Is astrophysics a meme degree?

Is physics really useful? As far as I know it's only useful if you're also doing a degree in an engineering field.

Majoring in physics or astrophysics is kind of dumb. If you want to go to grad school, you should (double) major in math. If you want to go into industry, you should major in engineering. It only makes sense in circumstances where your actual degree doesn't matter like high school teacher, code monkey, finance, etc.

user, it's mean to trick people into ruining their lives.

A physics undergrad proves you have the ability to learn and have a certain level of self discipline and motivation, because of the rigor in heavy math course its further ahead in that regard than nearly any other undergrad. I dont know why everyone on this board thinks that the vast majority of undergrads actually work in their field, its simply not the case.

b-but... I do want to work as a physicist

Lrn2meme fgt pls

>viable commercial purposes
This is not Veeky Forums, it's Veeky Forums. We're not supposed to have viable commercial purposes.

I'm at a Uni with a strong astrophysics department/group here in the UK. Astro is shit for jobs and future career. More than half of PhD students can't find a job/postdoc 1 year after graduating - and those who can, have a hard time after their second postdoc.

If you want to make it in astrophysics, you better be in the goddamn top 1% of your peers.

So don't do it if you're not fully passionate about it. There's other fields in physics with vastly better job perspectives that are at least as interesting (if not more) - i.e. anything in materials science, earth observation and geospatial data (!), medical physics.

Uhhhh,

People in this thread don't know what they're talking about.

astro.ucr.edu/astronomy-and-astrophysics-listed-as-one-of-the-majors-with-lowest-unemployment-rates/

I went to a shitty state school and got a physics degree with a concentration in Astronomy. Places like google and amazon eat that shit up since these days astro requires so much data analysis and computer programming in general.

Rather go for a more engineering / mission oriented route on your degree? That's fine, Lockheed and Boeing and tons of other would love to hire you.

Rather go for more hardcore theory? You can always deal weed to your friends and make mad cash while in school, and make connections that'll get you into grad school and beyond set for lyfe.

Planetary Science especially is a high octane meme degree, if you can find it.

then you're fucked

>p.s. if you really believe that then you haven't thought that hard about how they actually spend their time

Like no way dude.

I have basically the best life ever atm.

~40% of my time is spent teaching, fun as shit and best part of the job
~40% of my time is spent writing or reviewing grant or observation proposals, peer reviewing other research, or networking with other scientists, not so bad really, and interesting to see what other cool science people are up to and be a part of the process
~20% of my time spent on actual research

Plus I get to travel to conferences (fully funded) and see some of the coolest places and people in the world.

10/10 astrophysicist best job

Yeah, ok I also work like 60-70 hrs/week but I love it so it's fine.

Also, my advisor's cat is currently being adorable and sleeping on my belly and forcing me to take a break, which is Dec a perk. Major submission to furry overlords fetish. Hope I do find aliens. I want them to rape me so bad.

Some people say you need to be crazy, nuts, or on some crazy ass drugs to make it in astronomy. I mean, it certainly helps and makes the ride a lot more fun. Highly recommended you take the plunge if you think you're up to it.

This is about majors, i.e. undergrads. Not much of a difference between any 'real' physics degree and one with a specialisation in astro - at least in the UK and US. In most of EU, the general physics degree is worth more obviously.

Just don't do a fucking PhD in astro.

Gen Phys is better if you want to go into engineering or materials when you get out.

Astro is better if you want to go into software engineering or be a big data shill

YO OP

Fuck commercial applications.

Do what you think this world needs. Not what some capitalist pig tells you it needs.

Astronomy is a beautiful way to touch minds and explore the cosmos.

Major piece of advice if you go this route: listen and read more than you speak or do.

Read through every chapter of every book for every class, and work through the example problems. Don't just try to figure it out on the homework. Try to find the mistakes in the book (there are always plenty).

Get your ass on the arxiv as soon as you're into the upper level courses. Pick one paper per week and read through it. It will be a slog at first, and you may need to skim and only get bits and pieces of a paper for the first year or so, but this is how scientists communicate and if you can master this you will be ahead of 90% of anyone else you get into grad school with. A scientist is useless if he isn't familiar with the rest of the current literature. Also, reading papers will help you figure out which field to go into.

^ This guy's balance is about right. Twice as much time watching what other people are doing as pushing forward yourself.

Explore the cosmos.

Astrophysics education ----> one hell of a data scientist ----> get hired by Google and make bank right out of PhD

theoretical research
/thread

Don't even need to go all the way to PhD, they'll hire you with a bachhy

C-commercial applications are useless! You're all cucks!
*flips another burger for the 70th hour this week since he got lid off after publishing one paper*

Meanwhile the chad Veeky Forums funds entire organizations and contributes more to the astronomical field more than any one astronomer ever could

You people are fucking lying to yourselves about "muh purity"
It's fine tho, someone's gotta be lower on the ladder

I dare you to find a single chad Veeky Forums that's ever contributed squat to astronomy except by accident.

Bell Labs finding the CMB was an accident.
Elon Musk doesn't play nicely with astronomers, he's only interested in having humans living on Mars. Butts heads with the research community a lot.

