<p>Hi, I'm just becoming a junior in high school and im starting to look at colleges, i know i want to go into physics, specifically astrophysics, the problem is that from looking at colleges, there are not a lot of them on the east coast that deal with anything that unique, whats the best way to go about searching/ deciding on a college. should i try to double major, or should i go to another major thats similar</p>
<p>also does anybody know any colleges that i may have missed/ not seen.</p>
<p>Thank you </p>
<p>also just as a side note, live in new jersey and dont want to travel a long way</p>
<p>I can think of a number of colleges with an astrophysics major in your region, but most of them are very selective. There are Princeton, Columbia, Swarthmore, Haverford, Carnegie Mellon, Lehigh, Villanova, Colgate, Franklin and Marshall… Rutgers offers several courses in astrophysics and astronomy but no “astrophysics” major.</p>
<p>would double majoring in physics and astronomy be easier, im guessing it would open up the searches better, but would jobs still look for me as if i was an astrophysics major</p>
The short answer is yes. You see, there aren’t any jobs for undergraduate students that would require training in astrophysics. If you want an “astrophysics job”, you will need a graduate degree in the subject. And graduate schools are happy to accept you with a major in physics, as long as you can convince them that you are sincerely interested in astrophysics (e.g. by taking a couple of astrophysics courses, or working on an astrophysics research project).</p>
<p>Do a search on collegeboard.com for schools that offer majors in astrophysics or astronomy. You find quite a few on the East coast.</p>
<p>For your special area of interest, you’ll pretty much have to take a number of physics courses, so a physics major with some astronomy courses is certainly an appropriate pathway for you. (Also, note that if you are only searching for “Astrophysics” or “astronomy” departments or majors, you may miss some schools that offer “Astrophysics” as a track within a Physics major or whose department is named “Physics & Astronomy”.</p>
<p>As a previous poster noted there are not many jobs specifically in astrophysics, especially at the undergraduate level. One pathway that would provide the most job opportunities is teaching physics and math.</p>
<p>Don’t overlook related fields that may provide more job opportunities at the undergrad level, and also provide a possible pathway for graduate study, depending on your specific interests and the cognate courses (especially, a sufficient number of physics courses) you take: These fields would include math, geophysics/earth & planetary sciences, atmospheric sciences/meteorology.</p>
<p>ok thanks for the help, but when i was loking on collegeboard, i found that they removed the astrophysics major, i dont know if thats temporary, but still a problem.</p>
<p>i guess that i will search for physics and astronomy, do you think it will be more challenging to either go for a double major, or find a college in astrophysics. the gist of things im getting is to focus on the physics part and go from there. </p>
<p>thanks for all of this, i really appreciate this because my guidance counselor treats me as a number and wont help except to hurry me up out of the office. </p>
<p>(I don’t mean to hijack threads, but… there’s a new subforum dedicated to questions about science majors. In a good-faith effort to keep that subforum alive and well, I would suggest that future science questions be posted there. Thanks!)</p>