Transitioning from Electrical Engineering to Astronomy/Physics I have a Master's Degree in Electrical Engineering(Fresh Graduate with emphasis on Electronics/RF-Microwaves). I'm thinking Engineering is not for me and want to pursue Astronomy/Physics.


How hard is it to do so?
What ways I can transition?
How can I be sure that the fascination with the subject is a genuine interest?


Thank you
The gap from electrical engineering to astronomy or even physics is big for a PhD. The other way around it's easier as physicists anyway specialize after master in a distinct topic, while electrical engineering is already quite specialized. Astrophysics is a field of physics that needs a thorough background in most of the physical theories apart from condensed matter physics. You would have to catch up a quite huge background. Only option I see is to dive into a very specialized PhD topic like, e.g. pulsar radiation or solar physics and trying to do simulations/data analysis on such systems. Other topics will need a lot of self-teaching and I'm not sure, even if you would be willing to spend this time, if supervisors or professors would like to offer you this time with alternative candidates. And many physics students want to get tenure in astrophysics, the competition is much higher in this field than in big fields like condensed matter physics.

I would rather suggest to you to look into topics and fields of condensed matter physics like spintronics, quantum sensing, quantum computing. Electrical engineers sometimes will have here an advantage over candidate with a master in physics concerning a distinct topic/task like circuitry development for superconducting quantum computers or quantum sensors.