Careers in Physics & Astronomy

Alyssa VanPelt-Cathcart, Staff Writer

The SUNY Oneonta Department of Physics and Astronomy hosts multiple events for their career series. Last Thursday, Feb. 27, was their second event for the semester featuring Dr. Michael Lee. 

Lee grew up in Oneonta and when he was in high school, Lee would frequently attend events and visit the Science Discovery Center on campus. After graduating from Oneonta, he attended college at Clarkson University and minored in Philosophy for his undergraduate degree. Lee also participated in a GE Aviation Co-op where he learned he didn’t enjoy that type of engineering. Lee then interned for NASA at their Langley Research Center where he realized the specific style of engineering he really enjoyed. After attending Duke for his graduate degree, Lee applied to Northwestern for his post-doctoral position. However, he ended up not going to Northwestern after being offered the chance to work for NASA at Langley. 

Through his academic journey, Lee shared a few important factors that can apply to any field of work. First, life is not linear. Lee didn’t know where he would be in the future, but he took chances that led him to his current career. In his second factor Lee explained, “pursue your interests, seek connection, and welcome opportunities.” If Lee hadn’t tried the GE Aviation Co-op, then he wouldn’t have uncovered his passions through his NASA internship. Lee’s third and final factor is, “malleable skills are critical.” To this he explained that it’s better to have more diversity in your skill set than “brittle skills.”

As a student, Lee spoke about the workload he’d received from his classes and how he divided his time during breaks to focus on enhancing his skills in reading and writing. Lee revealed there’s much more reading and writing involved in his career than many people would believe. Combining these his education with his skills helped him read, write, and analyze things thoroughly in his career. 

Lee gave suggestions of what worked for him during his undergraduate experiences and what didn’t work. He stated that connecting with faculty worked exceptionally well for him and it helped take the fear off of the coursework. Additionally, his professors would become a huge point of support for him. Lee spoke about not fearing failure and learning what you don’t like will make you develop those malleable, transferable skills. The biggest point made during his lecture was external motivation. Lee spoke about how external motivation doesn’t work when trying to achieve goals as it’s “too easy to lose.” He advises developing internal motivation such as passion about the field of work, the job prospects, the future pay, and anything else that is more concrete. 

A couple of more points Lee made towards the end can apply to every major. One, “don’t not try stuff because you haven’t learned that specific skill you think you need” and admit that you do not know something. Lee didn’t take classes that were tailored to his specific job in college, he had to learn more about his career through interests. A similar career event will be hosted by guest and alumni Daren Terpstra after break.