March 9th 2008

Here's some thoughts from a few weeks ago that I had saved to an e-mail draft instead of posting as a blog. lol.
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So... all day today, I've been putting in some hard thought to my future, and what I want to do. As I already know, I want to major in astrophysics, so I've been doing research on that and reading on it for a big chunk of the day. I have to say, I'm pretty freakin' intimidated by it, but, regardless, I still want to study it. Everything I've read so far keeps saying that there is a lot of math involved with this major, and so, that worries me. I don;t want to be one of those people who drop out of their majors because it's too hard or they don't understand. Because I know that the math will be difficult and challenging, I've been thinking a few things. One, I should go back and relearn ALL of my basic math skills, and work through them until I really understand, because not only will that help me with the remainder of high school, but later on with college and with life. The other thing I was thinking was about if [hopefully and mostly, yes] I major in this field, and if I have trouble with the math, I can always contact people I know who have experience with some of the stuff and whatnot. So far, I have thought of a few people; Shishir Kaka, Mike DiChiaro, Mrs. Bertram, and of course, Ronak, and also, Binal. Two of the five work for NASA, one is an excellent math teacher, one is taking a physics course, and the other, well, he is just damn smart and picks up anything in five seconds because he loves math. haha.

As I was reading various articles on astrophysics, I was reading the advice that current students of the major were giving. They said that one of the key things you needed to succeed in this major was a love of astronomy. You had to love and be able to just sit there looking at the sky for hours even if you didn't see anything. This, I have. I am fascinated by all of the theories that surround space, by the theories of dimensions, by stars, galaxies and black holes. I absolutely love looking at ANY picture of space, I love staring at the stars, I love wondering how it all started, what it is made of, where it came from. I do believe that this sole passion is enough to get me through the hard times, and because of that, I don't want to flake out. I don't want to run away in fear of things that seem intimidating, I want to follow through and work through it all.

Do you think I can do it?

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-V