So, you probably already know that the astronaut candidate program is extremely competitive. Dreaming of becoming an astronaut is probably a little like dreaming of becoming an actress or a professional singer…it’s not that it’s not an achievable dream, it’s just that it’s highly unlikely. That doesn’t mean that you should head towards it - especially since being an astronaut requires the sort of education and experience that is likely to lead to other really interesting careers anyway.
The other thing is that the minimum requirements are exactly that - minimums. Given how competitive the astronaut candidate program is, most people have way, way over that.
NASA actually maintains [url=<a href=“http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/astrobio.html%5Dbiographies%5B/url”>http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/astrobio.html]biographies[/url] of their current astronauts on the website. I was curious so I clicked through them, and every single one of them has a bachelor’s degree in a STEM field. The vast majority are either in engineering or the physical sciences (physics, space science); a few are in chemistry; I think there were one or two in biology and one or two in math. They all also have at least a master’s, and many have a PhD. There are a few MDs in there too.
They all also have way more than 3 years of experience. I did a little math for the two most recent classes - the one that entered in 2009 and the one that entered in 2013. They had on average 12.9 and 10.4 years of experience on average…and high-level experience, doing research at government laboratories or serving as high-profile officers and pilots in the military. Between both classes there was one person who had less than 8 years of experience; she was a cancer biology PhD who had developed the first model of smallpox infection and spent her four years leading a team of 14 researchers as a PI at a a prominent national lab (which, let me tell you, is really really unusual for someone with so little experience. It’s a testament to how much of a superstar she is).
So by the minimum standard a BA in fashion merchandising and a PhD in astrophysics might be enough, but when it comes to being competitive for the program? Maybe not.