What Should I Study if I Want to Work in Space?
The space industry is rapidly growing, with an almost overwhelming array of options to chose from.
At the SEDS Ascension conference today, a student question came up during a panel I was on: If you’re interested in a lot of different things when it comes to space, how do you pick what to focus on?
This is a great question, and one that would have helped me early in my university path in terms of selecting a major. Starting college, I knew I was obsessed with Mars, and so I went into astronomy because planets are in space. It wasn’t until the end of my junior year that I realized I should’ve majored in geology to study Mars. While I don’t regret the time I spent in astronomy—I still learned a lot of interesting and useful stuff—it would’ve definitely saved me some time and energy to have gone directly into geology!
Astronomy/astrophysics is a great option if you want to study things like planetary formation, exoplanets, stars and galaxies, black holes, and cosmology. Want to delve into the formation of the universe itself? Stay up all night doing observational astronomy at giant telescopes, sometimes in epic places like Hawaii or Chile? Calculate the orbits of asteroids zipping through the Solar System? This is the field for you.
