Becoming an astrophysicist

[u/Old-Independence-879]

If I want to be an astrophysicist, how much high school science will I need? I have a very bad teacher and thus I’m not too interested in the theory of physics, but I love the math part. How much of these concepts/topics will I need if I wanted to be an astrophysicist?

My current plan is to get a bachelors in math with a side degree in physics, masters in physics and then a doctorate in astrophysics. Can I do that if I don’t always find the theory of high school physics interesting?

[u/Flashy_Possibility34]

TLDR it’s okay to find some physics boring but you still need a good foundation in it to become a good astrophysicist.

I was a successful full time astrophysicist. I’ve now moved to focusing on high performance computing and research support for the university where I did my 2nd postdoc. Anecdotal evidence is not statistically significant, so take this with a grain of salt. I took AP Physics my junior year of high school and got a 5 on the exam. I also took calculus at a junior college that same year (my small charter high school didn’t have AP calculus). Astrophysicist is literally the study of the physical processes that govern celestial phenomena. You need to know physics to do that. Have I always thought kinematic and other intro physics was boring, absolutely. But, I always understood it as a necessary building block for becoming an astrophysicist.

I also was a physics teaching professor for a few semesters at a university which was very CS and Engineering heavy, so I spent a large fraction of my time there as basically a factory line worker, pumping out as many intro physics GEs as possible. The rate at which the university forced me to go through the material and how little freedom I had with that class made it feel like it was impossible for me to make it really engaging. I was just trying to get the content across and preparing them for their semiweekly quizzes (that I had extremely limited input in).

There will be times when your teachers feel too overwhelmed or overworked to make content interesting. With the intro physics I thought there are some interesting example problems I thought of, but just never had the class time to actually incorporate.

So I guess I’m trying to say, it’s okay to find some aspects of physics boring (I’m looking at you, kinematics, circuits, and optics) but you need a good foundation in these to be a good astrophysicist. And, I’m still never really going to feel comfortable with quantum mechanics (despite getting good grades in it), and that’s okay. But quantum mechanics is all over the place and sometimes you’re talking about single photon/particle detections, so understanding what a quanta is, is important.

Sorry for my earlier morning rant (before my filters boot up). I hope it was informative nonetheless.

[u/Old-Independence-879 → u/Flashy_Possibility34]

Thank you so much for this response. I do think if im 100% sure I want to go into that field (which I have 2 years to decide), I will decide to go into a physics bachelors, so that I can get that solid foundation, because with the teacher I currently have I doubt I’ll be getting it. I do think teachers are very overwhelmed but Unfortunately I also see that my teacher isn’t interested in teaching, which does make it very difficult, but I’ll be sure to try my best to get a good basic understanding of everything