Becoming an Astronomer: Astronomer Manual

Credit: science.kukuchew.com

As a first part of the how-to-be-an-astronomer writing project, this post contains my initial impression on astronomer career path. Basically, I am trying to guess how could one can be a professional astronomer? Well, I am pretty sure that it is not by a lottery. When does one have to make a decision to become a star gazer? Also, how much knowledge one has to know?

I have to confess that I really have no idea how to be an astronomer. It is not like electric devices that have building manual. May be because every pieces of the same devices function the same way while each person has his own unique path. However, some pattern should emerge.

The name of my blog, "CQ, this is W9GFO", is one of the famous quotes from novel Contact by Carl Sagan. It is one of my favorite novels and movies of all time since it inspires me to become an astronomer. So it is normal that whenever I have some questions about astronomy, I often turn to an example from the novel. The most obvious example is the main character, Dr. Eleanor Arroway. In the end, she has found another intelligent civilization after working at Search for Extra-terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) and the Very Large Array (VLA). But what she did before that?

Credit: www.setileague.org

Picture of SETI apparatus in Puerto Rico.

Credit: www.aoc.nrao.edu

Picture of VLA with the antennas in close configuration.

It turn out that Dr. Arroway has her career path as following:

1. Finish High School

2. Finish Undergraduate Program from MIT

3. Finish Graduate work at Caltech

4. Get offer for teaching position at Harvard

5. Turn down offer in number 4 and go work at SETI

So, I guess, before one can become an astronomer, one has to finish one's study first!

In high school, most students do not know what they want to do in the future, either they have no choice or too many choices to choose. May be because they study in wide range of subject. I am not sure about American Education System, but in Thailand, astronomy has never been taught in high school.

In college, one has to choose the major. I think this is the first time that a student has a chance to really know something. However, one cannot just study in astronomy without other subjects. Astronomy needs physics which requires mathematics. So, it is similar to high school, still learning wide range of subject but having chances to dig deeper. Now, I am not sure that people with only Bachelor degree can work as professional astronomer or not. My guess would be yes. Moreover, not every college has a degree in astronomy so one will have some difficulties finding astronomy job without astronomy degree.

To be certain to get a job in astronomy, one should take a graduate school. The process should be similar as applying for college - GPA, GRE, recommendations, etc. Now, one has a chance to really experience and learn what astronomers do. You can now specify in what you really want to study and research for the rest of your life. You might have some chance to go to conferences and know other people who share the same career. If you did well, as Dr. Arroway, you will get some offer for a position as a professional astronomer.

Remember, all of this is just my assumption. Basically, you just study, study, study, and if you did well, you get a job.

Now, I start to ask myself, "what is a professional astronomer?" The first thing that comes in to my thought is professors and researchers in colleges and universities. But, is that all? What about people working in an observatory? People who take care of a telescope? Or people who build or design it? As I said before, each person has his own unique path. A tenured profession has taken a different path from a guy in planetarium. Thus, may be before looking for a path, we should set where the path ends first.

Credit: www.library.thinkquest.com

Evolution Tree. Many creatures share the same common ancestor. As you can see, Protozoans broke off from the track first and followed by Sponges. If we compare this to astronomy career, each job breaks off from the track at different time.

I think I will use evolution as an analogy of astronomy career. In biology, according to the Natural Selection Theory, all living creatures comes from a common ancestor. As time goes by, each species breaks off from the main track and becomes a new type of animal. Now, paths to many professional astronomy career must join at some time in the past. May be a guy in planetarium breaks off after he gets the Bachelor degree while experimental astronomers come off after graduate school while theoretical astronomers continue on the track to post-doc.

This is the best assumption I can make of how to be an astronomer. For the next part of the write-up, our group has to interview an astronomer about his/her career. But, what am I looking forward to the most is asking him/her about the "A-ha" moment, the time when he/she realized that he/she wants to be an astronomer. I am really excited to know when, how, and why he/she wants to be what he/she is today.