A Different Focus in Grad School?

College Majors
1

I’m an undergraduate sophomore at the University of Vermont who has chosen an Environmental Science B.S. major. That major will be accompanied by either an Environmental Chemistry concentration, or a self-designed Geophysics concentration. I’ll be making that choice later this year. Also, I’ll definitely be minoring in Astronomy, and perhaps will minor in Chemistry and/or Mathematics too, depending on my major concentration and upcoming degree of success in those subjects.

My question is: If I wanted to study Astrophysics (or Astrochemistry, ideally) in grad school, would they accept me given my undergrad major/minors? Or would that be virtually impossible without taking an extra year or two of classes? How would that process work? Would having a Physics minor help? I know almost nothing about the grad school process at all, let alone the process of changing an academic focus along with it.

I ask because while I’m happy with my major choice, I’ve always been deeply interested in astronomy. Unfortunately, my school doesn’t offer an Astrophysics B.S. major and only has an Astronomy minor. It’s too late to begin planning to transfer to a school with an astronomy program, and I’m not confident enough to commit to changing to a Physics B.S. major or Chemistry B.S. major at my current school right this moment. And of course, I’d have to make that change now, because it’d be too late to change to one of those majors even next semester. So Environmental Science it is, I guess.

Being this torn is quite frustrating.

To help answer this question, I should mention that I’ll definitely be taking Physics 1 and 2 (the calc-based courses with lab for science majors) as a junior next school year. So I’ll at least have that, plus my non-calculus based astronomy minor, under my belt by the time I graduate in May 2020. I’m currently taking four courses: Calc 2, Chem 1 (for majors), Bio 1 (for majors), and an upper-level non-calculus astronomy course for my minor. I only have a 3.40 gpa right now, but I’ve adjusted to school and fully expect that to rise significantly by the time I graduate. School is my #1 priority.

Sorry for my wordiness and thanks for reading. Any and all tips will be greatly appreciated!

2

Talk to an advisor. This is something that you want “professional” advice on. UVM is big enough with enough majors and graduate programs that a solid professor there should be able to give you the best advice.

3

^Yes, talk to an advisor for sure.

However, generally speaking, in order to get into a PhD program - particularly in the physical sciences - you need to have the appropriate prerequisite coursework in order to do the graduate coursework in the field. If you don’t have close to the equivalent of a physics major, getting into an astrophysics PhD program will be difficult to impossible. Also remember that minimums are just that - minimums. Many programs accept almost all students who have much higher credentials than whatever the minimums are. So a program may say that a physics major is not required, but if you talk to accepted students you’ll find out that in the last 5 years they only accepted one kid who didn’t major in physics in college and that’s because she’s a genius who has published 5 papers with a physics professor since college.

Yes, having a physics minor would help immensely. You also definitely need to finish calculus up to calculus 3, because an astrophysics graduate program would involve a lot of math. And any calculus-based astronomy and physics classes you can take before graduating will be very very useful to you.

If you want an MS you probably have a better chance at that first.

4

I have a child who is interested in grad school in planetary science – also not an undergraduate major. Like you, she needs to get a solid undergraduate education in a foundation field rather than the field she ultimately wants to study.

My advice would be to throw away the lists of required courses for various minors and focus on the end goal: what do you need to get into grad school? Get research experience. Make connections with professors for letters. Get as much math, physics, and chemistry as you can into your schedule. Don’t worry if it adds up to a minor and don’t let completing a minor take priority over what your grad school ultimately wants to see.