I would not be satisfied with myself if I did not seek out the human understanding of the universe. Somewhere along the challenge of trying to develop the statements of laws that govern our environment, we must break down at a fundamental level what is happening. Physics is that understanding process. Math then, is just an abbreviated language that conveys such understandings. I love that process, and I love having the ability to analyze a situation and parse it into its fundamentals. I have this mindset now, but when I was younger, I had no sense of what I really wanted to do with my life.
A pattern in my life that I’ve recognized before high school is that science classes have always been a positive experience for me. I tend to get so immersed in the content and excitedly talk about what I’ve learned with my family and friends and think about the applications of such topics to my environment. If you would’ve asked me what my favorite class was my senior year of high school, I would’ve told you that I couldn’t pick between my close reading literature class and physics. On par with my tendency to immerse myself in the content of the course, I started writing my own poetry and trying to come up with physics problems from superhero movies that I could solve with conservation laws of momentum and energy. I thoroughly enjoyed my physics class and its application to the real world was clear to me. I was the type of student that would get done with my homework last, not because I didn’t know how to arrive at a solution but because I spent my class time helping the students around me understand the questions first before looking at my worksheet. The running joke was that I became referred to as the unofficial physics class tutor by my teacher. My only regret was that I hadn’t taken physics sooner in high school. With this mindset, I arrived at Carthage College brewing a loose vision that I could turn my passion for physics into a career and continue my quest for gaining knowledge about the universe.
I value the notion of having a goal to work toward or skill to perfect. Having a resistance that you want to overcome and trying to push yourself is the healthiest way to live life mentally and physically. Besides my enjoyment of classes, I pushed myself physically on the volleyball court. I played 4 high school seasons and 4 club seasons over my 4 years in high school. The sport was extremely enjoyable to me, but so too was the comradery I’d build with each team I’d been a part of. Looking back now, it's not the games and tournaments we won or lost, but each of my teammates and my connection with them that stands out in my memories. As I wanted to continue the constant challenge to be better at volleyball, I had the goal of playing at the collegiate level at Carthage College and connected with the coach to pursue it.
As a student-athlete with a loose vision of my future, I would constantly assess myself asking what it is that I want to do for a living after college, and what skills I should develop to become marketable. This led me to finding the Carthage Space Science Research Program. During my first semester of college, I attended a Wisconsin space grant sponsored informational meeting session. At this meeting I met the research advisor, Dr. Kevin Crosby, and the upperclassmen that have participated in the space science research program, or also referred to as the members of the Carthage Microgravity Team. I learned about the projects that our team had just completed over their time as paid research assistants over the past summer, which projects were up and coming, as well as how much hands-on experience there was to gain through participating in such a program. At the time, I felt too overwhelmed to sign up and get involved with their projects, especially with the volleyball preseason taking up most of my free time. However, I kept in touch and ended up registering for a technical project management course with all of them. With Dr. Crosby as the professor of this course, I was able to create a relationship with him and the other research students and continue to learn about what kind of work goes into each space science research project.
Just about 2 weeks before the end of my first collegiate volleyball season and halfway through my second semester, the COVID-19 virus made its debut. Our successful volleyball season came to a halt, and all of my classes moved to online formatting. I was unsure of how this would impact the rest of my college experience, but at this point I had expressed my interest to Dr. Crosby about working with the microgravity team over the coming summer. I was overjoyed when he accepted me as a member of the research team and remember telling all of my family and friends about how excited I was. This excitement certainly mitigated some of the stress and fear that came with the lockdown era for me.
For my first summer as a member of the microgravity team, I was assigned to an existing project referred to as Magneto-active Slosh Control (MaSC) in my portfolio and had an upperclassmen partner, Cassandra Bossong, who helped me gather a deeper understanding of the MaSC project. This was my first research experience and I absolutely enjoyed being a part of something larger than myself and working on solving an open-ended problem by creating our own experiments, surveying other related studies, and collecting and analyzing our own data. That summer was also a time where I grew extremely close to the other students working on various projects and despite being on a volleyball team where I value the relationships I built with my teammates and coaches, I never quite felt like I belonged. For the first time in college, when working with the handful of students in the lab over the summer of 2020, I felt like I belonged. After this summer, I knew that I would not be able to dig into the projects as much as I wanted to if I continued playing volleyball. I made the decision to stop playing volleyball so that I could completely dedicate myself to working with the microgravity team which proved to be a rewarding experience. To my college volleyball coach, JW Kieckhefer, thank you for being a supportive and resourceful mentor.
As I reflect on my time working with the microgravity team, it was the summer where I first took on the responsibility of research, worked through challenges with guidance of my advisor, and made an impact on the legacy of the project that reassured me that reassured me I am doing what I want to do and am in the right place. Thanks to Dr. Crosby and the environment he built with the space science research program at Carthage, I was able to gain practical engineering experience, learn about such interesting and relevant research projects, and most importantly learn about myself and what I enjoy doing.
