The difference between applied astrophysics and regular astrophysics escapes me but mainly I was surprised that there was non-NASA employment available for either variety. Bob relates that Villanova is the go to school for astrophysics undergrad. 'Nova has no grad program but purportedly staffs all the other schools' teaching staff for applied astrophysics. I don't doubt it but our conversation tailed off when I admitted that I switched from Electrical Engineering [*cough* to Computer Engineering because I didn't want to do Fourier transforms for a living. He replied that astrophysics is more about finding accurate sinusoidals for satellites. And then my eyes rolled back into my head. And then my teammate who is an auto mechanic chomped his ass at bowling. Such is life.