What can I do for a career with Astro PhD?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I am a fourth year graduate student in astronomy. I am becoming increasingly frustrated by my career prospects because it seems that unless I work much more than 40 hours a week, I can’t get anywhere. It also seems that even working 50-60 hour weeks and being stressed out all the time isn’t actually getting me anywhere. For example, I have a paper that’s been “nearly ready” for submission for over a year, but my advisor keeps asking for more and more changes. Every time I give a talk or a poster, I feel like I’m not really good enough to succeed at what I do. I just gave a talk today, and despite the huge amount of effort that I put into both the talk and into recent work, I was told that I need to put more work into this if I want to succeed. My paper wants me to have four papers (!) submitted before graduation if I want to be competitive for getting a postdoc. I haven’t even submitted one!

Furthermore, I don’t see things improving in the future. I’ll do one or two postdocs when I graduate and then go on to be a professor, jobs willing, and both of those will try to take over my life as well. I need to have a life outside of my job. I like to write, I like to play the clarinet, I like to do some photography, and I don’t have time for any of these anymore.

Ok, so my point is this: With a PhD in astronomy, and some talent at writing, what can I do as a viable career? I need something that offers balance, both between work and life and between right and left brain activities. Science writing is an option, but one that seems very hard to get into. Science writers that I’ve heard from seem to have fallen into science writing by accident. Any other ideas out there?

2

Since the OP is looking for advice, this is better suited for IMHO.

Colibri
General Questions Moderator

3

[QUOTE=starryspice]
IMy paper wants me to have four papers (!) submitted before graduation if I want to be competitive for getting a postdoc. I haven’t even submitted one!
[/QUOTE]
Papers are demanding, you know. :wink:

4

Just a couple of quick words - first, good luck to you and hope things work out OK.

  1. Finish that degree - you sound a bit discouraged today, but you must be getting close by now.
  2. If your advisor is being unreasonable (do you think this is the case? ask around or talk to another prof. or mentor), then talk to them about it (first), and then take it up a level to your chair. It would blow chunks to switch advisors, but it can happen.
  3. Papers are never perfect, and they’re rarely “good enough” - submit it when it’s pretty good, and then spend the time making corrections when it comes back (either rejected or accepted). If you’re having trouble with this, try to get some impartial review, either by a colleague or a postdoc/mentor.

Good luck (again)!

5

There are a lot of options apart from the traditional postdoc -> tenure route, and from what I’ve seen from my friends who’ve left academia after their astro PhD, practically any career route is possible – a lot of employers will value a science PhD for the research and analytic skills it gives you; its actually a very valuable tool to have.

I sympathise entirely on the paper front, I’ve had very similar problems with some collaborators and it can be really demoralising. Supervisors/collaborators demanding perfection is always a problem, but there are ways in which such people can be dealt with.

6

Astro Postgrads (mostly astrophysics/cosmology) that I know have gone on to teach economics at London U, work as code monkeys, or end up teaching Maths. One lucky one works at SALT.

7

I sympathize with the frustrations of graduate school. However, I think you should put the “magic number 40” out of your head. The truth is most people in professional positions work more than 40 hours per week. A lot of people in blue collar or paraprofessional positions work more than 40 hours per week, too, either to earn overtime or in a 2nd job. Others work physically exhausting jobs for 40 hours. You will have some time for hobbies, but probably not as much as you want. This is typically a reality of adult life. There are only so many opportunities for people to earn a living doing neat stuff like astronomy research, and lots of people want those opportunities, so they tend to go to people who will give 110% to it.

If you really want to keep it to 40 hours, your best option that I can think of is teaching below the college level. Even then, you will sometimes be putting in more than 40 hours, but with vacations it could even out.

8

starryspice, I’m sorry for your frustration. As what my wife likes to call a “lapsed” physicist, can empathize. (I have a PhD in experimental condensed matter physics. I’m a programmer now.) There’s good advice upthread. My suggestions are to talk to your fellow grad students, especially recent graduates. Maybe contact Phil Plait via the Bad Astronomy Blog (Phil Plait's Bad Astronomy: Info) for some advice. The discussion board there might also be helpful, as might any number of astronomy-related web sites.

Since I’m not in the astronomy labor market, I can’t give any more specific advice. You’re a smart person and I’m sure you’ll do well, but the road can get pretty bumpy in the meantime. Good luck!

9

I hate to say it, but if you stay in your major…you better get used to it because it only gets worse. I have two dear friends with PhDs in astrophysics working at Harvard and funded by NASA, for one. They enjoy the research, but then you gotta take the show on the road (globally) and present your findings (mostly like a dog and pony show) mostly to gain support to justify continued funding. You also have to spend a good chunk of your time writing proposals for grants to keep you in business.