It wasn’t just my research experience that had such an impact on me. Each of my physics classes have developed me in so many ways that I hadn’t anticipated. As a freshman I was introduced to the Vpython coding environment and thought it was such a powerful tool, but I had internal doubts that I would never be good enough at computer science to build anything worthwhile. I have proven myself wrong, and it started with my mindset. After taking courses like Modern Physics, Experimental Physics, and Computational Physics, I’ve become proud of my ability to represent physical systems, determine their properties, predict their behavior, analyze and break apart data, and visualize the results. Thermodynamics and Electricity and Magnetism are courses that have made me feel empowered in my capability to tackle complex problems but have also humbled me knowing that there is so much more for me to learn. My electronics course solidified my sense of joy for applying physics principles to get a physical result such as building analog oscillators, amplifiers, filters to complete relevant tasks that help common technologies function properly. I learned how to use tools like oscilloscopes, voltage generators, and multimeters to observe aspects of circuits that I built or search for bugs in my circuits. Learning and applying these tools were a way for me to practice my ability to investigate a problem, and determine how to resolve it. All of the courses in my physics curriculum have left me with a feeling of empowerment and self-proficiency in terms of my ability to tackle tough situations where no solutions are obvious.
Another skill that I hadn’t anticipated practicing to such a high degree is technical writing. I am sincerely grateful to the professors of my physics courses for lots of reasons but especially for coaching me on my ability to convey complex ideas and information in a concise and understandable way. In Modern Physics and Thermodynamics especially, I’ve written papers on case studies and revolutionary experiments in ways that unfold the story as if the reader is discovering some aspect of physics for the first time themself (My papers on the photoelectric effect, Jupiter’s atmosphere composition, and Kirchhoff's circuit laws are attached in my skills inventory on the homepage of this website). Being able to convey information effectively is a skill that I value and will never stop employing or developing as I continue my journey.
I decided to become a formal student of physics because of my natural thirst for knowledge and sincere enjoyment in understanding how things operate. After having been a formal student of physics, I have gained much knowledge about how things operate but also the ability to apply such knowledge in a constructive way to answer questions of my own or arrive at solutions that imply the nature of our world and build a deeper insight. I am grateful for the abilities I’ve been equipped with through my hard work but am even more grateful for the connections I’ve made along the way. Besides the complexities woven into the nature of the universe, our lives are such a curious thing of their own. A takeaway from my college experience that carries the most weight is no matter what we do, at the end of the day, it’s the connections and exchanges that we share with each other that makes everything worthwhile.
A pattern in my life that I’ve recognized before high school is that science classes have always been a positive experience for me. I tend to get so immersed in the content and excitedly talk about what I’ve learned with my family and friends and think about the applications of such topics to my environment. If you would’ve asked me what my favorite class was my senior year of high school, I would’ve told you that I couldn’t pick between my close reading literature class and physics. On par with my tendency to immerse myself in the content of the course, I started writing my own poetry and trying to come up with physics problems from superhero movies that I could solve with conservation laws of momentum and energy. I thoroughly enjoyed my physics class and its application to the real world was clear to me. I was the type of student that would get done with my homework last, not because I didn’t know how to arrive at a solution but because I spent my class time helping the students around me understand the questions first before looking at my worksheet. The running joke was that I became referred to as the unofficial physics class tutor by my teacher. My only regret was that I hadn’t taken physics sooner in high school. With this mindset, I arrived at Carthage College brewing a loose vision that I could turn my passion for physics into a career and continue my quest for gaining knowledge about the universe.
I value the notion of having a goal to work toward or skill to perfect. Having a resistance that you want to overcome and trying to push yourself is the healthiest way to live life mentally and physically. Besides my enjoyment of classes, I pushed myself physically on the volleyball court. I played 4 high school seasons and 4 club seasons over my 4 years in high school. The sport was extremely enjoyable to me, but so too was the comradery I’d build with each team I’d been a part of. Looking back now, it's not the games and tournaments we won or lost, but each of my teammates and my connection with them that stands out in my memories. As I wanted to continue the constant challenge to be better at volleyball, I had the goal of playing at the collegiate level at Carthage College and connected with the coach to pursue it.
As a student-athlete with a loose vision of my future, I would constantly assess myself asking what it is that I want to do for a living after college, and what skills I should develop to become marketable. This led me to finding the Carthage Space Science Research Program. During my first semester of college, I attended a Wisconsin space grant sponsored informational meeting session. At this meeting I met the research advisor, Dr. Kevin Crosby, and the upperclassmen that have participated in the space science research program, or also referred to as the members of the Carthage Microgravity Team. I learned about the projects that our team had just completed over their time as paid research assistants over the past summer, which projects were up and coming, as well as how much hands-on experience there was to gain through participating in such a program. At the time, I felt too overwhelmed to sign up and get involved with their projects, especially with the volleyball preseason taking up most of my free time. However, I kept in touch and ended up registering for a technical project management course with all of them. With Dr. Crosby as the professor of this course, I was able to create a relationship with him and the other research students and continue to learn about what kind of work goes into each space science research project.
