In countries where funding for academic disciplines is not as abundant as in the developed world, astronomy funding is often justified by arguing that it is an inspirational discipline attracting students to science, and that the skills acquired by astronomy graduates add value beyond the field of astronomy, beyond academia, and contribute to a country’s journey to a knowledge-based economy. This project proposes to use the help of a student/intern to investigate this assertion and generate a report of findings with recommendations to improve the employability of graduates. The student will interview employers in industry about their experience hiring science graduates, university lecturers about their programmes and astronomy graduates about their early career experiences. The student will also analyse job listing featuring skills that astronomy studies develop, in the context of other skills that those jobs require, to start developing a picture of employers’ expectations from people with such skills. This study will be specifically carried out in South Africa, where the value of astronomy as a discipline for the growth of the country is trusted, as shown by the national investment in the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) project, and where the MeerKAT telescope, its pathfinder, is now in operation and accessible to astronomy students through South Africa-led science projects.
