Frequently Asked Questions
Graduate Application Questions
1. First things first: How to apply!
Check out this page on the official TAMU Physics and Astronomy website to see how to apply to the Astronomy PhD program. Please do not hesitate to reach out to the astronomy department for a fee exemption on your application at skessler@tamu.edu.
2. Do you require the GRE/PGRE?
Neither the General GRE nor the GRE subject test in Physics are required for Astronomy PhD applicants. Neither test score is considered when comparing applications.
3. Can my application fee be waived?
If the application fee presents a financial hardship, U.S. citizens or permanent residents are often eligible for a fee waiver as outlined under "Required Documents"
4. Will I be paid to be a graduate student?
Yes! Graduate students in good standing can expect to be paid for the duration of their studies. In general, the astronomy group does not admit more students than they can afford to support. This support includes full tuition and fee coverage each semester, a stipend ($2100/month, before taxes), and health insurance.
5. How are graduate students paid?
Most graduate students are employed as Teaching Assistants (TAs) for their first 2-3 years. Usually, graduate students are paid as Research Assistants (RAs) over the summer. Whether you get paid as an RA in the Spring/Fall semesters often depends on your advisor's funding situation and how many TA positions need to be filled vs how many TAs are available. If you are awarded a grant or fellowship, that may be your primary source of funding.
It's common for students interested in leaving academia after their MS or PhD to apply for paid internships outside Texas A&M, usually over the summer. Sometimes, students also apply for semester-long opportunities with other universities or research institutions.
The astronomy group regularly nominates incoming students for University fellowships, including the Graduate Diversity Excellence Fellowship. The astronomy group also encourages students to apply for fellowships outside Texas A&M. 2 current astronomy graduate students have won fellowships in the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program (NSF GRFP).
Important: As a first year graduate student, your first paycheck will not be deposited into your account until October 1st. After this, you will be paid monthly, including over winter and summer break. In the past, graduate students have also been paid $500 in August to attend a mandatory, week-long Physics and Astronomy orientation for new graduate students.
6. What was that about health insurance?
As a graduate student, you can choose to get health insurance through the university. If you are paid as an RA or as a TA, you will pay a premium for the graduate student health plan (students on fellowships do not pay this premium). In addition to your own coverage, you can add dependents onto your insurance (see instructions here). You can also opt-in to vision ($7.60/month), dental ($21.08/month), and life insurance, among other benefits (the cost of any additional benefits for which you opt-in will come out of your paycheck).
Life in Bryan/College Station
1. Housing? Housing!
The Mitchell Building for Fundamental Astronomy and Physics (where all of the astronomy faculty and grad students have offices) is at the very northern edge of campus (map). If you’re arriving in B/CS without a car, it’s a good idea to select an apartment in the Northgate area, which is just a ten minute walk from our building. The cheapest you can find for a one bedroom apartment is around $600/month. A handful of the astronomy graduate students have lived in The Northgate Lofts for $795/month as well, via BCS On-line Real Estate.
There are also a number of large scale apartment complexes just across the street from our building, such as Cherry Street Apartments and The Tradition, some of which include amenities such as a gym and pool. However, graduate students usually do not choose to live there, because they are predominantly occupied by undergraduates and are more expensive than the smaller apartments a few blocks north (~$1000/month dollars for one bedroom).
If you’re arriving to B/CS with a vehicle, quite a few of the graduate students live in apartments in the Wolf Pen Creek area. Typical rent costs around $800/month for a one bedroom ($900-$1000/month for two bedrooms). We also have a document with off campus housing recommendations for incomming graduate students.
2. Where do people usually go to do their grocery shopping?
For those close to campus without a car, the nearest store is a CVS across the street from the Mitchell building. You can purchase toiletries, snacks, medicine, frozen foods, etc. For fresh food, there is the Farm Patch Produce Market on College Avenue, which is just a 10 minute bike ride from Northgate. There are also two H-E-B grocery stores (one on Villa Maria Rd, another on Texas Ave) that are also a 10 minute bike ride away. You can also use public transportation (see "3. Is there public transportation in B/CS?" below)!
