OK so quite a few students from india have asked me how I ended up going from a bachelors in electrical engineering to an astrophysics phd and this thread is an abridged summary of my personal experiences, i hope this answers some of yalls questions!

Number one it's difficult but it can be done, don't believe everything you read on the internet. The first thing I did was google extensively and go on various physics forums, where many people told me I need to go back and get a bachelors in physics if i ever hope to make it.

I didn't have money for that kind of thing so I decided to try anyway. Another important thing is the system *is* very different, more flexible in the US from the things we're used to like the JEE exams etc. I had to take the GRE, physics GRE (though less common now) and TOEFL

All of these do have to be scheduled carefully, they're expensive, and you need things like a passport which I didn't have at the time. If you're a gender minority, please follow and contact @MENASAinSTEM for details about the application process!

Here I'll just list a few things I wish I'd known: you don't need to have a masters to apply for a physics phd in the US!!! This broke my brain a little as someone who was used to a very specific type of academic structure. You DO NOT need this degree, DO NOT spend money on it.

You want to start early bc you'll be applying one whole year advance, and accounting for the time it takes to get a handle on the process, scheduling various tests, figuring out which universities to apply to etc, you prolly want to start thinking about it in jan/feb of that year

You will need 3 letters of recommendation but depending on your uni you may have to guide the faculty on how to write them. DON'T assume that they know what to do! Send them some links on how to write a letter of rec for grad school. My professors desperately needed those

Don't pick universities based off of their ranking. You can check rankings to get started but you will want to go to the individual department websites, check requirements, check what kind of research is going on at that school and contact some of the professors. This can be very

difficult for students from our culture but I PROMISE IT'S OK TO EMAIL A PROFESSOR!!! It will help you figure out how good a fit this dept and their research really is and not waste your time. Finally, getting in is not the end, you'll have to go through the visa process and

even after you arrive, there are typically qualifying exams that you have to pass to continue to your phd. Take things at a pace you can handle, don't be pressured into taking more advanced courses just to "keep up" with your cohort. For me, this meant I had to do a lot of extra

upper-level physics classes during my first year to really arrive at a place where being in a grad level class was actually useful to me. One may see this as "losing" a year but I see it as gaining three, because I did not do a whole other undergrad degree ;)

Anyway you're going to be in a unique situation that most people from a traditional track won't understand. You will have to swallow your pride and ask for help often, but pls stay true to yourself and your instincts and don't take everyone's advice as Truth. You've got this!

adding @geodesicvoyager excellent advice https://twitter.com/geodesicvoyager/status/1312947637985910786?s=20