Undergraduate astrophysics?

[Devanil]

Hello friends,

I'm from Brazil, and I decided to attend university in the United States.

My wish is: Take a course related to astronomy. Here in Brazil it is only possible by doing graduate studies in physics. And then I specialize in any area of astronomy.

How the U.S.? From the little I have researched, there is graduate work in astrophysics. Is this true?

Which path should I follow?

Sorry for my English. Need to train it.

Do not know if I expressed it correctly. What I do is what comes after high school. I do not know how to call there.

[Sticks]

Devanil, welcome to the board. I have approved your post which had got caught in the moderation queues.


One of the members of this forum works with one of the Admins doing podcasts called AstronomyCast is also involved in teaching. Her blog is here and may be able to give you some pointers.

[Tobin Dax]

There are a number of universities in the U.S. which have an astronomy department or a department of physics and astronomy. You can earn an undergraduate degree in astronomy from these universities.

As for graduate work in astrophysics, that can be done in most physics departments or astronomy departments at universities in the U.S.

In either case, you need to research what's available and pick what is best for you.

[Andrew D]

The university I've found myself at has no physics undergrad degree, but I've talked to a few grad schools, and all seem more than happy to accept students with degrees in other sciences, as long as they have the required prerequisite classes and test well. In fact, many schools I've contacted prefer students who are "cross trained". I'm currently pursuing a bachelor's degrees in math and chemistry and minoring in astrophysics.

The best thing you can do is get in touch with the schools you're interested in attending. They should be very willing to tell you what they prefer to see on a grad student application. Good luck, don't give up!

[John Jaksich]

My first Undergraduate degree was in Chemistry---> and, personally, I find that the it has proven to be indispensable in trying to decipher basic astronomy. Although, I have a long way to go in a subject such as Relativistic Astrophysics and many aspects of Astronomy . . . I feel that you should never lose your ability to question and maintain a healthy respect for the wonders of the nature around you.

College, in general, will change your views of yourself and the world around you---even many years after your initial degree.

Devanil,

Welcome to BAUT and good luck!

[Devanil]

@Sticks Very thanks. I'll take a look at this blog.

There is a course in astronomy?

I think only the "undergraduate" now. In Brazil there is no course in astronomy or in astrophysics. What are the possibilities in the U.S.?

Some friends pointed me to MIT and CalTech. For Lincoln Lab and the Jet Propulsion Lab are two of the most important laboratories of NASA and belong to the respective colleges.

It would be a good choice?

There is much competition to get into these courses?

Thank you all

[Ken G]

I echo the others that your undergraduate science major (the area of science you study most closely as an undergraduate) should not limit you if your goal is to go on to do astronomy in graduate school ("undergraduate" is usually 4 years of "college", and then "graduate" study comes after and results in a higher degree). However, I make one important additional point: it is important is that you get good grades and do well on standardized tests (in the US, that's the "GRE subject" exam in physics-- there isn't one in astronomy). You might be able to get into astronomy graduate schools with GRE subject scores in chemistry, or even biology, you'd have to ask the graduate school, but the standard road to astronomy grad school in the US is the physics subject GRE. Due to the importance of the GRE, in the US it is best to be an undergraduate physics or astronomy major, all else being equal. Even if you'd rather concentrate on astronomy right away, chances are you will have to demonstrate physics knowledge at some point along the way no matter what your major is. If you major in astronomy at a US university or college (look for ones with astronomy departments, or combined physics and astronomy departments), you will get tons of physics.

[swampyankee]

At least two universities in Connecticut have undergraduate programs (majors) in astronomy: Wesleyan and Yale. I wouldn't be surprised if all the Ivies (Yale, Harvard, Columbia, Brown, Cornell, Dartmouth, Princeton, and University of Pennsylvania) have astronomy majors, along with MIT, Stamford, UChicago, UC Berkeley, Arizona, Hawaii, and numerous others.

[Ken G]

Oh yes, I expect that every major university in the US has an undergraduate astronomy major!

