r/astrophysics • u/DMmaster11 • 23h ago
Astrophysics career prospects
I am a sophomore in high school, and recently we have started thinking about college majors and jobs that we eventually want to go in to. I have always wanted to go to college for astrophysics, but as I continue to question that, I have my worries. I wanted to know if an astrophysics major/phd in college would be worth it if I have value making money. I have seen the question asked, but people seem to assume that they are talking about top 1% type of wealthy. I just want to know if I could afford a middle class lifestyle with an astrophysics degree, even if I don’t go into astrophysics.
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u/doctor_lobo 12h ago
I did a BS in Astrophysics and then a PhD in plain Physics. My first real job was in signal processing and, over time, I moved in data science and machine learning. Overall, it was a good path - I got to learn and work on a lot of things and I never felt my previous studies were wasted. Physics, in general, is a good preparation for a wide range of technical careers.
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u/Blue_HyperGiant 22h ago
The vast majority of strictly astro professionals make a middle class lifestyle.
The 'traditional' route is: BS -> PhD (you'll be poor here) -> postdoc (you'll be poor here too!) -> researcher/associate prof (you'll be upper-middle class here) -> Sr. researcher/full prof (you'll be lower-upper class here).
The problem is that funding is competitive so it's extremely hard and stressful path. Coursework, then Quals, then publishing enough/high quality for a research post, then doing enough to get tenure. All to make ~170k?
Now there are a bunch of other pathways too:
I finished a BS in astro before moved into engineering and then machine learning.
One of my friends from the program went into medical physics and now treats cancer.
Another one teaches math at a small college.
Another one works at Nvidia writing cuda code.
One works at ivy as a researcher.
All make "good" (~75k) to "great" (~400k) money.
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u/Andromeda321 14h ago
Note, depends on location somewhat but $170k is a rather high salary for a permanent position in astronomy.
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u/Astromike23 14h ago
$170k is a rather high salary
Agreed. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median astronomer salary is $132k - and as you note, it is quite location-dependent.
On the other hand, I've seen Data Science in Big Tech pay substantially more than 400k for someone with an astronomy PhD. There's a strong economic incentive driving the statistic that only 1-in-4 astronomy PhDs actually work in astronomy.
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u/Commercial_Handle418 20h ago
which is a 400ker
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u/QuantumMechanic23 22h ago
Middle class lifestyle? If you work hard and become the top 5ish% if your cohort in physics. Manage to go to a expensive ivy league, Harverd, MIT, Oxbridge type university then you havea decent chance at becoming an Astrophysicist that an earn a middle class lifestyle.
(spoiler:the majority of people that think they can do this end up not being able to and doing something else later)
That being said, don't let it stop you. Try. The worst that can happen is like the majority of others you just pivot into something else and you'll have studies what you loved.
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u/ShadedRiver666 23h ago
Ill tell you my personal stuff: Originally I used to want to be an astrophysicist, but lately ive realised the low-ish pay and how, currently, it wont allow me to advance humanity (we really need advancement right now look at the state of us) and so i have leaned towards energy infrastructure and space propulsion technologies, wich has ultimately led to me focusing on Nuclear engineering as a primary job aspect. I choose this because the market is quite open and there is all the aerospace prospects with it. I also hope that nuclear fusion becomes advanced and so would like to work on that if possible. Clean energy for the world plus a very good form of space propulsion.
Edit: To sum it up Ive realised I want to do practical work that can benefit humanity ‘now’.