21 credits and another semester later
another half year already?? holy hell. that was fast. every semester is, i suppose
this semester was unlike any other. i learned a lot, i loved a lot, and i suffered a lot. when i spent the summer agonizing over switching majors (more on that later), i realized that i was going to have to take 21 credit hours this semester to earn the new major. my friends all told me that it would be the dumbest decision ever and that i’d hate myself big time. to be honest, it wasn’t all that bad, and although i usually never doubt my abilities, i am a little impressed with myself for surviving, while maintaining a decent gpa.
astronomical bounds
if the name of this blog didn’t make it obvious, i spend a lot of my time thinking about astronomy, physics, and the cosmos. growing up, i actually had a pretty big case of astrophobia - the sense of scale of the universe was something that was quite harrowing, and oftentimes left me feeling as if my existence wasn’t all that significant. aside from the occasional vsauce or kurzgesagt video (which would usually trigger an existential crisis), i never really gave any thought to outer space, its constituent body, and the greater universe.
astrophobe to astrophile
if you’re reading this, you’ve probably been redirected from my other blog post. here’s what i led in with, for context:
growing up, i actually had a pretty big case of astrophobia - the sense of scale of the universe was something that was quite harrowing, and oftentimes left me feeling as if my existence wasn’t all that significant. aside from the occasional vsauce or kurzgesagt video (which would usually trigger an existential crisis), i never really gave any thought to outer space, its constituent body, and the greater universe.
it wasn’t until the second semester of my second year at college when that changed. during course enrollment, i realized that i was going to have a gap in my schedule because the electives for computer science (my first major) always filled up with fourth years, and i had yet to complete the weedout class for economics (my second major) before taking any electives. while i was sitting at the kitchen counter stressing out about potentially not having enough classes to be considered a full-time student, my roommate ethan came into the apartment and i asked him what classes he was taking. he listed off a bunch of systems engineering courses that i wasn’t going to be able to take with him, and then he said “intro to stars, galaxies, and the universe”, encouraging me to take it with him. up until that point i completely forgot uva even offered astronomy courses. i was sort of intrigued, and i was more receptive to the idea when i learned my roommate was taking it. one of my friends who i had a crush on was also actively taking the course, which did influence me a little bit.
so, when the semester rolled by, i walked into clark 107 with my roommate. the section was taught by professor matt pryal, someone who at the moment i didn’t realize would become so important in my life. over the course of the semester, we learned about stellar evolution, orbital mechanics, spectroscopy, galaxy formation, and even dabbled in cosmology. at first, a lot of these topics still troubled me. if the earth is size of a penny, the sun is still miles away?? it still felt overwhelming to me. if you took a picture of the galaxy when you’re born and when you die, the two pictures will look the exact same. when i looked up at the sky, i saw the stars and felt as if god had imprisoned us on a random rock in the middle of space, with no hope of exploring the universe we were forced to live in. in the middle of the semester, i emailed professor pryal about these concerns, and his response was a much-needed perspective shift for me:
[…] compared to all the stars, galaxies, planets, and other collections of ‘star stuff’ throughout the Universe we as humans are the lucky ones. Stars/galaxies/etc. may be able to exist for billions of years, but they certainly will never be able to ‘experience’ the Universe the way we do. They don’t get the luxury of enjoying the beauty of themselves for even a microsecond. Compared to that, the fact that we get ~80 years to do that is unimaginably lucky to me. Consider all the various combinations of atoms/molecules/elementary particles out there. The majority of matter in the Universe cannot ask questions. Cannot feel love. Cannot feel despair. Or dread. Or hope. And yet, the collection of atoms that make up us can.
While the Milky Way may appear the same on the day of your birth just as on the day of your death, the difference is that your understanding of the Universe and your place in it has not remained the same. You somehow, unimaginably, had the luxury of being an intimate member of the Universe trying to figure itself out in a way that almost nothing else in the Universe can. I think it’s the wrong perspective to think of God putting us here without the ability to explore the Cosmos when in fact, we’re effectively the only part of the Cosmos that can ever hope to explore it. And we’re able to do that by enjoying the beautiful snapshots of it as light travels literally to us without us having to go see it. I also believe that if that journey lasted for billion of years (or infinitely long) it would probably feel less impactful for our lives anyway.
My ultimate takeaway to pull me out of the same existential dread that you may feel is to consider just how lucky we are to, for even a brief moment of time, have the ability to be curious, to ask questions, and to feel the emotions we do. This is what makes us, as humans, unique in this Universe and this is what makes exploring it and thinking about it worthwhile. We’ve won the cosmological lottery and I can’t wait to spend every second I can taking advantage of that opportunity to keep exploring.
i still go back to read that email exchange when i’m feeling down.
i’d never thought of the universe like that. indeed, professor pryal was right - i might not stand any chance if i tried to scoop up a spoonful of a neutron star, but a neutron star has zero hope of even understanding the physics that explain its existence. it might be easy to think of ourselves as lonely intelligent apes in a cold, seemingly infinite universe, but we can also view it as a blessing - we’re in a unique position where we can take the universe to be a puzzle, which we can slowly but surely understand.
after midterms, i began to see the class differently. maybe it was the wonder that professor pryal had when talking about astronomy, or maybe its was the one morning he mentioned he played stardew valley, but i started to love astr 1220. so much so that i decided to take astr 1210 with professor pryal the next semester, and also declare my minor in astronomy.
