Summary
What are your plans after graduating?
Next fall I will begin working on my Ph.D. in Plasma Physics at Princeton University.
What is the most important piece of advice you’d give to an incoming college freshman?
Try to concern yourself only with what interests you, with what brings you into a state of contentment, and with what makes you truly fulfilled. In the wake of this I have found that your path forward, and everything else for that matter, will work itself out naturally. Shine on in whatever way is truest to you.
Where do you see yourself in fifteen years?
This is a really difficult question to answer. In making the choices that I have made throughout my life I have done my best to approach life empirically, and to avoid marrying myself to any a priori dispositions I may have. If I were forced to guess, I would say that I see myself enjoying whatever it is that I am doing. I love physics, and can easily see myself staying in physics and working at a national lab. However, if at the end of, or even during, my Ph.D. I find that physics no longer teaches me anything and that my time would be better spent elsewhere, I am completely open to leaving science and devoting myself to writing, music, or anything I have true passion for.