Aspiring Astrophysicist

Regulus7
Wed, 30 Sep 2015 12:30:20 +0000

The prior post is spot on. If your interest is this specific, then you need to investigate what areas of research the various school Astro departments are doing. This can be easily done by visiting the college dept website. Next, investigate the facilities and look at recent bachelor thesis by the department majors. After you have done this, then plan to visit some of the schools because many have different settings and student bodies which you should consider.

Most of the older LACs have an observatory on campus, usually its close to or in the center of campus. Historically, the Astronomy department was the first or among the first science department at most schools in the 18th and early 19th century. This is a key differentiation with the larger research universities that operate large remote instruments usually in multi school affiliations. Consequently, scope time is heavily rationed and undergraduate use is non existent. The list of LACs given by a previous poster with good Astro departments is a good starting point. I have seen the facilities at Vassar, Wesleyan, Swarthmore, and Williams and they are all very good from an undergraduate perspective, in fact at each of these schools you would have hands on experience, workstudy and potential co-authorship opportunities. Good luck