###
i thought that i was satisfied with just a minor in astronomy. i told myself that if i’d majored in it, i would get sick of all the physics, not to mention i’d have to write a senior thesis.
over the course of my third year at uva, i took astronomy courses with other professors to satisfy my elective requirements. in the spring of 2023, i took a course called astr 3450: mission to mars with professor ed murphy. on the last day of class, professor murphy ended with the question: where are the astronauts being trained to go to mars? students responded with a lot of plausible answers, such as new mexico due to its dry climate, norway due to its cold climate, and many in-between answers. professor murphy said that all of those answers were wrong: the astronauts who were going to the moon are training right now at the university of virginia. trying not to tear up, he told us that a mission to mars is so far away in the future, that the first people who would be in the right age range to become astronauts when the technology was ready are our age. it was the most inspiring speech i had ever heard, and it was also the first time i had seen a professor get emotional in class. i think that afternoon was when i got the idea of changing my second major from economics to astronomy.
academic superposition
when i realized that i might be a lot more passionate about astronomy, i did some real research on the major requirements. i quickly realized that i almost fulfilled the major requirements. all i had to do was take the observational astronomy class and i’d only be sort by the senior thesis, and i’d have an “unofficial third major” in astronomy. i even started telling people that. but over the summer, i realized that not only did i really want my transcript to say that i truly majored in astronomy, i also realized that i was not excited at all to take more classes in economics anymore. even though economics is something that i also find interesting, i just felt like i’d be sacrificing my precious time as an undergrad not studying what i loved. when i was in an advising meeting with professor mark sherriff of the computer science department, i asked him if i should take more electives that would be useful, or if i should take astronomy classes because i liked them, and he said something similar: you’re only a uva student once, so take the courses that you want.
in the second to last week of my internship, three weeks to the start of the fall semester of 2023, i made frantic emails to the uva astronomy department. after a couple days, i recieved an email from professor steve majewski, who happily got on zoom with me to discuss my options. i realized that i was a lot more receptive to going to graduate school for astronomy than computer science, and professor majewski told me that i’d need to get involved in undergraduate astronomy research. he told me that astrophysics as a field is something you do because you love it, and i wouldn’t be making the fat 120K salary that i was promised by my company for returning. finishing a new major in one year wasn’t going to be easy, and the path to grad school wasn’t going to be sunshine and rainbows, and the professor wanted me to be fully aware of that reality. still, it felt like a switch went off in my head. i was ready to take on that challenge, and i signed my forms to switch majors. i started cold emailing every professor in the department in hopes that someone would let me do research for them, only two weeks before the semester.
new kid on the block
i ended up committing to do computational work for professor jonathan tan. on the first day of the semester, i got up early and walked into the astronomy department for the first time to attend a research meeting. afterwards, i went to my first course of the day, introduction of cosmology, taught by professor mark whittle, yet another faculty member whose massive influence on my life as a student i was not aware of. out of all astronomy, cosmology was what i was most interested in, and over the semester, professor whittle proved to be an eye-opener in how i understand the universe.
on wednesday, i went to my other favorite course of the semester: intro to astrophysics part 1, taught by professor mike skrutskie. i was honestly afraid of this class because i wasn’t the strongest in physics while i was knocking my engineering requirements out of the way. on the first day, the professor worked through a problem involving orbits and did the unimaginable act of canceling out pi and 4 because they were “basically the same number”. as a computer science major, this was the craziest thing to me, but i soon realized that in the field of astrophysics, where numbers weren’t always precise, that we could get away with only being concerned with orders of magnitude.
the next day, i found the mailing list and group chat for the astronomy club. even though there were a few hundred people in the group chat, it was clear that it was mainly used by astronomy majors. for some reason, i was expecting to be treated as an outcast because i was a fourth year who just joined and didn’t really know anything about physics. unsurprisingly, people aren’t mean and i was able to feel right at home over the following weeks as i got to know everyone.
on friday, the astronomy department hosted a beginning of semester party at the observatory at the top of the hill named… observatory hill. it was almost astounding that an entire department of professors, grad students, and undergrads could fit in one observatory. i found something endearing about how this community of astronomers would spend their free time together like this just to be festive. it’s not something i could imagine professors in computer science or economics doing.
over the fall semester, i got to spend my time at the department doing my homework, using the same expensive coffee machine as my professors, sometimes sliding into their office just to chat. switching to this small major felt like i was part of a small community of people who cared about me as a person, while challenging me to grow and learn.
