One of the biggest misconceptions that I see from students early in their careers (and from the public at large) is that to make contributions to science you have to have a PhD. This cannot be more wrong. There are lots of contributions to astronomy (and science in general) that come from non-PhD scientists — and no, I’m not talking about grad students on their ways to PhDs.

Let me give you an example of what one can do without a doctorate. When I first graduated from the University of Florida with a B.S. in astronomy, I applied to every graduate program I could think of and hoped for the best. Now, I don’t want you, dear reader, to think me naïve after just saying that many young students have the aforementioned misconception about PhDs and science. In fact, to do what I truly want to do in life (teach professionally and conduct scientific research), a PhD is really a crucial stepping stone in my career.

However, the graduate programs I applied to all rejected me because, though the rest of my record was excellent, my standardized test scores weren’t the best. I was left in a predicament, because I had a bachelor’s degree in astronomy, and to my knowledge that didn’t bode well for job prospects. So, I looked into the matter, and found that there were in fact jobs I could apply for to keep me in astronomy while I improved my grad school applications (though the list of jobs available was rather short). So, I applied to everything I thought I had a reasonable chance at and waited.

The first job, observing for the University of Wyoming, fell through after a decent phone interview. I was the second choice from the list of applicants, which was heartening, but it still left me without a job. The second job I heard from asked me for another phone interview and then, a week later, invited me for an in person interview all the way in Baltimore, Maryland. This particular job was working on the famed Hubble Space Telescope at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), so I was rather keen to land that one (what I thought was the longest shot job I had applied for). There were two more applications I was waiting to hear about, but it would be some time before I heard anything if at all from these. The interview in Baltimore went well, and the woman from human resources gave me the run through of the benefits package and starting salary — a good sign! I went back to my mother’s house in Florida and waited the week or so before they said they would have a response. Finally, after waiting a few more days, I called one morning to find out that the human resources woman I had talked with had just gotten the word to offer me the job, and she was putting together all of the details of the offer to call me that afternoon. Huzzah! After being professional and listening to all of the fine print, I accepted the job and told her that I would be ready to start in two weeks (after a fairly large move for a person of 21 years to make alone). Incidentally, of the remaining two jobs I had applied for, I found out that one had been filled and it took five weeks to receive a rejection letter and the other never contacted me (I later came to find out from others who had applied that while the ad stated a minimum of a bachelor’s degree was required, the people in charge ignore anyone without a master’s…somewhat against the theme of this post, but there you have it).

Working at STScI was one of the best experiences of my career thus far. I’ve made many friends and learned about a multitude of technical skills that I wouldn’t have necessarily picked up if I had dived right into grad school. Do I think I would have done well if I had gone straight to the next level of education? Without a doubt. The experience would have certainly been different, though. I think that my time at STScI has made me a more unique young scientist than most of my contemporaries and I appreciate that experience. Besides, how many people can say that they worked for NASA on the repair of the Hubble Space Telescope? And how many did that before their 23rd birthday? Not many, I can tell you.

From my personal example, I hope you can come away feeling that you don’t have to have a PhD to contribute to science. Anyone can do it! In fact, without the dedicated work of non-PhD astronomers, we wouldn’t know as much as we do. Groups such as the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada and other local astronomy clubs work hard in the areas of observational techniques and instrumentation. Data analysts such as those at STScI (properly titled Research and Instrument Analysts, for the record), the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and Gemini Observatory provide dedicated and invaluable support to the astronomers who use their facilities. And everyday people who have any number of careers (teacher, fireman, banker, etc.) participate in online projects to mine the immense volumes of data that we have collected in just the past few decades (the Galaxy Zoo project, for example). There are the coders, the telescope technicians, the political lobbyists who fight for science funding, and even the janitors without whom our facilities would fall into disarray. Every one of these people is crucial to the advancement of astronomy and all other scientific fields. So, the question you should be asking isn’t can you contribute without a PhD, but how can you contribute.