If you can, switch to an EE, IT, or a Mathematics program for a broader background in which to have a broader scope of prospective opportunities as time passes. But, nothing is certain. I became an ME when the Feds claimed the US was coming upon a tech shortage (with aviation on the rise again in the early 1980s) just to watch it all go bust. What we all need is a crystal ball!

Good luck,

  • Jinx
10

[QUOTE=starryspice]
Ok, so my point is this: With a PhD in astronomy, and some talent at writing, what can I do as a viable career? I need something that offers balance, both between work and life and between right and left brain activities. Science writing is an option, but one that seems very hard to get into. Science writers that I’ve heard from seem to have fallen into science writing by accident. Any other ideas out there?
[/QUOTE]
First of all, the academic tenure track sucks, both in terms of your chances of getting tenure where you want it and the amount of utter bullshit and politics you typically have to put up with to get there. Unless you are really jazzed about some aspect of academic life (research, teaching, writing textbooks, campus politics, et cetera) it can be a major sucks, and plus once you are “on track” you will find yourself stuck in that career for years to come before you acheive a measure of security. If I were you, I’d talk to a variety of profs and postgrads about their experiences and your options in this regard.

Second, while graduate research does tend to take up a lot more time, it seems that a lot of it is more in terms of winning approval from advisors and competing with other students than actual work. I’ve known people in the hard sciences who have managed to put in credible research work and lead what qualfies as a full social life on the limited means a research stipend allows. They do this by setting boundries on their world life. Of course, they might not be their advisor’s favorite researcher, but those trade-offs are found in any professional career track, be it research science, banking and finance, engineering, medicine, law, et cetera. Budget yourself time to do the activities you want to do and try to find a way to fit them into your schedule. Socializing with people outside your professional area is both good for your emotional health (i.e. you’re not competing with these people to be the best and brightest) and will also give you a more independent perspective on what you want out of life.

Third, with the skills that you have no doubt developed as an Astro student (I’m going to guess that these include a fair amount of coding and use of numerical and image analysis codes, statistics and advanced mathematics, a foreign language, technical writing, et cetera in addition to general physical science education) you definitely have skills that are useful outside of your immediate discipline. There are a wide variety of jobs in various industries (finance, engineering and technical analysis, geodedics and cartography, et cetera) that will value these skills, especially if you can combine them with other interests. I’ve worked with engineers from a variety of non-traditional background who have been highly competent in their work despite not being formally trained in the specifics. You should by all means aspire to complete your degree program unless you are completely burned out, as that at least shows dedication and may get you in the door for jobs that you would otherwise be considered inexperiened for. (Many people really get wowed by the “PhD” after the name even though we really know that it means the person in question is very, very experienced in a narrow range of skills, and says almost nothing by itself about their ability to apply such skills to more general fields of knowedge.) The tradeoff here is that you get away from your presumed area of enthusiasm and into a “job job” that serves to pay the bills and lets you do other things with your life.

Fourth and finally, in regard to science writing: most science writers have not, in fact, “fallen into science writing by accident,” per se, but rather have been exposed to or taken opportunity to present science in a popular fashion and have found a certain verve for it. For many it started and often remains a sideline or second job to a primary career in science or general journalism. It helps, of course, to become something of a science celebrity (like Carl Sagan, Stephen J. Gould, Brian Greene, et cetera), but that’s really more a matter of blind luck; most pop-sci writers are working stiffs who write freelance for extra money and a shot at publishing a popular book. If you are really interested, the best way to get into general science writing (aside from having an expansive knowledge and a general interest in journalistic research outside of your specific area of interest) is to start writing a column for a website or local paper. You probably won’t make a living on this, but it is a way to get a foot in the door and demonstrate your viability to a larger publisher. I’ve considered doing this myself, though my lack of formal graduate education is probably very limiting in terms of demonstrating technical ability to a non-technical editor; again, that PhD opens a few doors that would be otherwise closed to you, so your best bet at this point is to pursue it.

Someone will probably recommend teaching at the high school or community college level, which is great if it appeals to you. Personally, I investigated that and I don’t think it would suit me in terms of either financial reward or intellectual stimulation. (Teaching good students would be great; teaching apathetic or subpar students would be very frustrating, on top of all of the other bureaucratic and political nonsense that goes with teaching.) However, you may consider it as at least a temporary alternative to full-time science writing or something else; and you may find the passion that other people have for it. (Silenus and others might have some more knowledgeable and favorable words in this regard.)

Whatever you decide, good luck to you.

Stranger

11

Don’t know if it’ll help, but here’s a link to the U.S. Department of Labor’s/Occupational Outlook Physicists and Astronomer’s page.

