1: Introduction

Hi! I'm Shelby, a senior (Class of '14) in Adams House concentrating in Applied Math at Harvard. I'm from Long Island, NY, where we tend to have too much suburban light pollution to see many constellations, but I fondly remember my parents driving me to the beach in the wee-hours of the morning to see meteor showers.

Me with cake.

I spend most of my time at Harvard doing applied economic research and playing rugby:

Beat Yale. (We did.)

Although I've got a mathy background, it has been quite a few years since I last studied physics.

Why take Astro 16 in my very last semester? Rewind back to fifth grade, when I won what was the biggest lottery of my short life - a scholarship to U.S. Space Camp in AL, letting me spend a week pretending to be on the ISS running experiments and spending a sizeable gift-shop budget.

I'm not sure what a "space researcher" is either.

Yeah, that's me in the bottom left.

By the time I got to college, my interests had shifted to studying social policy and mathematical models, but it was still a shock to hear NASA's minimum height requirement for astronaut candidates is 5'2". Tragically close on that one. For me, this semester is a perfect chance to study astronomy.

My goals for the course:

1. Learn about astronomy using methods past a fifth-grade math and reading level.
2. Experience the unique way Astro 16 approaches teaching and learning science.
3. Foster my interest and appreciation, which that will hopefully last far beyond graduation.