being in love with my best friend
i suppose my story of switching into astronomy isn’t complete with a romantic subplot
for context, i need to start at the beginning of the year, because my love life has never been simple. over winter break, i met someone who was in no means good for me at all. i only began to like her because she like the attention i gave her and i liked that she would respond to my messages quickly. she didn’t really have her life together, and would treat me terribly in the process of her personal struggles, but because i wanted to see her get better, i would put up with her darker moments. after a while, i realized this was not good for me, and i distanced myself from her. she eventually became emotionally manipulative, and i had to completely cut her off.
i spent the spring semester emotionally withdrawn after all of that drama, and chose to bury myself in my school work. it acutally wasn’t all that bad, and i didn’t have to worry about getting my heart broken or being treated badly, which, considering much of my love life, was much-needed. i realized that this was part of a larger trend where i’d find someone i liked, realized it wouldn’t work out, and spend the next 9 months closed off because i was sore from the previous heartbreak.
i also spent the summer in a similar fashion, not particularly looking for love, and i was decently happy with myself. as my internship began to wind down, i foolishly decided to go on hinge, where i matched with a girl. we got to know each other over the next month, but i had to move back to school, so i only went on a date with her once, as she went to a different university. i quickly realized that my 21 credit hour courseload was not going to allow me to get into any sort of long distance relationship with her. still, i thought she was a good friend and continued to stay in contact with her.
so i found myself in the dome of the observatory at the party i mentioned in the previous section. after talking to my professors, i approached another undergraduate who was sitting in a chair, not speaking to anyone. i recognized her from my astrophysics class. she was at the end of the row of chairs, and the chair to her left was taken, so i sat down next to her on the dusty observatory floor. we got to chat, and i realized that she, too was in my boat, having recently transferred into the astronomy major. as i looked up at her and locked eyes with her, all i could think was that she was one of the most pretty people i have ever seen, but i knew i didn’t want to make things weird, so in that moment i made a mental promise to only see her as a friend.
over the next month, i texted her sporadically, because i genuinely wasn’t romantically interested in her. aside from some small talk and the occasional comparing homework answers, we didn’t interact too much. that changed when we started doing homework together. we’d be up late at the department grinding out problem sets, and eventually we would talk about other things. i got to learn that she likes to sew, and is pretty good at painting. she has an appreciation for music, and also has quite the sweet tooth. i started to walk her home at night, and we started sitting together in class. we began to spend time together on the weekends, and i started hugging her whenever i saw her and whenever i said goodbye. she gives good hugs, and i hadn’t been hugged so tightly in years. while i don’t like using the term much because i have several “best friends”, she was starting to become my best friend.
as time passed, there would be days where we were together from sunrise to sunset because of astronomy club trips. it felt like we’d hug even longer and even tighter every time i saw her, and i really grew to love holding her in my arms. we started to buy gifts for each other. quite soon, there would be long stretches where we would spend time with each other every day. other astronomy majors started asking me if we were dating, and even that other girl who i matched with over the summer started to get jealous as i noticed she started to respond to me less frequently.
at the beginning of november, my fraternity had a parents formal, and i invited her as my date. she looked stunning in her dress, and i had a great time with her that night. i posted pictures of the event the next day, and the girl i matched with earlier in the summer never answered one of my messages ever again. she also removed me from her private story on snapchat. i was hurt because i wasn’t even in a relationship and this girl was cutting me off just because she thought i was taken. it felt like she saw me as an option, and i was disappointed to lose a good friend.
as more weeks passed, i would get so excited with the next opportunity i could see this astronomy girl (i’m sorry if this is getting confusing because i’ve mentioned two separate girls, i don’t want to use real names). i found myself thinking about her all the time during the day when i wasn’t with her. much to my dismay, i knew i was in love with her. i was afraid to be hurt again, but things had seemed so perfect up until then. she was the first girl in a while i’d met in person and not on a dating app. it felt like i didn’t need to impress her because she was accepting of who i am as a person. the awkward silences when were alone weren’t awkward at all. when i made my feelings clear to her, she tragically didn’t feel the same towards me. obviously it hurt a lot. i was starting to see her as a partner, both in life and in school.
usually when i realize that things don’t work out romantically, i block and move on. out of sight and out of mind. but this time, things were different. this love felt different. i felt like even if she couldn’t be my girlfriend, i should have her as a close friend, because i’d at least have her. plus, with what the other girl did to me upon seeing my instagram post, i knew i didn’t want to hurt this girl in the same way by saying goodbye.
i don’t know what will happen between us. sometimes i’m scared that things will change between us because of my unrequited love. i’m scared she’ll get sick of me one day and not want to be friends anymore. i’ve told her that i care about her a lot and that i still cherish every minute i spend with her. i find myself wishing every night that things will be okay between us. obviously i wish she’d love me back. i think any human would want the person they love to love them back. but i also know that i can’t force her to do anything she doesn’t want to, and i’m mature enough and i love her enough to respect that.