PEDAGOGICAL FOUNDATION. During the First academic year (three quarters) a graduate student in Ay is expected to take the seven Ay 121-127 courses in astronomy, as well as two or three of the four required electives outside of astronomy. The purpose of these courses in closely related fields is to give the student a sound pedagogical foundation in astronomy/astrophysics and appropriate background in physics. The typical schedule to finish all coursework during the First year is: Ay121, Ay122a, Ay123, (Ph136a or Ph236a) in the fall term; Ay124, Ay127, Ph136b, (Ay122b or another elective), in the winter; and Ay125, Ay126, and one or two electives such as Ph101, in the spring. Note that you should also sign up for Ay111, which is the introduction to research areas and opportunities. Theory students may be exempted from Ay 122, and they are expected to take at least six electives rather than only four. At some point you will need to fill out a Plan of Study within the REGIS system, to be approved by the Option Representative. Please do this by the middle or end of the First year, after you have given some consideration to your suite of electives. As a complement to the Ay 121-127 astrophysics core, we highly recommend for the physics requirement Ph 136 a,b (and c when offered), and Ph 101. We strongly suggest that two of your four electives should be chosen from among these 4 courses. In particular, we note that undergraduate education commonly does not cover either fluid dynamics or plasma physics at a sufficient level, and this is exactly what the Ph136 curriculum is designed to do. Also, everyone in astronomy should be able to do order-of-magnitude estimates of phenomena across enormous size scales, which is Ph101 in a nutshell. Below is a non-exclusive menu of course titles for your consideration. Please consult information from the registrar for the offerings in any given year. Note that for most of the courses with "ab" or "abc" listings, the terms may be taken independently (i.e. you can take "a" only, without "b" or "c", and you can usually take "b" without having taken "a". Do, however, talk to professors and other graduate students about the common wisdom on this for any particular course. Also note that any stated prerequisites are typically meant to apply to our undergraduates, so no need to worry about those if you see them. The *'d courses below are ones recommended by current/recent Ay students. And the **'d courses get more-than-average enthusiasm. ----------------------- All astronomers ought to be familiar with the following topics: ** Ph 101. Order-of-Magnitude Physics Ph 136 abc. Applications of Classical Physics (optics, hydrodynamics, plasma physics, basic GR) -- note that Ph136b is considered by students to be the most useful of the series Ph 236 abc. Relativity Ph 237. Gravitational Waves ACM 101 ab. Methods of Applied Mathematics. Ch 125/225 Quantum Chemistry (in lieu of Ph 103. Atomic and Molecular Spectroscopy which is no longer offered) Ch 126 Molecular Spectroscopy Ge/Ch 128. Cosmochemistry Theoretical astrophysicists may find the following useful: Ph 127 abc. Statistical Physics (thermodynamics/statistical mechanics, critical phenomena) - note that Ph136a covers what astrophysicists need to know in this area, whereas much of the material here is more relevant to condensed matter applications. Ph 129 bc. Mathematical Methods of Physics Ph 205. Relativistic Quantum Field Theory Ph 230. Elementary Particle Theory Ph 231. High Energy Physics. Ph 236 abc. Relativity Ph 237. Gravitational Waves APh 156 abc. Plasma Physics APh/Ph/Ae 116. Physics of Thermal and Mass Transport in Hydrodynamic Systems Ae/Ge/ME 160 ab. Continuum Mechanics of Fluids and Solids - note that some assumptions that apply in APh and ME do not necessarily apply in astrophysics, such as "incompressible fluid" and "non-magnetized" (!!), so Ph136bc is a better choice in this area. Computational modelers may want to investigate: ACM 104 Applied Linear Algebra ACM 106 ab. Introductory Methods of Computational Mathematics ACM 109 Mathematical Modelling ACM/CS 114 ab. Parallel Algorithms for Scientific Applications Ma 104 Introduction to Mathematical Chaos Ay 190. Computational Astrophysics. Data analysts may find useful: ACM/CS 112. Bayesian Statistics ACM/EE 116. Probability Modelling CMS/ACM/EE 117. Probability Theory and Stochastic Processes ACM 118. Stochastic Processes and Regression * CMS/CS/CNS/EE 155 and 156a. Machine Learning Data Mining ACM/CS/IDS 157. Statistical Inference ACM/CS/IDS 158 Fundamentals of Statistical Learning Ma 112 ab. Statistics Radio astronomers and other instrumentalists may find helpful: * EE 111. Signal-Processing Systems and Transforms EE 112. Introduction to Digital Signal Processing * Ph/EE 118 ab: Low-Noise Electronic Measurement EE 125. Digital Electronics and Design with FPGAs and VHDL EE/Ae 157 ACM/EE/IDS 170. Mathematics of Signal Processing APh/EE 130. Electromagnetic Theory. Exoplanet enthusiasts may find the following useful: Ge 131. Planetary Structure and Evolution Ge/Ay 132. Atomic and Molecular Processes in Astronomy and Planetary Sciences * Ge/Ay 133. Formation and Evolution of