Quote:
Originally Posted by madbadgalaxyman
Worthwhile comments David, and, I am sure, applicable to astronomy and to other sciences.
In part, I hear you saying that "nobody is going to hand you a science career on a platter." (absolutely agree).
Also, I have collected considerable anecdotal evidence that what you say about geology careers also applies to astronomy careers; that astronomers have to hang out in a lot of strange and unusual and distant places in order to get a position.
To give three examples:
- many astronomers live in Chile because Chile gets a lot of guaranteed telescope time, and a lot of astronomers end up in Latin American countries for the same reason.
- The University of Cape Town, which had an excellent (but very small) astronomy department that mainly did optical astronomy, has all of a sudden acquired several mid and mid-to-late career radio astronomers from far flung countries. (no prizes for guessing why; it boils down to three letters.... S...K...A )
- Another recent example of astronomers moving to "unusual" locations is the recent exodus of astronomers to an Australian institution where there has obviously been enough money to fund a lot of new positions....I refer to the recent enormous growth of the Swinburne University astronomy department. [ Suddenly, a few 'top' astronomers have materialized there, plus a lot of postdocs and other footsoldiers of astronomy.]
cheers,
Robert
|
Not quite what I was saying. I'm just saying that the location of the institution for which you work may not have much (or any) bearing on where you do fieldwork. Similarly, working in Perth may not give you any greater access, or chance of access, to the SKA than working in Sydney or Melbourne. In the case of astronomy I understand that host
countries tend to have favourable amounts of telescope time, however I doubt host states will do better than anywhere else.