This is a really good website that lists the career paths, current jobs, and contact information of astronomers who have left academia. This is the place to start to give you ideas about potential opportunities: AAS Non-Academic Astronomer's Network.

Remember how you used to say, way back when you started grad school, “Well, if it doesn't work out, there are always loads of opportunities for science PhDs.” Now that you almost have a science PhD, do you have any good idea of what such opportunities might be? Most of us don't, because resources for alternative careers can be somewhat limited. Below are some ideas to get you started.

These jobs are the go-to for many PhDs. Consulting firms love our analytic skills and the fact that basic math doesn't scare us.

That being said, if you are set on joining a consulting firm, do your homework. Consulting interviews follow a different format than most other interviews, and include a “case study” portion. There are plenty of books available to prepare/practice for this. Knowing some business jargon will help a lot. The Career Center will conduct mock interviews with you, and they are familiar with this process (several people at the Career Center are former consultants!).

If you are considering consulting as a career path, be aware of the completely different lifestyle. Consultants work very long hours, do an extensive amount of traveling (being on the road for 4 nights/week is not uncommon), and must provide reasonable suggestions to the top executives of companies with imperfect data gathered on short timescales. The benefits, of course, are that projects are short-term (a nice sense of accomplishment), you are constantly interacting with executives of many companies (useful networking contacts for future employment), and you can cover a diverse set of industries.

Although some consultants become career employees, most consultants stay for only a few years before moving on to a different company (usually as a result of working with them!). This is normal, and expected, in this industry. So it's a good stepping stone to the business world.

Although not the best time join this industry, investors generally prize very highly people with physics backgrounds. Positions can include market analysts, fund managers, financial planners, and so on. You can specialize to some extent in specific industries or types of investments (for example, investments in high-tech firms, socially responsible investments, etc…).

Even if you think you are a highly inferior programmer than some of your fellow grads, you are still probably qualified to be a software engineer for one of the many internet firms in the area (and elsewhere). Again, these jobs are looking for our analytic and computer skills. Some local gems to investigate are Google and Facebook.

This is perhaps the most surprising of potential jobs. Aerospace engineering companies do love instrument builders, but they also love the rest of us too! The big companies that service the astronomy community are Lockheed Martin, Northrup Gruman, and Ball Aerospace. These companies build instruments and space observatories and need hardware engineers, software engineers, and people in management and sales who are knowledgeable and can interface easily with the astronomy community.

The way into science policy within the national government is via one of the 1-3 year fellowships offered. In the government, you can participate in the legislative branch (think working for Congress people or lobbying on the Hill) and the executive branch (think making policy at NASA and the NSF). Some fellowships of interest are:

• AAS John Bahcall Fellowship (legislative)
• AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellowship (legislative and executive)
• Presidential Management Fellowship (executive)
• APS Congressional Fellowship (legislative)
• AIP Science Fellowship Program (legislative and executive through State Department)

BADgrads alumni to contact for info are: Evan Levine.

Additionally, many universities have international and public policy departments, which may offer postdoctoral science-related foreign policy fellowships. Stanford has a few such programs, at their Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC).

There are also opportunities to get a taste of the policy world; these can be done during graduate school. They are:

• AAS Congressional Lobby (a few days in Washington helping the AAS)
• AAS Local Congressional Visits Day (talking to your local representative)
• Mirzayan Graduate Fellowship Program (12 weeks at the National Academies)

BADgrads alumni to contact for info are: Julia Kregenow.

Good science educators are always needed, at all levels of education. Among the non-traditional career paths you may want to consider are working in education in small liberal arts colleges, in smaller astronomy departments in non-top-tier state schools, and in community colleges.

There is also a department at the University of Arizona that studies Astronomy Education and which techniques are successful, if that's of particular interest to you.