Some desire to improve humanity, some desire to improve themselves and hang like a chad out of the big picture.

What about materials physics?

Elon Musk
He's a meme but the point is if you reeeeaaaaally gave a shit about your field you'd acquire wealth and power to change the course of the current state of research rather than performing measly contributions while being underpaid and powerless. You may be comfortable in your autism-riddled "ivory tower" and justify your meekness as some whack ass form of self-righteous illusory superiority, but the guy who owns the ivory tower and the land it's built has far more of a say in it than the cuck ass tenet that's renting it

I won't deny that we are slaves to the funding and university system. I am right now, and plan to be until I finish my phd.

There is, however, a growing community of more independent DIY astronomers that work from home and apply directly to govt funding. University doesn't strip 50-70% off the top so they don't have to ask the govt for as much and it's easier to be funded.

They, of course, are still relying on the govt and rich people who give grants to approve their research rather than studying whatever they please.

It's a step in the right direction, but without UBI or other socialism I don't see how it can be tenable for people to truly be free to work hard and explore their passions.

Elon Musk hasn't done shit for astronomy except act as PR. He does space exploration shit. Pure engineering, no science.

Way out of balance on doing vs thinking, which IMO will be the downfall of any colony he starts.

One more thing, I almost certainly have more money than you. I loaned my parents 14k when I was in undergrad so they didn't lose their house. I own a house and am a landlord making rent off of that.

Astronomy is a passion, not a job. Don't give in to the idea that competition determines your value in the world. Go out and do what you think will make the world a better place. Sometimes that involves accruing power, but never accrue power for power's sake.

Astronomy, /x/, weed, and my connection to the planet earth keep me grounded and aware of who I am in this reality so I don't spiral into the greed of Chads.

Find something within yourself, and realize the system that is greater than yourself.

>Someone solves FTL
>Astrophysics becomes relevant overnight
>Exobiology more so

>someone solves FTL

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
this is something i wanna bet my career on!!

>pure engineering, no science
dude lmao engineering is literally the application of science fuck off
the only thing I can think of as "pure engineering" is shit like data compression which is basically just applied math anyway

also quit fixating on one example autist I even stated the example was a meme; take the actual argument at face value rather than nitpick a damn "off-the-top-of-my-head"
exactly, this is a good thing and I encourage the proliferation of basic research no matter how esoteric, however, I believe people who partake in basic research STRICTLY for the fact that it lacks application like its some kind of merit to be useless are delusional retards
even those independent astronomers need some sort of reason to conduct their research to receive funding
if you want to do something that is absolutely inapplicable then you can make more of an impact in such a field by acquiring wealth, starting a business, and hiring 100 scientists to do esoteric research, rather than being a lone researcher being told what to do by your financiers

you're better off getting into aeronautical engineering + physics.

I want to laugh at your pretentiousness, but some of your post is insightful.

DON'T MAJOR IN ASTROPHYSICS
it's a watered down version of physics so that girls can pass lower level stuff at the upper level. you've been warned.

It's not really interesting either...

no definitely not. you learn a fuck ton more math than most of the non-math fags here know.

>it's a watered down version of physics

Totes depends on the school. UCF, astro is a much harder program than the other physics tracks.

I'm in applied math and I have opportunities with a statistical cosmology lab (95% machine learning and signal processing from what I've gathered). I don't care much for physics in themselves, I just like trying different application fields. Are the transferable skills good enough or am I meme-ing myself if I don't work in an area with reusable domain specific knowledge ?

Could be one of two things.

1) Observational Astronomers looking for a statistician:

Too many astronomers don't have a very solid underpinning of statistics. We tend to lean on the few real statisticians that wander into the field. You'll have a pretty secure job there if you act as a statistical advisor for a couple of groups, branching out from the first. Coming and going between them and providing advice when they ask you how they might construct reasonable error bars for their particular analysis of the crustal deformations on Venus. We have a guy that does that at both my current and former universities. The stats man who ends up as third or fourth author on a shit ton of papers is a pretty common meme, especially at schools that specialize in planetary science and work on missions.

2) Theoretical Astronomers looking for a statistician:

This is a group of actual statisticians who got into cosmology specifically to tackle tough statistical problems within the physics. You will need to learn a lot of physics to do this job. My office mate works in a group that does hardcore stats work for pulsar timing surveys, trying to use them as a gravitational wave telescope (like LIGO, but huge). Some skills will be transferable, but you will also need to learn a lot of physics.

Like, trying to find the signal of graviational waves buried in the noise of pulse arrival timing, shape, and strength.

Thanks user ! It seems to be more of the later from what I gathered (sparse blind source separation, deep learning, weak lensing...) They have a few scientists working on Euclid.

This. I went through a phase in high school where I wanted to be a physicist, but I started to become a bit more lucid on how I stacked up against my peers ( I went to a pretty competitive high school). It was around that point I got more into geoscience.

does he play ping pong? I've heard all the ppta lads are keen ping pongers

>solves FTL
but really, you aren't wrong