Name: Cathleen Fuller
Dream: To become a theoretical physicist and win a nobel prize in physics.
Age: 18
About: I literally JUST got home from a screening of this documentary called The Dream Share Project and it was amazing. I am so inspired, and I have so many thoughts running through my head I can barely even type this. As a kid, I wanted to be an artist, or a lawyer, or an explorer. I wanted to do something no one else had ever done before. I got to middle school and I discovered how much fun math was to me and how much i loved science.
I viewed math (and I still do) as a game. Even in kindergarden when we had to count out specific amounts of little plastic ants and put them in a cup, I loved loved numbers. I remember asking my kindergarden teacher if we could count out more than just ten ants, she asked me why, and I remember saying because ten was too easy to count to. To me math has always been a game, its really just playing and manipulating numbers and formulas to a specific set of rules. if you get a problem right you win. and winning is a great feeling. The best part is, with math you never have the losing feeling. you get frustrated and angry but the more you work on it the better it feels when you finally figure it out. WIth each unit and subject, the rules of the game change, like from algebra to trig to calculus etc etc…
With science. it was a slightly different story. I always was good at science, but when I got to 8th grade science thats when we really started looking at physics during one of our units. I loved it. I honestly couldn’t get enough. I would constantly ask my science teacher questions after class. But why does that ball bounce that way, but if sound is a wave how do we hear it, but why does the moon spin around the earth and not the other way around. I just HAD to know. I remember being frustrated by thinking of questions because the more questions I had answered the more I realized I didn’t know, and the more I realized I needed to know what the answers were. I loved that physics had an answer to everything. Any “why” question I could come up with, physics could answer it. no problems. That was until I made it to high school physics. I could almost hear the scratch of car breaks in my head as I asked my 11th grade physics teacher “but WHY does gravity exist. I understand HOW it works but I wanna know WHAT makes it work?” and he answered “we don’t actually know” I just sat there thinking what do you mean “we don’t know” how can you NOT know?! In this day and age?! We know how to make things fly but we don’t know why they are falling to begin with? How does that make any sense. I realized that physics CANT answer every little question about the world, and honestly, that was slightly heart breaking. but then I started thinking back to middle school, sitting after class asking question after question until I am sure my teacher was completely sick of me, and I realized, its ok that people don’t know all the answers, because that gives ME the opportunity to find out! My sophomore year I googled non stop and spent all of my free time on wikipedea and youtube looking up modern day theoretical physicists, and all sorts of types and concentrations of physics. I watched video after video of theories like Rob Bryanton’s Imagining the Tenth Demension and videos on quantum mechanics and st!
ring the
ory explained, and watching millions and millions of interviews and lectures by Fynnamen. I knew I wanted to spend my life learning why the world was the way it was and how everything worked and why they worked the way they did and I realized the only way to do this was not only through physics but through research and investigation. That is when I decided I wanted to be a research physicist, and eventually become a theoretical physicist. I wanted to make those discoveries that change the world like Stephen Hawking, and I wanted to be referenced in elementary, middle and high school science classes like Newton and most importantly I wanted to be able to explain it in a way that everyone can understand like Fynnamen. I wanted to change the definition of the world, and I wanted, I mean I REALLY WANTED to win that nobel prize for physics. That was my dream. THAT was my endgame.
Fast forward to now. I am currently in my freshman year in college majoring in a duel degree physics and engineering program. But wait, Cathleen, you don’t want to be an engineer do you? I thought you wanted to be a research physicist! Yes little boy or girl that is right! I actually don’t want to be an engineer at all. So why am I getting a masters in Engineering? Becasuse of job security. The world just doesn’t want to know things anymore. It isn’t the scientific revolution anymore. THey just want to create things. The want goods to be designed and manufactured, quickly, cheaply, and easily. They want engineers, so I am majoring in engineering so I can get a job and make money.