For those with a car, there are 5 H-E-Bs (all hail our grocer overlord), 3 Wal-Marts, 2 Targets, and 2 Krogers. To avoid larger undergraduate crowds, we suggest doing your grocery shopping on football gamedays during the game.
3. Can I get parking on or near campus?
If you live far from campus, parking on (or near) campus can be a hassle. The closest parking garage to the Mitchell Institute is the Northside Garage (right next to our building; see the map here). Most astronomy professors and several postdocs park in this garage, but few graduate students get permits for this garage. Parking permit prices (including prices for the last few years and expected prices for the next few years) are located here. Parking garage spots cost typically ~$500-$900/year.
Most graduate students park for free on the side of small streets in residential areas. The residential areas right next to campus typically restrict street parking, but if you are okay with walking ~0.5 miles to the office, you can typically find unrestricted street parking north of campus on Nagle Street or Foch Street.
Graduate students sometimes park in the uncovered parking lots 47, 50, or 51, (map) which are less expensive. As seen in the price list, uncovered lot permits cost ~$300-$600/year. Some graduate students instead park in the Northgate Parking Garage, which is about a 5-10 minute walk from our building. The Northgate Parking Garage is run by the city of College Station and typically costs about the same as the uncovered lots on campus.
4. Is there public transportation in B/CS?
There is a University-affiliated bus system that has routes running through College Station and Bryan. These buses are free to ride with TAMU IDs. Check out the routes here! You can click on any of the bus routes at that link to see their leaving/arrival times, and they tend to run on time. The buses also run through several of the main off-campus apartment areas (see "1. Housing? Housing!" above) and make stops near major shopping centers (e.g., Route 27 stops at the H-E-B at Texas Ave & Holleman).
The Brazos Transit District also has a public transportation service with buses that run through Bryan and College Station. The Brazos Transit District bus routes are shown on this map. These buses are also free to ride if you carry a TAMU ID.
6. How should I travel to/from Bryan/College Station?
College Station has a very small airport (map), Easterwood Airport (CLL). You can fly through this airport with layovers in Dallas (DFW). There is also a shuttle that runs between Houston (IAH) and College Station. Bryan/College Station is a ~2 hour drive from Austin, a ~3 hour drive from Dallas, and a ~1.5 hour drive from Houston. Finally, there is also a Greyhound bus station in Bryan.
Department Culture
1. Are there any departmental events/activities?
Yes! There are annual departmental picnics, which are typically held in a local park, and there is also a holiday banquet every year (except for years affected by the pandemic). These events are typicaly well-attended by graduate students, faculty, and staff.
The department puts on an annual Physics Festival every April, during which thousands of people from across the United States visit Texas A&M to see hundreds of physics, astronomy, and engineering demos. Astronomy graduate students are expected to help display demos each festival. Some graduate students get involved with demo construction, undergraduate mentoring, and more frequent outreach by joining the DEEP program (Discover, Explore, and Enjoy Physics and Engineering). The Physics Festival is livestreamed, rather than held in person, during the pandemic. Additionally, the Mitchell Institute occasionally hosts star parties that are open to the public, and astronomy graduate students often attend and help host these star parties.
The astronomy graduate students also organize the B/CS chapter of Astronomy on Tap, hosted at The Grand Stafford Theater. Events during the pandemic have been livestreamed over youtube, via our youtube channel. We have a Facebook, a Twitter, and an Instagram that you can follow for news on upcoming events. More details about Astronomy on Tap chapters around the world can be found here.
3. What are things that grad students here do daily/weekly/monthly together?
When working in the office, the graduate students often eat lunch together, and get coffee or go on walks to take breaks during the day. Every Friday, a large group of astronomers and physicists walk from the office building to a bar in Northgate around 5pm to hang out.
Bryan also has a music scene, especially for punk and metal, as displayed at the annual LoudFest, which several graduate students usually attend.
Program Structure/PhD Degree Requirements
1. What is the classwork structure like?
Note: you can check out the degree plan here!
All incoming graduate students (unless you're coming in with a Masters Degree) take 2 lecture-style classes per semester — in addition to one hour of journal club and a research credit hour — for the first two years of graduate school. While academic ideology varies depending on your advisor, the department as a whole places emphasis on doing research, including in the first two years while students are taking classes.
