To Become a Good Astronomer

1. Work on scientific problems is driven by many things, but the most important is a passion for science.
2. Learn lots of physics. Always work on problems that are a bit harder than you think you can do. Also, hone your skills at mathematics, computing, and hardware.
3. Know yourself very well. For people who belong to groups which are routinely discriminated against, it’s very important when one encounters difficulties (and successes, too) to be able to do a reasonable job of disentangling one’s own distribution from those of others.
4. Behave decently, honestly, and with civility. You’ll encounter a lot of the opposite. Think very carefully about what you’re doing before you do it. (Some) aggressiveness and self-confidence are good things to have, and you should for instance not hesitate to insist that promises which have been made to you be kept. However, be careful not to let these qualities spill over into hostility and negative attitudes toward your colleagues.

A missing word in the second is statistics: hone your skills at math., stat., comp., and hardware. Perhaps, there is a version for a good statistician but I doubt that astronomy belongs to the list of skills.

Nonetheless, I think statisticians working with astronomers are assistants to post-mortem examiners. Most likely, statisticians nor astronomers cannot design experiments with unreachable objects. Astronomers are post-mortem examiners with telescopes and statisticians are assistants with charts which are by products from post-mortem examinations. These assistants may or may not be useful to astronomers.