<p>Hey, I'm in high school, about a year left. I was thinking of majoring in astrophysics when in college. But i dunno if I should. Is it a worthwhile field? Is having it as a career good? What should i concentrate on. And all of those stuff. I live in malaysia and the astrophysics field isn't that great yet and i want to be the one to pioneer it. But even so, i dunno anything. Where's a good school to do my bachelor. Where do i go for pre university. And all that. I'd greatly appreciate if anyone could help especially an astrophysicist him/herself.</p>
<p>Astrophysics generally requires a PhD to find a job actually doing astrophysics. Astro may or may not be available as a subspecialty at the undergrad level–it depends on the school and the program. (Most astrophysicists start out in physics as undergrads.)</p>
<p>In general, jobs in astro are hard to come by–even for PhDs. It just isn’t a well funded field. Only the best and brightest end up with jobs that actually involve doing astrophysics. The rest end up doing computational work and calculations in other industries. (Like banking, insurance, airlines, national security, etc)</p>
<p>Schools that have strong programs in astophysics include: Cal Tech, Princeton, MIT, Harvard, UC-Berkeley, Univ of Chicago, Univ of Texas-Austin, Stanford, UC- Santa Barbara, Univ of Maryland, Penn State and Univ of Pennsylvania.</p>
<p>I am planning to continue to a pjd level if possible. I really am interested in physics and everthing related to it. If you say so, what other branch of physics that have a good career prospects? Btw, not engineering. I asked many about this and they just keep referring to engineering but i don’t like that. I like the pure, mathematical, calculative physics.</p>
<p>Pure, calculative physics = theoretical physics?</p>
<p>If so, there are no subfields with really good job prospects in academia. Even at the PhD level. Physics is a mature field and right now there just isn’t a great deal of funding available to support basic research. Top PhD grads will always find jobs, but the rest… often leave the profession.</p>
<p>The most employable areas of physics are in applied physics. Physics applied to practical problems. Not exactly engineering, but closer to engineering than purely theoretical physics.</p>
<p>You may want to take a look at the jobs posting at Physics Today (this is the profession’s main general interest, nontechnical journal) to see what kinds of positions are available.</p>
<p>[Jobs</a> - Physics Today](<a href=“http://www.physicstoday.org/jobs]Jobs”>Physics Today Jobs)</p>
<p>But it’s much to soon to be picking out a specialty. Most physicists don’t do that until grad school, or very late in their undergrad training.</p>
<p>That link is a prettygood one. But like whats the possibility of being unemployed if going with physics? Is it more than lets say 15%?? I’m kinda worried since where i live, there’s really not many in the field of physics. And even if in international standards, it’s low then it’ll be even lower here.</p>
<p>Be careful. Don’t just go in to astrophysics because it sounds like a “cool field”. I realize that this type of work sounds very attractive to many kids, but many kids also don’t know what it takes to get to the point of becoming the next Neil Degrass Tyson or Alex Filippenko. </p>
<p>Becoming an astrophysicist requires an enormous amount of time and commitment (as well as strong high school performance in math and science). A PhD is required for any relevant work. You will need to get into a strong physics undergrad program, then a top grad program (MS then PhD, or PhD directly). Once in grad school, you will be expected to take on your own original research, often involving collaboration with international groups for telescope time. Research money, as wayoutwestmom said, can be difficult to get. </p>
<p>I have a close friend who tried the astrophysics route after completing an aero engineering degree, but decided in grad school it wasn’t for him and ended up doing Nuclear Physics instead.</p>
<p>Almost every professor that I’ve talked to about Astrophysics or other physics subfields like QM, String Theory, Particle, Nuclear physics etc. has advised me to go for a degree in physics and take electives/do research in the more specific areas of study that I’d want to do for grad school.</p>
<p>PHDs in physics seldom go unemployed (at least in the US), but most do not end up doing pure physics research.</p>
<p>Academic jobs are extremely competitive and typically require several prior postdocs, multiple publications and a proven track record of getting grant funding. (Unless you plan to become a professor at small liberal arts college–in which case your teaching and social skills become more important.) Its not uncommon to have 40-150 applicants for a single tenure track position in physics.</p>
<p>As an international, your options to work at one of the National Labs in the US (a major employer of basic physical science researchers) will be moderately to severely impacted due to security considerations.</p>
<p>Physics PhDs are valued and do get hired into a number of quantative analysis fields–computing and data management, cryptography, banking & investment, power engineering, communications industry, biomedical instrumentation.</p>
<p>Of the three young physicists I know personally—one is at CERN as postdoc from major US university. Kid is brilliant–probably one of the best minds of his generation. He testified before Congress on the Supercollider adn its funding, had his dissertation widely acclaimed as groundbreaking even before it was published and went on a US tour of TV and radio talk shows to discuss the “god particle”. One is now TT prof in Australia, but only after 3 top international postdocs in very hot research field. He’s 37, btw. Took him almost 10 years to find a permanent position. One didn’t complete his dissertation in astrophysics because he couldn’t get funding, has dropped out of grad school and is working as computer jockey for an investment firm.</p>
<p>Like fractlmstr said, it definitely is hard to become as successful as neil tyson. But by using these popular names, it’s really hard. Because if look at michio kaku, he built a particle accelerator when in high school. I’m not out to compete with those big names. Just go work at some good university and get a tenure hopefully. In reality, is it really impossible for an average person to do? Should I be thinking of choosing another field? Because tbh, physics has been everything. I wanted to do something in physics eversince i was a 8. And I’ve practically been setting my life up so that it’ll go that way. And regarding my grades, both my maths and physics have been exceptional. But i dunno how the standards are here compared to the US because here we don’t have AP. But we do have IB, but i didn’t get to enroll because it was too far from where we live and we weren’t financially capable then.</p>