Careers in Astrophysics Essay Example

Imagine looking at the footsteps on the moon, as an astrophysicist you can look at the trajectory and movement of stars and see the details unable to be seen with the human eye as a job! you look through telescopes that are supposed to make it look like the moon is at your front door. And you don’t only look at the trajectory of stars and all that math. You also get to talk to people about if there is life out there and if you’re going to be able to live on Mars in the next 30 years. It is just a world of imagination and discovery you get paid to do. A career in Astro Physics is considered the best because your work environment is with brilliant people and smart minds, you are trained to have many really good skills and characteristics., and you get to work with some of the biggest and most detailed machines on the planet!

When you finish your 8 years of college and start to look for jobs as an astrophysicist you might wonder who could be working with. Some of the people that you could work with and some of the smartest people include Stephen Hawking, Neil De Gras Tyson, and tons more. Those two people are very smart and especially Stephen hawking having many called him the smartest person to live. The work environment of an astrophysicist is exciting and never boring. Some of the things include great people, amazing machines, and spectacular sights. When you work as an astrophysicist you typically would work in a government facility like N.A.S.A. but recently you could have a chance at working at Space X, a space company owned by Elon Musk. But when you arrive at your place it is usually a cubicle with a computer and paper. It may seem boring but you spend very little time in that cubicle. You are usually in a laboratory working with your coworkers performing experiments and collecting data on different experiments, but sometimes an experiment needs a bigger machine to conduct. For some things, you would have to use a huge particle accelerator, which speeds up particles such as electrons or protons so you and your partners can study what happens when you increase the speed of the particles. On rarer occasions, you would have a possibility to work with a nuclear reactor, which conducts a nuclear effect and conducts heat so they can study how different particles react when put into the reactor and if it is safe to do so or not. (“Physicist and Astronomers” Web). You sometimes also look through huge telescopes and look at not just stars and planets in our solar system, you can look and a defined and detailed picture of the milky. And even look at a clear picture of Pluto!

When you just graduated high school and thinking of what you should study after entering college. And you land on an Astrophysicist, well you got some big hills to climb. When you first enter college you probably won’t concentrate on your major in astronomy and physics until your junior year. So in your first 2 years of college, you would take basic classes like English, Maths, Science, and Reading. But once you pass and finish those classes you can start to focus on your real goals and get your degree. If you want to graduate and get your degree to be an astrophysicist you must have a Ph.D. in Physics and Astronomy. That means you would have to get 2 PhDs or 2 sub Ph.D.’s which gives time for both. A Ph.D. can take 4 years to complete with the smaller jobs and up to 8 years to complete for the higher paying and more serious jobs. But to be an astrophysicist it would take 6 to 8 years to complete your degree. This is because of the complex skills in math and astronomy you have to comprehend. While you are getting your Ph.D. in physics you would have to take many math classes such as calculus, linear algebra, and statistics (“Physics and Astronomers” web). In a class like statistics, you would be doing stuff like confidence intervals, the Poisson, probability, and many more confusing math lessons. But you study astronomy you would have to take classes like Cosmology, Planetary geology, and more classes about space and different planets (“Physics and Astronomers” web). In a class like Cosmology, you would do stuff like study the origin of space and the structure of the universe. After you get your Ph.D. and you’re out of college and looking for a job you can’t just start right out of college. Most students take a position as a postdoctoral research position that lasts about 2 to 3 years. While they are in this position they usually work with a smart, experienced scientist in the same field the post student is trying to get a job in. they are like shadows to the scientist learning more about being an astrophysicist and getting a better understanding of what they are going to do for their whole life (“Physics and Astronomers” Web). 

When you develop your skills as an astrophysicist you obtain certain abilities that help you make your job easier and make you smarter in general. Some of the things you develop would be near-site, visualization, speech recognition, problem sensitivity, and so much more. To be near-sited is a good thing to have because you can notice details up close that some people can’t. For example, sometimes as a physicist, you would need to look at small objects and there isn’t a microscope handy you have to use your eyes. And sometimes being near-sited can be very useful to a physicist. Visualization is another ability that you develop in this field, it is where you can kind of see into the future and predict how something will turn out after moving. This is also very useful for astrophysicists because a lot of what they do involves calculating movement. Another one would be Speech recognition, this ability allows you to understand and hear speech much clearly (“Physicist and Astronomers” web). This is a really good ability because astrophysicist a lot of the time spend with foreign astrophysicist that sometimes doesn’t speak English that well So being able to understand them effectively is a lifesaver. And one more ability that they can develop is being sensitive to problems. This allows them to see when problems happen more than the average human. This can prevent disaster and failure of the experiment. these abilities are the best kind because you don’t have to work hard to get them they kind of just grow on you and you develop them without noticing. And even when you retire or decide to pursue another job you can use these abilities to better yourself and make life easier. 

Being an astrophysicist is the best because you get to watch predict when starts are going to collide and explode into a huge black hole! You can also watch electrons collide together and make tiny explosions. No other career is better than this one because you get to study something that is not on earth. All the other jobs and careers are things that we have on earth. This one you will study things that are “out of this world”, literally.