undergrad uni courses

[smenkhare]

Are there any undergrad astronomy courses available by external study? I've had a look but all I've been able to find are the masters and phd ones.

[mswhin63]

If you are looking at Open University you will need to do a Bachelor of Science Degree (http://www.open.edu.au/courses/science/rmit-university-bachelor-of-science-applied-sciences--rmi-sci-deg-2012). Specificity comes from attending a university.

From there you can do Postgrad courses although you need to confirm this. Most Uni's have good support to direct you.
In your case I looked at Job opportunities on the Open Uni website and that mentioned the best approach, but you may want to contact them to confirm.

I am studying Physics and Engineering but to get a specific outcome I can only go to a University (Curtin university). I have been lucky to be involved in the Student Army project for the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) working for the University and as a First Year that is difficult to attain that kind of internship.

[mswhin63]

having a longer look though you may need to contact OpenEdu for asistance

[Zhou]

Contact the helpful people at Open Universities www.open.edu.au (http://www.open.edu.au) (1300363652) they will be able to help you. Even though the Astronomy courses there are all post grad you may be able to enrol on one of the courses if you have done a previous undergraduate course (batchelor etc...) or have "extensive relevent experience."

[Poita]

Also, if you aren't after an actual qualification, but just want to learn, check out iTunes U, there is an amazing wealth of courses on there for free.
http://www.apple.com/education/itunes-u/

[Zhou]

Also MIT Open Course Ware has some units on astronomy/ astrophysics.

http://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm

[Aidan]

Swinburne uni has an online course.. It is tevhnically post grad. Swinburne astronomy online. This is offered through open uni however enrolment has closed for study period three. I would go direct with the uni.

I just enrolled looks like a good course.

[Aidan]

Last minute enrolments close today for open uni..

[madbadgalaxyman]

The basic intellectual prerequisites for studying and understanding astronomy at the first to third year university level, as an introduction to further study at the graduate level, are:

- a really sound grasp of year 12 physics and maths (not the "idiot" maths, but the upper-level mathematics as offered in your state.)

- some, but not all, of the physical/mathematical -type material in astronomy also requires at least a year of physics and maths at the university level before you can understand the physical/numerical/quantitative astronomy textbooks which are designed for people in the maths/physics/astrophysics stream.
(there are also textbooks oriented more for the "general" students, but these are not detailed enough to lead onwards towards higher-level work)

- a strong personal orientation towards numerical/algebraic/graphical material is essential, plus some calculus, plus (though less importantly) differential equations etc. If you are the sort of person who really understood functions and algebra and cartesian geometry at school, this is a good start. If you found physics at year 12 level to be fairly easy, this is also a good indicator of your ability to cope with the densely & intricately descriptive+numerical "technical-level" material that is found in serious astronomy textbooks. Don't forget logarithms and exponential functions; astronomy is full of them. Also, the simpler books emphasize the graphical display of numerical/algebraic relations; so the sort of person whose mind fogs up when confronted with a graph of an equation is not going to get very far.

- a lot of astronomy books at the lower to upper Undergraduate level already (unfortunately!) contain a lot of strange and unfamiliar symbols, acronyms, specialized jargon, and conventions, that are difficult to penetrate for the uninitiated. For this reason, reading a number of detailed introductory astronomy books which are designed to generate detailed understanding (as distinct from oversimplified and watered-down popularizations) is a good way to prepare the mind for understanding the detailed physical-level textbooks that really describe astronomical processes and objects in detail.

- advanced-level amateur astronomers may be already half-way (or even two-thirds of the way) there in their preparation for really serious study of astronomy, as they usually already have some idea about basic astronomical concepts such as extinction, magnitudes, filters and bandpasses, parsecs, light years, parallax, angular diameter, the structure and contents of galaxies, etc.

I have reviewed some 30 astronomy books that range in level from "lower undergraduate" to "beginning graduate", at amazon.com
(american amazon)(not UK amazon)(not canadian amazon)
These reviews can be found by searching for my amazon profile using Google:
Just do a google search on the following terms:
"R.A.Lang + profile + madbioman"
(at amazon.com, I am known as R.A.Lang and my Pen Name as a reviewer is "madbioman")

(I haven't reviewed a lot of the astrophysics textbooks yet, as I am ploughing through a few of them, and they are hard....even though I have a few university maths and physics units under my belt!!)

I hope that you are "up for a challenge", as a very large number of topics have to be understood in intricate detail, in order to acquire a really detailed and structured knowledge of the noble science of astronomy.
I am always amused when people tell me that they did not understand a well-written basic university-level textbook on astronomy.......they thought that somehow they would understand it all, magically, without a lot of sweat and toil on their part!!

[Zhou]

Exactly, there are some units in the Swinburne course that require a good knowledge of calculus (and its applications).

[mswhin63]

Thought I would give an update on this thread as it contains some information that has changed for me at least.

I am still studying at Curtin university although studying only engineering not Physics (mentioned above) the learning process was just too much for myself. I only have 8 units left to complete my degree although it has taken a lot longer due to taking 1 year off to clean up my health issues which I am happy to say as slowly sorting themselves out.

The most recent update is that I am working at CIRA (Curtin institute of Radio Astronomy) and the job although not entirely engineering is a satisfying one. Servicing all the MWA electronics currently workshop bound but only really started recently that position may change including spending some time at Murchison. I was up there in 2012 installing the 128 antenna.

So far servicing the Antenna, beamformers (white box that delay the signals for each antenna and add the signals for each array of 16) and receiver is the start but advancing onto many more electronics later mostly related to the receiver section.
Damn great job. People are really nice there and busy. I closed down my business about 6 months ago and never looked back. Was getting tired of all the red tape.

Hopefully I will get back into more home based astronomy in the near future but will be slightly delayed as I continue to work really hard.

Cheers All.

[Eratosthenes]

...what is "idiot" maths ???

[julianh72]

Coursera also gives you access to lots of undergraduate level courses from lots of institutions around the world - great for personal study, but won't necessarily gain you any credit towards a formal degree:
https://www.coursera.org/courses?languages=en&query=astronomy

EDIT: I just realised that this is a resurrected old thread from 2012 - nevertheless, Coursera is worth a look for anyone who is looking at doing some personal study in Astronomy-related fields.

(Or just about anything, really. I recently enrolled in an undergraduate course on "The Influence of The Beatles on Modern Music", but had to drop it after a month or so, due to changing work commitments. My teenage daughters took great delight in referring to me as a "Beatle-School Dropout" - fans of the musical "Grease" will understand the reference! :lol: )