Actually a career question… I’m getting sick of research astronomy. It’s been fun but I don’t really enjoy the “research science” part of it, just the “experiment and design” part. The obvious choice is to go work for companies that make the kind of things I’ve been working with - I’ve been designing and testing X-ray detector systems. But I was wondering if there are any other fields which would let me do interesting work.
What makes the job search harder is that I’m a Japanese citizen and want to work in the US. I’m fluent in English and Japanese though, maybe that’d help. I’ve got a Bachelor’s from a major US college, and a Master’s in astronomy from the U. of Tokyo. I’ll hopefully have a Ph.D from there as well I stay in the program for another year (or possibly more), though would consider bailing out before then - I’m not sure if it’s worth it if I’m not staying in the field.
I’m not relying on this board to find a job, of course. I just thought that with the diversity of this board I might get some new ideas.
scr4, do you have an english speaking parent? I ask because your written english is (to me, anyway), indistinguishable from a native speaker’s.
If you do, and that parent is American, that may help with getting work visas, etc. I’d check with the local American embassy, as well as the Tokyo branches of the companies you are interested in working for.
Thank you for the compliment but my parents are both Japanese. I was lucky enoug to spend 2 yrs in the UK when I was little, and later went to college in the US.
In rertospect, I should have spent more time in college trying to find an American wife. That would have made things so much easier.
I would be very happy to have a working astronomer as a friend. Unfortunately, that position does not pay very well.
Kidding aside… If you have been doing experiment design, you must have significant engineering and math knowlege. Perhaps you could spell out those incidental skills that are useful to astronomy, but also useful to the rest of the world and we could be more help.
I have been a radar technician and currently work as a software engineer. I have seen that if people are truly adept at nearly any technical field, they often can move into another very easily. Generally, all the background learning between many technical fields are pretty much the same. The final details are different, but the mode of thinking is very similar as well.
Well, I’ll chip in as one of a few professional astronomers on the board!
I too did research for about ten years (including getting my PhD) and discovered I was tired of it. Luckily, I found out I could write, and liked doing public outreach. I moved to California and do E/PO for various NASA projects at Sonoma State University.
The point is there are lots of things you can do with an astronomy degree. You sound like you have hands-on engineering/technical skills. Those translate well to other fields.
I don’t suppose you’d consider a career change, would you? Oh, and working in Toronto, Canada, not the U.S.
I’d hire a programmer fluent in English and Japanese in a heartbeat. We do human-like interaction systems, and have a lot of AI people. Half of our company is based in Tokyo, and half in Toronto (which means I have to fly to Tokyo every three months), but we don’t have any technical people who are truly fluent in both languages. Very frustrating.
Thanks for the advice and kind words everyone. The AAS link looks very useful, I didn’t know about that one. The difficulty is that I don’t really fit many job opening descriptions and am not too sure how to approach a company saying “I don’t know how to do your jub but I think I can learn.” Better to find job postings which I think I can learn to do, or just call up companies which look promising?
Cerowyn, if you are serious, e-mail me and let me know more about your company. I’d love to live in Toronto! I’m more of a hardware person than a programmer though.