Journal club (we just call it "coffee") happens three times per week. The first and second year students, along with other graduate students, postdocs, and faculty members, take turns sharing papers. There's no schedule, but first and second year graduate students are expected to be prepared to present papers 10 times throughout the semester and to actually present at least 3 times. We use the website benty-fields to upvote papers and volunteer to present. We tend to cover 2-3 papers within the half hour time period. These presentations are meant to be low-pressure, and you can't "fail" as long as you meet the participation requirements.
The research credit that you must be enrolled for is typically 1-2 hours for your first 2 years, or however many hours you need to be enrolled for a total of 9 credit hours each semester. It is generally expected in your first two years to put approximately equal amounts of time towards research and classwork.
First and second year graduate students take 2 lecture-style classes each semester. The six core astronomy classes are as follows: Extragalactic Astronomy, Galactic Astronomy, Radiative Transfer, Stellar Astrophysics, Cosmology, and Astronomical Observing Techniques and Instrumentation. These classes are offered every other year. For example, for the academic year of Fall 2020 - Spring 2021, the first and second years took Stellar Astrophysics and Instrumentation in the fall, and Cosmology and Extragalactic Astronomy in the spring. Those four courses will be offered again Fall 2022 and Spring 2023. For Fall 2021, the first and second years will take Radiative Transfer and an elective course, and for Spring 2022 they will take Galactic Dynamics and another elective course.
For your elective coursework, you can either take two statistics courses or two physics courses. In general, it is good to take at least one statistics course if you have not been exposed to college-level, introductory statistics before.
NEW FOR FALL 2023: The new course ASTR 689: Special Topics: Methods of Astronomical Research will count for one of the two electives.
You can find all of the physics and astronomy graduate courses offered here.2. How much time do you spend weekly being a TA? Is it manageable along with classes and research?
Formally, 20 hours of work a week is expected. In practice, most astronomy TAs spend about 10 hours a week on their TA duties, which includes going over the materials before class/lab, attending lecture/lab, and grading.
Fun Things to Do in Bryan/College Station
1. There are fun things to do here?
- Bars: Graduate students often hang out at the end of the day on Fridays at a local bar within walking distance of our office building. Several grads also frequent other bars in downtown Bryan, as well as local breweries.
- Graduate community: The graduate students often get together in small-large groups to play tabletop games, watch movies, walk in local parks, etc. We also host several parties open to all astronomy graduate students throughout the year, including a welcome potluck for incoming first years, a Halloween party, a Super Bowl watch party, and a summer potluck.
- Ice skating: There is an ice skating rink in College Station, near the Wolf Pen Creek district.
- Movies: Movie tickets in BCS are very cheap. There is a Star Cinema Grill right next to campus, which serves food and drinks during the movie. There is also a Cinemark in College Station with reserved seating, where students enrolled at Texas A&M, including graduate students, can get movie tickets for <$5!
- Nearby attractions: Graduate students have frequently road-tripped to Austin and Houston. Houston sports tickets are often relatively cheap (e.g. Houston Dash in the National Women's Soccer League, Houston Dynamo in Major League Soccer, and Houston Astros in Major League Baseball).
- Plant care: Lots of graduate students have started taking care of plants — in addition to large stores such as Lowe's, the Farm Patch in Bryan carries a lot of plants, as well as fresh produce and local honey, jam, hot sauce, etc.
- Rec center: There is an on-campus rec center that includes a rock climbing wall, swimming pool, and various exercise classes.
- Sports (participating): Several graduate students participate in sports, whether locally or affiliated with the university. Some graduate students have played on local ultimate frisbee teams, while others have joined the university's cycling team and the polo team.
- Sports (spectating): Texas A&M is known for its athletics. In addition to the famed football team, Texas A&M also has Division 1 teams in baseball, men's and women's basketball, cross country, equestrian, men's and women's golf, soccer, softball, men's and women's swimming & diving, men's and women's tennis, track & field, and volleyball. Texas A&M also has a Division II hockey team, and is also known for its rugby and archery teams.