Am I an Astronomer Yet?

Friday morning marked my first observing trip — my first time heading off to a dark-sky area, sitting in the control room of a telescope used by professional astronomers, and measuring the spectra of 40-odd galaxies. I’m an undergraduate at the University of Cape Town, and our astronomy programme has been significantly more observational than most other astrophysics programmes that I’ve come across.

Although I was working with three of my classmates, and my professor and her colleague were with us supervising and directing our observations, we controlled the telescope, filling the log and making judgements about spectra which popped up onto the computer screens. We’re doing our own data reduction and analysis, which will be checked and marked against our professor’s. Aside from the whole ~being published~ aspect of research, this is science.

The question of when to call myself an astronomer — or even just a scientist — has always been a difficult one. Do I have to wait until I have my Ph.D, or have I been a scientist since I first asked my mom why distant lights twinkle and “what’s electricity made of?”? There’s a lot of elitism that sometimes arises when people bring up this discussion. Who gets to call themselves a scientist? For the longest time, scientists have been represented by old, white men in lab coats -i.e. everything that I am not. While I’m sure most of us can agree that that image of a scientist needs to die — both in reality and representation — it’s tough to define a scientist. It’s not like other professions, like medical doctors, lawyers and chartered accountants, who have certifications to obtain before that title is conferred upon them. When — for so long — minorities and women have credit for their work withheld from them in science, and so many great scientists come from humble or self-educated backgrounds, having such a method of classifying scientists would be almost arbitrary and unfair.

So, I’d like to extend this question to anyone who calls themselves a scientist: when did you start calling yourself a scientist, and why? I’d really like to know your thoughts on this: am I an astronomer yet?