So let me stop babbling about myself and talk about this AMAZING FILM!!! In case you don’t feel like scrolling its called The Dream Sharing Project, and it changed pretty mucheverything for me in about an hour and a half. This year I am taking Physics III and Calculus III, and there are A LOT of people in my classes and many of those people are A LOT smarter than me. I was thinking about this, and I was thinking about my goals. I was starting to consider changing my major to something slightly more practical, like communications, or maybe economics, I am fairly good at economics. Besides with all of these people, I barely stand a chance! I can’t compete in a job market with millions of other people! I am not that fantastic. I was starting to think, having a dream that big was silly. Everyone wants to be great and wants to be remembered, but people rarely ever are. I am not that special, I sure as hell wasn’t going to be more memorable than anyone else studying physics in college. I decided I would just be an engineer and at least I would make money, and i still would get to use physics and math. So in my philosophy class we have to go to 2 Cultural Affairs here at the university, discuss them with a peer and write a reflection paper on it. My first cultural affairs paper is due next week, so I quickly checked out my e-mail for ANY event I could go to. I saw this one on a documentary about dreams. I thought dreams are cool, I love movies, I really need to do this, ok fine this will do. I noticed it was a wednesday night at 7pm. I have sailing practice wednesdays and fridays from 3 till 8! I cant go to this! I dismissed it immediately. I’d just find something better to go to. Wednesday came and while waiting for the van to pick me up and take me to practice, I texted the person in charge of the team to confirm practice was still on. Nope. Canceled. While I was disappointed I remembered The Dream Share Project screening, and I thought, meh, okay! This’ll work, I’ll just go to that.
so I did.
That is when I had that epiphany. That single cave moment we had been talking about in philosophy for 2 months. I watched this movie and listened to all these people talk about how they did what was safe, and what was secure, and it sucked! So they stopped, and changed it all (how they could do that I will never know) and now they do what they love. One woman who works in theater talked about how she had the chance to persue other careers, but she didn’t. Even though she has very little money, and even though she could it would be easier to take that other job, she couldn’t, because she was stuck. Hopelessly in love with what she did. Thats how I feel. I am hopelessly in love with physics, and I am hopelessly in love with learning and knowing and finding out and I know, deep down that I will never be happy doing anything else. One lady that they interviewed, talked to was a life coach or a career planner or something to that affect and she said that if you take risks and chase what you love you will never regret it, but if you don’t, you could spend the rest of your life regretting that. Thats when I realized I didn’t care weather I was successful, or weather I had money, and I didn’t even care how unrealistic my dream was! I knew I wanted that nobel prize and I wanted to be that person and make those discoveries and find those answers to some other little curious middle schoolers never ending questions. That is what I wanted and needed, and there was nothing else that would satisfy that need. I just realized that, It doesn’t even matter if I am ever successful, because if I die and old woman and I don’t ever active those goals it will be enough that I chased my dreams and I tried, and I did the best I could possibly have done. If I spend my whole life researching and asking questions, and I am able to make one discovery, no matter how tiny I would have exceeded my expectations tenfold. I jus know that I need to follow this through. THere is no other way to put it. I need this, and I am goi!
ng to do
it. end of story.
I really would never have made this realization, or if I had it would have been too late for me to do anything about it had it not been for this film. I know it sounds crazy and silly and fangirl-y but I seriously think, if I could see into the future, I would see that going to this screening set those wheels in motion toward me having an ultimately happier and more fulfilled life. I think everyone who is in college should see this film. I think that they should see this in high schools too. I think that everyone needs to see this because it gives them the chance to say wait a minute, I don’t wanna do this, I really want to do that! before its too late to turn around. Especially in college and high school when you are trying to figure out what you want to do and what you want to study, and you are making those decisions, and having those doubts! That is exactly when you should be thinking about this stuff. not when you’re 40 at a job you hate asking yourself what if, ya know what i mean? well whatever. I’m done now. whew. thanks for reading this mess!