List of Resources for Students

Under construction! If you’ve found this page, it’s because you looked for it – not because it was ready to view.

One of the primary challenges in starting out in a field is to have a mental map of existing resources, understanding how to access different things and the origin of some references. This list is by no means comprehensive and is mostly intended to fill gaps in knowing where to find certain information.

Learning the Basics (in Class or Research)

• astroteaching.github.io – site I maintain with collected open source course materials
• Taotie – Song Huang’s site where he curates research resources
• Astronomy as a Field: A Guide for Aspiring Astrophysicistis

Presenting Research

• List of astronomy conferences maintained by the Canadian Astronomy Data Centre
• Astrotalks – David Hendriks’ list of astronomy talks, which may help as example presentations

Finding the Next Position

There are lots of different places to find job postings. Below are some of the most commonly used.

• AAS Job Register – almost all astro jobs will be posted on “the Job Register”
• Academic Jobs Online – some physics positions will only appear on AJO
• []

I’m not necessarily suggesting that it’s a healthy practice to compare profiles, but it can certainly be edifying! Rumor pages exist for other disciplines and people sometimes maintain informal rumor boards elsewhere, but these links go to the most frequently used astro sites:

• physicsgre.com – find the graduate admissions rumor mill under “Prospective Physics Graduate Student Topics”
• The Grad Cafe
• Rumor Mill – for postdoc/faculty/research scientist job news

Finding Papers and Data

• SciX – the successor to NASA/ADS which still indexes arXiv and journals but now for more disciplines
• INSPIRE – ADS, but for high energy physics, so sometimes better for complete for cosmology and astroparticle literature

Humor

Much of (astro)physics shares a common cultural lexicon, some of which comes from popular media and some of which comes from relatively niche webcomics. If you have not already, you will certainly encounter references to xkcd (so essential to science that it has it’s own matplotlib module) and you will likely also see – and possibly relate to – PhD Comics.

Research Funding/Opportunities

If you’re an undergraduate, be sure to keep an eye out for REUs (Research Experience for Undergraduates) and similar programs, which are usually advertised in the fall/winter. Prestigious summer research opportunities can translate not just to time to do focused work on a project, but also to key contacts as you apply for graduate positions and beyond.

• [NSF REUs]
• [DAAD Rise]
• [Dunlap SURP]
• [ESO]

If you’re a graduate student, apply early and often for fellowships to fund your own research! There are awards like the NSF GRFP that everyone will apply to on roughly the same timeline, but also look for opportunities through other organizations – many awards will be through philanthropic or education-focused groups, but some will also be from computing or quant finance firms that want to cultivate the next generation of talent. Look at the CVs of people to whom you look up in order to get a sense of the full breadth of possible awards.

• [NSF GRFP]

There are also numerous predoctoral programs that …

• CCA
• IPAC
• ESO