12

Re the time required if you’re not prepared to be working 60-70+ hours a week on the upswing phase of a professional career (academic or otherwise) then you *really * need to be re-evaluating your vocational priorities and choices.

13

IMO, if you have quantitative skills and anything resembling inter-personal skills, wait for the market to recover and go work in finance or for Intel or something. They’re always aching for people who know how to do math AND talk without drooling. My sis almost pitched residency at the last minute because McKenzie (sp???) just hired her. It took an enormous amount of begging from my parents to get her to just finish off the med thing once and for all. My dad’s co-worker’s son finished a ph.d in physics from Yale, and after years of academic job hunting said fuck-it-all and now lives in India (non-Indian American btw) doing something for some big american company.

Damn, I’m fucking bourgeois aren’t I? Sell out, sell out!!! Still, if you’ve got personality and math skillz, you can do quite well for yourself.

14

You could travel with the president of the galazy. Seriously, you could go into software – most of the physics PhDs I know are in software now, and I know a lot of them, having been a physics undergrad.

15

Sorry to hear that things are getting a bit on top of you starryspice - it happens to every single grad student at some point or another in their PhD, you’ll come out the other side I guarantee it :slight_smile:

Just taking your post at face value - I’d think very carefully about going on to a postdoc. This really represents a watershed to me. There is so much training in a PhD that you can graduate and turn your hand to a myriad of careers - your skillset will be deeply impressive once you learn how to articulate it.

Taking on a postdoc though, that makes the statement that you want to become a practicing astrophysicist. Go for it 110% if this is what you want, but it sounds like you might be way off the mark with it. Again, not wanting to read too much into the snapshot of your post, but if you’re questioning the value of a 40hr week in grad school, and envisioning a career as a professor ?! I’m sorry, but that is ludicrous.

Something needs to be done in regard to communicating your first paper to the astrophysics literature. A paper that has been ‘nearly ready’ for a year is a paralysing state of affairs. There can be good reasons for it, like if the pace of your research is almost perfectly in synch with a fast moving field, or you’re aiming to put something stupendous out that has to be refined to the nth degree. By and large though, you just have to take the plunge. After all, the only people who can really say if a paper is ready or not are the journal’s referees.

16

[QUOTE=starryspice]
Science writing is an option, but one that seems very hard to get into. Science writers that I’ve heard from seem to have fallen into science writing by accident.
[/QUOTE]

The one immediate contemporary of mine who is now a professional science writer - indeed a staff writer for New Scientist - did so by doing some sort of vocational postgraduate course on journalism after getting their undergraduate astronomy degree, not by falling into it by accident. Though no doubt with much luck involved along the way none the less.
Another option to explore?

17

[QUOTE=starryspice]
Furthermore, I don’t see things improving in the future. I’ll do one or two postdocs when I graduate and then go on to be a professor, jobs willing, and both of those will try to take over my life as well. I need to have a life outside of my job. I like to write, I like to play the clarinet, I like to do some photography, and I don’t have time for any of these anymore.

Ok, so my point is this: With a PhD in astronomy, and some talent at writing, what can I do as a viable career? I need something that offers balance, both between work and life and between right and left brain activities. Science writing is an option, but one that seems very hard to get into. Science writers that I’ve heard from seem to have fallen into science writing by accident. Any other ideas out there?
[/QUOTE]

After I got my Ph.D. in Biology, I decided pretty emphatically that I wasn’t interested in a conventional academic career, for many of the reasons Stranger mentions. (However, not wanting to work more than 40 hours a week was not one of them. As others have said, that pretty much goes with the territory of any serious professional. I’m working 50+ hours per week now, but much of that’s on side projects that are not part of my real job).

I’ve had a wide variety of jobs since I got my degree, including field biologist, grant proposal writer, research program director, science writer, and (currently) exhibition curator. Most of them have involved communicating science to the general public in some way.

Like others, I would strongly recommend that since you are evidently pretty close, you should go ahead and get the Ph.D. In my experience, it is a very very useful thing to have, even if you are not using it in your original field. Justified or not, it does mean that people do often take you more seriously. Don’t go for a post-doc though, unless you are absolutely committed to a career in the field. (I did do a post-doc, but it was only because it was a fun one in New Zealand. Even so, I felt like Al Pacino in Godfather III: They keep pulling me back IN! :D)

I’d also second Stranger’s suggestion to write a column for a local paper or website, or else you might try submitting pieces to your university’s newsletter or magazine. After getting your degree, you might also think of looking for a job in fundraising/development or communications in your field; the chief development officer for my bureau has a Ph.D. in Botany. Those departments are often in need of people who both understand the technical background in a field and can put two sentences together, who are often in short supply.

