Chelen Johnson
Sure, I wrote long papers for my masters', but those papers were to scholarship what engineering math is to actual mathematics - just get through it to do your job. Working with you in NITARP, I saw scholarship as a living community. [..] this experience encouraged me to write for the journal of my profession, but even moreso taught me to reach out to others[..]
This experience convinced me even further that I can push myself to learn even more each and every day. I started out feeling very overwhelmed and unprepared last year. I forced myself to work through my unease and wound up much more comfortable. I learned that astronomers are much more down-to-earth than I envisioned a lot of them to be and so many of them are very willing to go out of their way to explain things when we have questions.
One evening, while working on some homework, I had the realization that THIS WAS REAL. There is no right answer, in fact, no one knows the answer. I can't just go and ask someone the answer. It was like a light bulb went off and I experienced a feeling of excitement and also felt a little bit scared. I thought to myself -- Is this how astronomers feel about their work? It was a great feeling and exciting that I too am part of this now.
