What Does it Mean to be a Professional Astronomer? Interview with Graduate Student Kunal Mooley

Joanna and I had the pleasure of sitting down with a Caltech graduate student in the astronomy department this afternoon and discussing the life of a graduate student. We interviewed Kunal Mooley, who was happy to enlighten us about his personal experience as a grad student at Caltech.

What are the options after undergrad other than grad school? What made you decide to attend grad school instead of any of those other options?
The other options are to join industry, financial institutions, or to get a consulting job. The defense industry hires a lot of physics students, and some industries are even affiliated with universities. It's possible to get a degree by working for an industry and getting a scholarship to work toward an upper-level degree while working a typical job. The decision between going into industry and becoming a grad student is mostly driven by whether you prefer making money or exploring research that you find interesting. Also, if you want to be a professor, you need a PhD, so you need to take the grad student track.

How did you decide where to go for grad school?
I looked at the top 10 USA universities for physics. I majored in physics as an undergrad, but I was interested in astronomy since childhood and decided that's what I wanted to do. There's so much physics involved in astronomy that a university with a good physics program was very important. It's also important to look at how good the university is overall--too much specialization in a single field limits the collaboration with other fields, which is important for most recent research.

How did you decide in what part of astronomy to specialize, and when do you decide this?
You start thinking about what kind of research you might want to specialize in as a grad student. It's good to learn a variety of topics within astronomy so that you can better discover what it is that interests you, and also because too much specialization makes it difficult to think outside the box and can limit your competence in all fields. As you work on several projects, you realize what it is that interests you, and then you know how you might want to specialize. If you want to be a professor instead of a research scientist, you have to avoid specializing too much so that you can still teach others in more general fields.

What is the standard path that you follow after grad school?
You spend usually 6 years as a grad student, then 1-4 years as a postdoc, then you apply for a professorship or become a research scientist, oftentimes at the university where you completed your postdoctoral fellowship. A post-doc is the transition between being a student and being a professor. The difference between being a prof and a research scientist is that profs teach in addition to doing research, and are usually much more experienced and therefore often receive much better opportunities for research or other job positions than research scientists. In physics, it's not uncommon for grad students to go into industry after grad school, but this is less likely in astronomy because there's less need for astronomers in industry than physicists.  As a graduate student, your income comes from a scholarship for the first year or two until you get an adviser, then your income is entirely supported by your adviser.

What is your personal ultimate goal as an astronomer?
I like a lot of topics in astronomy, so I'm trying not to specialize too much . I really enjoy teaching, so my goal is to be a professor and do research in a variety of topics. In general, if a grad student discovers they don't like teaching, they work toward being a research scientist instead. Profs usually get better positions, so it's usually a better idea to try to be a prof than a research scientist.

How do you decide which prof you want to work under?
You want to search for professors with the same research interests as you. Also, since your work as a graduate student has a large impact on your scientific standing when applying for jobs as a professor or a research scientist, it's important to find an adviser who is well-known and reputable in their field. You have to be careful about who you originally start working for, because you can end up being biased toward your first research experience, and you want to make sure it's a good experience to begin with. In an environment like Caltech, the department is very small and located in a single place, so it's easy to get to know people and be able to ask around to find out which profs make good mentors. It's also really easy to introduce yourself to profs and get to know them so that you can work on multiple projects and keep from getting too specific in a single topic. At Caltech, you can take 1-2 years before choosing a mentor, but this varies by university. In general, there is time to get to know the department before you have to choose who to work for, and matching up your research interests to a professor's research interests is the easiest way to find a mentor. It's important to realize that your research under your mentor is very important, but it's not the only thing you should be restricted to.

How did your expectations of grad school match reality?
I didn't have many expectations of grad school other than the amount of freedom to pursue any research opportunities I found interesting. I also really looked forward to meeting new people who were eager to collaborate and help in various research topics. Caltech met these expectations, likely because it is such a small university and it's common for professors, grad students, and post-docs to have a helpful personality, which is very important.

How do you know if you want to do research or go into industry?
Before making the decision, make sure you know exactly what's involved in going from grad school to a professorship. There's a lot more freedom in research through a university than through an industry, and you're not forced to do something you many not enjoy as much when you're doing your own research. If you realize partway through grad school that research is not for you and you want to switch to industry, you need to make sure you've taken the appropriate classes to be competent in the field you're switching to. There's not the freedom in industry to learn as you go like there is in research, and working in a real job is much more pressing and restricting. When doing research, you can work with lots of different people who help you through topics you don't understand, and that doesn't happen as much in industry.

What are the best and worst parts of being a grad student?
I can't think of anything bad about it! The best part is the flexibility of work--you can work at your own pace with who you want, you're not pressured the same way you would be if you had a real job in industry. The flexible and helpful learning environment is necessary to be able to survive the pressures of working toward a career, and Caltech does a great job of providing such an environment. You also get to know a lot of interesting people and can work on whatever projects you want, so it's really easy to keep your knowledge broad across lots of topics. You also get lots of chances to hone your presenting and teaching skills and become a more well-rounded person, which you might not get in industry. In general, universities offer many more opportunities and a much more pleasant environment than getting a job in industry.

Do grad students usually take advantage of the opportunities presented by universities?
If they want to, they definitely do. It's not difficult to go out and find a research project you want to work on, or find a way to do any extracurricular activities. As long as a student is interested in something, they can find something interesting to do.

Kunal is a third-year grad student whose main interest is radio astronomy. He wants to become a professor, and he's very happy with Caltech's grad program.