[StupendousMan]

Oh yes, I expect that every major university in the US has an undergraduate astronomy major!

Ken may be engaging in sarcasm. Let me make it clear for people who may not be familiar with the field: it is not uncommon for "major universities in the US" NOT to have an astronomy degree at the undergraduate level. Some schools have a combined Physics and Astronomy degree, others have only a Physics degree (though the departments may teach some astronomy courses).

[Ken G]

Can you tell me a major university that does not offer an astronomy major?

[Tobin Dax]

How do you define "major university"?

[Ken G]

Well, one that has an astronomy major, for starters! (Just kidding. Let's say top 100 in some student guide.)

[swampyankee]

Can you tell me a major university that does not offer an astronomy major?

MIT doesn't have an astronomy major, per se.
IIT (Illinois Institute of Technology)
NYU
UConn
Brandeis doesn't seem to have one.
Northeastern
Worcester Polytech

[macaw]

Can you tell me a major university that does not offer an astronomy major?

Stanford

[Tobin Dax]

I wanted to cite Oregon State, though I know it may not be a top university in physics.

However, after a little searching, Tulane University was ranked 50 by US News this year, and it doesn't appear have an astronomy program. I suspect that MIT and Stanford may be better examples, though.

Oh, and thanks for giving the expected pun.

[Ken G]

Well shiver me timbers, you're right. That comes as quite a surprise to me! It must be that they feel a physics major encompasses everything you'll need at that level, and you can always take astronomy courses if you want to find applications of the physics. I predict that will change soon-- chemical and geological studies of nearby planets will make it clear that astronomy is not just physics, and requires a separate major. Who knows, maybe it will even involve some biology someday! But for now, your point is well taken-- if you want to major in astronomy or astrophysics, you'd better pick your school accordingly (though I doubt the courses you actually end up taking will be much different at all, nor your prospects of getting into an astronomy Ph.D. program, so just go where you want and major in physics if they don't have an astronomy major-- no one who majors in physics at Stanford or MIT is going to be rejected by an astronomy graduate program just because they weren't an astronomy major).

[Tobin Dax]

. . . so just go where you want and major in physics if they don't have an astronomy major-- no one who majors in physics at Stanford or MIT is going to be rejected by an astronomy graduate program just because they weren't an astronomy major).

Or Oregon State.

[Ken G]

Yes indeed, I didn't mean to leave that out-- I'm sure the education there is just as good, you have to teach yourself in college anyway!

[Sticks]

Well at least we know there is a course at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.

[spjung]

Can you tell me a major university that does not offer an astronomy major?

Penn doesn't have a separate Astronomy degree. Instead you're a physics major with a concentration in Astrophysics.

[Ken G]

Yes, no doubt each school has its own terminology (concentrations, A.B.'s, B.S.'s, so on, it's quite a smorgasbord, some seem to revel in just being different!). But it does seem like there are different values around how important it is to have undergraduates who can say they have a clear specialization in astronomy, versus just a general physics education. Some schools must feel it is too early to make meaningful decisions about specialties, others feel it's important to get onto an astronomy path as soon as possible. But in general, I'll bet the differences are really pretty much on paper-- in reality, they have the same basic courses, and teach the same basic things, for a student interested in astronomy who wishes to take the standard road to astronomy that leads through physics. Colleges, particularly those who embrace alternative curricula, likely show greater actual variation in this regard than do major universities, labels of the majors notwithstanding. In other words, I suspect there's more variation in the bureaucracy than on the blackboards, but I was wrong about the bureaucracy so I could be wrong about the blackboards too.

[Argos]

Dear Devanil.

Have you really searched for astronomy courses in Brazil? It´s seems that both UNICAMP [University of Campinas] and USP [University of São Paulo], the best Brazilian universities in the field of exact sciences, offer undergratuate courses [in Brazil they are called "Cursos de Graduação"]. The same for the Federal university of Rio. I´ve just found out that the São Francisco university also has it.