18

First of all, thanks to everyone for their replies. I was very frustrated and angry when I wrote the OP and I’m feeling a little better now. There is some very useful advice in this thread that I will definitely follow up on. To clarify a few points:

[QUOTE=The Cocky Watchman]
Again, not wanting to read too much into the snapshot of your post, but if you’re questioning the value of a 40hr week in grad school, and envisioning a career as a professor ?! I’m sorry, but that is ludicrous.
[/QUOTE]

I didn’t phrase this part of my OP correctly. I’m not really looking for a 40-hour work week, because I know that it’s not really possible in any professional career. I was really trying to say two things with that statement. First of all, despite the long weeks, I don’t feel like I’m progressing very far in my research. I also don’t get any positive feedback on my research unless I go to conferences. When I present my research to others, they find it interesting and we’ll talk about it for awhile. But on a day-to-day basis, particularly from my advisor, I get absolutely zero positive feedback. Criticism is necessary and useful, but sometimes I also need to be told that I’m doing something right, so that I can build on my strengths as well as minimize my weaknesses.

Secondly, having put in long weeks and not getting far with it, I get frustrated that I don’t get to pursue any of my other interests. My friends in the department do, but I feel like it’s just not possible for me, with my advisor. Heck, I know several people that have their own rock band. They practice on a regular basis and get gigs around town. I don’t know how they find the time to do that.

In undergrad, which admittedly is very different from grad school, I did two majors, one in astronomy and one in writing. That provided a very necessary balance. Grad school is utterly different in that it requires complete focus on one thing. My brain isn’t built for that. I need to be able to pursue other interests, especially writing, in order to be a happy, balanced person.

[QUOTE=The Cocky Watchman]
Something needs to be done in regard to communicating your first paper to the astrophysics literature. A paper that has been ‘nearly ready’ for a year is a paralysing state of affairs. There can be good reasons for it, like if the pace of your research is almost perfectly in synch with a fast moving field, or you’re aiming to put something stupendous out that has to be refined to the nth degree. By and large though, you just have to take the plunge. After all, the only people who can really say if a paper is ready or not are the journal’s referees.
[/QUOTE]

There are a couple of issues with the paper. First of all, I started writing the paper before the research was fully finished. This is both good and bad. Good, because it forced me to look more carefully at everything I was doing, and bad (or good, depending on how you look at it) because as I looked more carefully, I found some really interesting results that required rewriting sections of the paper, as well as the addition of a new section.

I’m also working simultaneously on two big projects. The paper is one, but I’m also working on a big survey and that takes up a lot of time too.

Part of it, too, though is that my advisor is a perfectionist and every time I give him a draft I get a few very useful comments and then a whole host of tiny revisions to individual sentences. I write well enough, I think, but he is very particular about how he wants this paper to be written, and how he wants the plots, etc. Sometimes, he ends up changing sentences that he’s already changed. It’s ridiculous.

[QUOTE=Schuyler]

  1. Finish that degree - you sound a bit discouraged today, but you must be getting close by now.
  2. If your advisor is being unreasonable (do you think this is the case? ask around or talk to another prof. or mentor), then talk to them about it (first), and then take it up a level to your chair. It would blow chunks to switch advisors, but it can happen.
    [/QUOTE/

I do intend on finishing my degree. I’m theoretically a little over a year from graduating, so it would be silly of me to throw away all the work I’ve done. For the same reason, I don’t think it’s really possible to switch advisors, unless I’m willing to start a new project in a new field and stay on for another two years minimum. I’m not really willing to do that because I really like my current research. It’s interesting and no one’s really pursued it before.

[QUOTE=bonzer]
The one immediate contemporary of mine who is now a professional science writer - indeed a staff writer for New Scientist - did so by doing some sort of vocational postgraduate course on journalism after getting their undergraduate astronomy degree, not by falling into it by accident.

[/QUOTE]

Can you tell me more about this? What kind of course, how long did it take, and how did it help get your friend started in science writing?

[QUOTE=Harriet the Spry]

There are only so many opportunities for people to earn a living doing neat stuff like astronomy research, and lots of people want those opportunities, so they tend to go to people who will give 110% to it.
[/QUOTE]

You’re absolutely right. I should count my lucky stars that I’m able to do this for a living. (Sorry, for the pun, I couldn’t help it - I’m not being facetious though, I do mean that statement.) I just wish that I didn’t have to give everything to pursue this career. I wish I could have something left over for actually living life.

[QUOTE=kozmik]
Papers are demanding, you know. :wink:
[/QUOTE]

This made me laugh so hard last night, I really needed that! Lol, I must have been really riled up when writing the OP.

Sorry for rambling for so long. I really appreciate the advice and good wishes everyone has offered, it means a lot.