Planetary Systems Ge/Ay 137. Planetary Physics (orbital dynamics) Ge/ESE 139. Introduction to Atmospheric Radiation. Practical programming skills are offered through: (note that these courses do not satisfy your electives requirement) * CS 101 Special Topics in Computer Science (specifically Computational Imaging) CS 111 (see tracks for different programming languages) CS 121 on databases CS 138 or CS 178 on algorithms CS 179 on GPU programming MS 141 focussed on python and associated packages Ay/Ge 117 on bayesian analysis Ay 119 on astroinformatics ----------------------- In each of the astronomy subjects, which must be taken for grades, the student is expected to obtain a B or better grade. C or better is acceptable in the electives, and we require that no more than two of the electives be taken P/F, with the preference that zero are taken P/F. The lecturers of the astronomy courses, in the spirit of fulfilling your need for a sound pedagogical foundation, should design the grading scheme to test the knowledge acquired by the student. Many courses use oral mid-term exams and written, closed-book, final exams, in addition to weekly problem sets. Each lecturer should report not only the grade but also strengths and weaknesses of the student (based, for example, on the homeworks and in-class interactions) to the option representative. At the discretion of the Executive Officer (EO), students who have failed to meet the above grade minimums will be re-tested in specific courses during or in addition to the regular Qualifying Exam. RESEARCH. We expect all of our First year students to undertake significant research during the first 12 months at Caltech. The research program can be modest over the 9 academic months, but is expected to ramp us significantly by the 3-month Summer quarter. The student is free to choose the research advisor and the particular project. Research credits may be earned through Ay 142. Ay 143 is more appropriate if the student is only reading papers and attending group meetings, but not doing any actual development work. Students may conduct research related activities without signing up for either of Ay142/143. Fear not, many more than the minimum number of required units in these "research courses" will be accrued over the duration of the Ph.D. We have designed our program to cater to students entering graduate school with different levels of preparedness. Some students may wish to explore different alternatives for research during the first one to two years, while others may already have a clear idea of which area of research they wish to work in. The present system was set up to make it easy for you to choose the approach best suited to your needs. Should you be unsure of the area in which you would like to specialize, then you are encouraged to explore different possibilities during your first two years. The option holds the strong view that students should be involved deeply in research as soon as possible. After all, undertaking research is the prime goal of any graduate program. We do recognize that some students come from an undergraduate program with little or no astronomy background. The best plan for such students may often be to concentrate on the course work during their first three quarters. On the other hand, students with strong astronomy backgrounds are encouraged to undertake research as early as possible during the academic year. Some students arrive early, during the Summer quarter before the First year, to engage in research. We recognize this was not permitted during 2020. Regardless of entry point (summer before, during academic year, summer after), all First year students are expected to be engaged in serious research. In consultation with an advisor, the student is expected to carry out a small research project that will be presented as part of the Qualifying Exam. While not essential, we do recommend that the project be chosen so that the end result is a publishable paper. This outcome may take significant investment of time beyond the epoch of the Qualifying Exam. PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT. Preparation for independent research requires not only deep familiarity with a particular specialized field, but also a broad understanding of other areas of astronomy and their interconnections. To this end, we expect students to broaden their horizon by attending (at the very least) the weekly colloquim and participating in the Journal club (Ay141) and seminar courses (e.g. Ay 2xx series classes when offered). As part of general responsibility for your own graduate education, you should also engage in self study of review papers in various fields. The option representative is the default academic advisor of all First-year and Second-year students in Ay. During this time period students will also engage in research, so will have a research advisor. We encourage each student to identify - in addition to the above - another member of the faculty who can serve as a professional mentor. Students should report the mentor choice to the option representative towards the end of the First academic year when sufficient familiarity with the faculty has been made.