Expert: Philip Stahl - 1/11/2008

Question
Dear Sir,
  I'm a student in India who has great interest for physics and im  good at math too...
  I really wish to do sum research on SUBJECTS like Astro Physics or allied subjects...
  Please tell me as to whether graduation in geography at the school level is required for joining Astro Physics courses offered at IISC,Bangalore,India.
    Please help me out in deciding my  course....
Thanking You
Vijaya Priya  

Answer
Hello,

I have no idea of what the astrophysics (or other) requirements are for Indian post-secondary schools or institutes. What I can tell you, is if they are in any way similar to U.S. colleges, universities, then a graduation specialty in geography will be next to useless.

What you need, really, is heavy concentration in math and physics.

To give an example, by comparison to Barbados - where I taught for over a decade - a student planning to do astrophysics at MIT would have taken:

4 years of physics (including calculus physics)

4 years of mathematics, including calculus

If you do not have comparable training, exposure then I would doubt that you will have much luck getting entrance into a degree program.

All that said, bear in mind one can still study astrophysics (or any science) on one's own.  There are many good books out there, and I'd suggest getting some basic (first level college) astronomy books and studying them before you do on to astrophysics.

An excellent and very approachable starter book is Michael Zeilik's: 'The Evolving Universe'.

I would see about getting it and doing some of the exercises before you think of going further.

Beyond Zeilik's fine book I would see about getting hold of the two-part more advanced astronomy texts: 'Astronomy- Principles and Practice, and Astronomy - Structure of the Universe' - by Roy and Clarke.

Bottom line here: No post-secondary school of which I am aware requires geography as a prerequisite to doing astrophysics.

In any case, from where you are located you are in a much better position than I am to find out about IISC requirements!