Just about 2 weeks before the end of my first collegiate volleyball season and halfway through my second semester, the COVID-19 virus made its debut. Our successful volleyball season came to a halt, and all of my classes moved to online formatting. I was unsure of how this would impact the rest of my college experience, but at this point I had expressed my interest to Dr. Crosby about working with the microgravity team over the coming summer. I was overjoyed when he accepted me as a member of the research team and remember telling all of my family and friends about how excited I was. This excitement certainly mitigated some of the stress and fear that came with the lockdown era for me.
For my first summer as a member of the microgravity team, I was assigned to an existing project referred to as Magneto-active Slosh Control (MaSC) in my portfolio and had an upperclassmen partner, Cassandra Bossong, who helped me gather a deeper understanding of the MaSC project. This was my first research experience and I absolutely enjoyed being a part of something larger than myself and working on solving an open-ended problem by creating our own experiments, surveying other related studies, and collecting and analyzing our own data. That summer was also a time where I grew extremely close to the other students working on various projects and despite being on a volleyball team where I value the relationships I built with my teammates and coaches, I never quite felt like I belonged. For the first time in college, when working with the handful of students in the lab over the summer of 2020, I felt like I belonged. After this summer, I knew that I would not be able to dig into the projects as much as I wanted to if I continued playing volleyball. I made the decision to stop playing volleyball so that I could completely dedicate myself to working with the microgravity team which proved to be a rewarding experience. To my college volleyball coach, JW Kieckhefer, thank you for being a supportive and resourceful mentor.
As I reflect on my time working with the microgravity team, it was the summer where I first took on the responsibility of research, worked through challenges with guidance of my advisor, and made an impact on the legacy of the project that reassured me that reassured me I am doing what I want to do and am in the right place. Thanks to Dr. Crosby and the environment he built with the space science research program at Carthage, I was able to gain practical engineering experience, learn about such interesting and relevant research projects, and most importantly learn about myself and what I enjoy doing.
It wasn’t just my research experience that had such an impact on me. Each of my physics classes have developed me in so many ways that I hadn’t anticipated. As a freshman I was introduced to the Vpython coding environment and thought it was such a powerful tool, but I had internal doubts that I would never be good enough at computer science to build anything worthwhile. I have proven myself wrong, and it started with my mindset. After taking courses like Modern Physics, Experimental Physics, and Computational Physics, I’ve become proud of my ability to represent physical systems, determine their properties, predict their behavior, analyze and break apart data, and visualize the results. Thermodynamics and Electricity and Magnetism are courses that have made me feel empowered in my capability to tackle complex problems but have also humbled me knowing that there is so much more for me to learn. My electronics course solidified my sense of joy for applying physics principles to get a physical result such as building analog oscillators, amplifiers, filters to complete relevant tasks that help common technologies function properly. I learned how to use tools like oscilloscopes, voltage generators, and multimeters to observe aspects of circuits that I built or search for bugs in my circuits. Learning and applying these tools were a way for me to practice my ability to investigate a problem, and determine how to resolve it. All of the courses in my physics curriculum have left me with a feeling of empowerment and self-proficiency in terms of my ability to tackle tough situations where no solutions are obvious.
Another skill that I hadn’t anticipated practicing to such a high degree is technical writing. I am sincerely grateful to the professors of my physics courses for lots of reasons but especially for coaching me on my ability to convey complex ideas and information in a concise and understandable way. In Modern Physics and Thermodynamics especially, I’ve written papers on case studies and revolutionary experiments in ways that unfold the story as if the reader is discovering some aspect of physics for the first time themself (My papers on the photoelectric effect, Jupiter’s atmosphere composition, and Kirchhoff's circuit laws are attached in my skills inventory on the homepage of this website). Being able to convey information effectively is a skill that I value and will never stop employing or developing as I continue my journey.
I decided to become a formal student of physics because of my natural thirst for knowledge and sincere enjoyment in understanding how things operate. After having been a formal student of physics, I have gained much knowledge about how things operate but also the ability to apply such knowledge in a constructive way to answer questions of my own or arrive at solutions that imply the nature of our world and build a deeper insight. I am grateful for the abilities I’ve been equipped with through my hard work but am even more grateful for the connections I’ve made along the way. Besides the complexities woven into the nature of the universe, our lives are such a curious thing of their own. A takeaway from my college experience that carries the most weight is no matter what we do, at the end of the day, it’s the connections and exchanges that we share with each other that makes everything worthwhile.