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the thing that they dislike most is the extreme pressure for jobs - there are many more grads and postdocs than there are permanent positions So its like every

by bh42222 15y ago

the thing that they dislike most is the extreme pressure for jobs - there are many more grads and postdocs than there are permanent positions So its like every other position in academia then? Also like most private sector jobs in a recession/depression. Really having more opening then applicants is a rarity. Engineers, doctors, some other high demand professions, are all a minority in terms of total labor force in the economy.

andrewcooke 15y ago
you can have many applicants per job even with full employment. my understanding is that astronomy is one of the more competitive areas within academia, but i don't have any figures.
- colkassad 15y ago
  Do you do any programming? I was curious what problems could be solved by someone who writes code and has a passion for astronomy. I used SDSS data and python to plot high redshift galaxies for a school project. I could clearly see the filaments that make up the large scale structure of the universe. It was a lot of fun and I would like to do similar stuff in the future as a hobby.
  - andrewcooke 15y ago
    sure. you'd be surprised how little maths/physics most software engineers know. so there are lots of jobs out there where knowing that gives you an edge. my first job after astronomy was working for a company that wrote software used in oil surveys. i worked on the mathematical model for a cable towed behind a boat. the maths was trivial, but only one other person in a company of 30ish could understand it (apparently). these days i work for a "geophysics consultancy" (a handful of guys who will write pretty much anything you want, usually related to seismic data processing - most fun recent project was using a GPU). but i've also worked on more "normal" software development projects (j2ee once, for example). to answer your question more directly - most observatories have software engineers on the staff.
- lutorm 15y ago
  There was a paper on arXiv a while ago that looked into this, and concluded that while there are enough postdocs to go around, only 25% of postdocs can count on a permanent position. And of course, as time goes on, the number of postdocs keep swelling as people pile up trying to get those jobs... I'm close to getting out, I've enjoyed my time doing astrophysics but it would probably have been a career-enhancing decision to have done so a while ago...
  - andrewcooke 15y ago
    good luck. if you're anything like me you might be pleasantly surprised at how much less competitive things are in the "real world". the flip side is that typically you do have less freedom.
    - lutorm 15y ago
      The sad fact about freedom: In the "real world", you don't have freedom. In academia, you do, but the pressure is such that you never use it...
mturmon 15y ago
The situation of astronomers is not comparable to "every other position in academia." Let's suppose that imbalance between "transitional" positions (grad students, postdocs, visiting researchers/lecturers) and "permanent" positions in Astronomy is the same as, say, Comparative Literature. The difference is that the astronomers can typically, with just a little deflection, use their quantitative skills to find a different permanent job at reasonable pay. But it's much harder for a comp lit person to do so. In other words, both astronomers and literature-lovers might have been deluded about job prospects. It's easier for the astronomers to recover, so their situation is not as dire.

by bh42222 15y ago

andrewcooke 15y ago

you can have many applicants per job even with full employment. my understanding is that astronomy is one of the more competitive areas within academia, but i don't have any figures.

colkassad 15y ago
Do you do any programming? I was curious what problems could be solved by someone who writes code and has a passion for astronomy. I used SDSS data and python to plot high redshift galaxies for a school project. I could clearly see the filaments that make up the large scale structure of the universe. It was a lot of fun and I would like to do similar stuff in the future as a hobby.
- andrewcooke 15y ago
  sure. you'd be surprised how little maths/physics most software engineers know. so there are lots of jobs out there where knowing that gives you an edge. my first job after astronomy was working for a company that wrote software used in oil surveys. i worked on the mathematical model for a cable towed behind a boat. the maths was trivial, but only one other person in a company of 30ish could understand it (apparently). these days i work for a "geophysics consultancy" (a handful of guys who will write pretty much anything you want, usually related to seismic data processing - most fun recent project was using a GPU). but i've also worked on more "normal" software development projects (j2ee once, for example). to answer your question more directly - most observatories have software engineers on the staff.
lutorm 15y ago
There was a paper on arXiv a while ago that looked into this, and concluded that while there are enough postdocs to go around, only 25% of postdocs can count on a permanent position. And of course, as time goes on, the number of postdocs keep swelling as people pile up trying to get those jobs... I'm close to getting out, I've enjoyed my time doing astrophysics but it would probably have been a career-enhancing decision to have done so a while ago...
- andrewcooke 15y ago
  good luck. if you're anything like me you might be pleasantly surprised at how much less competitive things are in the "real world". the flip side is that typically you do have less freedom.
  - lutorm 15y ago
    The sad fact about freedom: In the "real world", you don't have freedom. In academia, you do, but the pressure is such that you never use it...

mturmon 15y ago

The situation of astronomers is not comparable to "every other position in academia." Let's suppose that imbalance between "transitional" positions (grad students, postdocs, visiting researchers/lecturers) and "permanent" positions in Astronomy is the same as, say, Comparative Literature. The difference is that the astronomers can typically, with just a little deflection, use their quantitative skills to find a different permanent job at reasonable pay. But it's much harder for a comp lit person to do so. In other words, both astronomers and literature-lovers might have been deluded about job prospects. It's easier for the astronomers to recover, so their situation is not as dire.