, and research; this culminates (hopefully) in the reception of a doctoral degree. (As an aside, I found this list of useful info for grad students at Indiana University's website, though I'm not really qualified to appraise its value.)

What happens then? Here are Caltech's statistics:

Since 1980, of the students departing the Caltech graduate astronomy program, 1% of students withdrew with no degree, 10% left with an MS degree, and 88% graduated with PhDs, typically within 5 years. As of December 1996: of the 42 students who graduated from Caltech with PhDs in Astronomy in the years 1986-1996, 41 are still alive, and 36 (88%) are working in astronomy. Of these, 33% are professors, 31% are permanent scientific staff (mainly at national observatories and laboratories), and 36% (the most recent graduates) are in postdoctoral positions at major astronomical research institutes. Only 5 (12%) are employed outside astronomy. This is a better record than holds at most other major schools.

I have no idea how typical this is, though Caltech claims to have a "better" record (presumably judged by the percentage of graduates still working in astronomy?) than other major universities. Though I suppose this is also a relatively small and select sample. But let's suppose it's roughly representative, and that it suggests that PhD graduates working in astronomy are likely going to become professors, scientific staff, or postdocs.

At this point, we've gotten pretty much beyond my knowledge on the subject. I don't fully understand the differences in these positions, or why some people end up in one and others in another. I have heard that professorial positions are increasingly rare relative to the numbers of people with PhD's, and that a lot of these people end up in short-term postdoctoral positions (I think I read an article on this, but unfortunately I can't find it; I'll provide a link if I do).

My research this past summer involved working with a team comprised of the latter groups: research scientists and postdocs. As far as I can tell, the research portion of their jobs was similar to that for professors: they wrote grant proposals, coordinated with research groups at other universities, and published papers. So the most striking distinction was that teaching was not a part of their job. They were full-time researchers.

A big factor for anyone doing research in astronomy is telescope time, ie, access to some observatory technology so one can collect new data. This could be difficult, if there are lots of research groups who all need access to an observatory at specific times; astronomical resources are often pricey, and as such, can be rare. This research I helped with required access to the Spitzer Space Telescope, on one of its remaining cryogenic cameras. This is where writing proposals comes in; in order to get access to the telescope to get the data they need, they must submit a proposal outlining what they plan to do and why it's important to do it.

This brings up one final point; at first thought, many (myself included) would assume that most of what an astrophysicist or astronomer does would involve doing math, and that therefore math is crucial to for professional astronomers and astrophysicists. This is probably true (perhaps especially for theorists), but it ignores another crucial aspect: writing. Writing proposals, writing papers... so much of what professional astronomers do depends on their ability to write at least relatively clearly about what they're doing and why. The better a communicator one is, the more likely (it seems) they will be able to do successful research.