We have excellent physics courses in Brazil with post-graduation in astronomy and astrophysics. Brazil has a long astronomy tradition, started with emperor Pedro II, an astronomer himself.

[George]

Texas A&M is trying to get a doctorate program for astronomy, then they plan to offer a bachelors in astronomy. They have a new $82 million physics and astronomy building with Stephen Hawking speaking and supporting Texas A&M, but the word I was told by a prominent director from another university (with a full program) was that "we can't just have every university graduating astronomers", though those might not have been the exact words spoken, but they stung a little. However, I'm sure his point is a good one, though I still think A&M will eventually get there.

[Ken G]

Actually, the pickings among graduate schools in astronomy, particularly those that are not big-time astronomy graduate programs, to attract degree students in astronomy are rather slim at the moment-- I think we'd do quite well to have more universities sending out students with a professional interest in astronomy, no matter what their undergraduate major was.

[Devanil]

Hello,

thanks for all the tips.

I've been searching and the best university for Brazilians (taking into account: investment and return.) Is the MIT.

http://web.mit.edu/astronomy/

I have two options: Physics or Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences. Never heard of this second course, what you know about it?

[Sticks]

The second sounds like a mix of geology, meteorology and climatology

[Ken G]

Yes, it sounds like MIT wants to stress the role of astronomy as comparative planetology as relevant to global warming and other "meal ticket" issues. Savvy, but kind of sad-- of all places, MIT should recognize the importance of basic curiosity about our cosmos. Probably they just think the physics major covers that well enough.

[ngc3314]

Why don't more universities have an astronomy major? Mostly because the major perceived uses for an astronomy degree are often better served, at the undergraduate level, by physics with generous side dishes of astronomy. The level of physics preparation needed to succeed in astronomy graduate work (which is a prerequisite for most, but not all, astronomical career paths) is so high that it amounts to a physics major. I don't think our experience is unusual in finding very few prospective graduate students who should have studied less physics and more astronomy. On top of that, at least in many US universities, the astronomy program cannot spin off into a completely different major and department for administrative reasons - every major at many state universities must gradate a set average number of students per year or risk closure. Thus you have physics major with astronomy concentration, for example, because that's still listed with the physics program and adds to their viability in this way.

[Ken G]

I don't think our experience is unusual in finding very few prospective graduate students who should have studied less physics and more astronomy.

I agree with that, but there's another key issue. Our problem is not just getting students who are good enough in physics, it is also getting students who want to do astronomy in the first place. Could that be because there wasn't enough stress on it in their undergraduate education? Possibly. When astronomy is treated as a kind of applied version of physics, rather than a fundamentally different intellectual pursuit with different kinds of questions and different means of answering them than physics, we may miss some of the opportunity to stimulate interest in it. Of course, I came to astronomy through physics, so I'm not one to talk.

On top of that, at least in many US universities, the astronomy program cannot spin off into a completely different major and department for administrative reasons - every major at many state universities must gradate a set average number of students per year or risk closure.

We really don't have a problem with that-- we have no separate astronomy department, and a relatively small astronomy group (6 faculty), yet we get plenty of astronomy majors because we offer it. Many physics students find it easy to add the astronomy courses they need to double-major, and they like astronomy, both as an application for physics, and for its own separate questions that just don't come up in physics-- questions around our place in something larger.

Thus you have physics major with astronomy concentration, for example, because that's still listed with the physics program and adds to their viability in this way.

Sure, and I'm not sure "astronomy concentration" is anything different from "double major." It's probably a rather moot issue, but I still think that any major university should offer an astronomy major. It's a fundamentally different discipline: observation rather than experiment, theories of the big rather than theories of the small (of course the two make contact, but where in physics do you have gravity and the Pauli exclusion principle both appearing in the same object?), intersection with geology, chemistry, and maybe even biology, etc. But each school navigates its own path, and I'm sure they have reasons for their choices.