When my peers showed no interest in astronomy, I really appreciated that my parents wanted to know why I loved it so much, and it was really exciting when their research showed ways to turn my interest into a career. How to Encourage Your Teenager to Pursue Their Passion 1. When I didn’t have a community of people who shared my interests, my parents helped me create one. They encouraged me to follow my passion even when my peers and my culture made me feel like a weird outsider. I don’t think I could have accomplished all this without the support of my parents. We post blogs bi-weekly about topics like black holes, galaxies, and more. I even have a colleague, who helped me evolve my first blog into “Midnight Eclipse,” an organization dedicated to educating teens about astronomy. ![]() Now I have people that I can turn to whenever I want to share something amazing I learned about astronomy. She gave me courage to form an Astronomy Club at my high school. I became convinced there had to be other people at my school who loved astronomy as much as I did-I just had to find them. When I was with my friends, I felt strange and alone.Įventually, I realized I hadn’t found the right people to socialize with yet. It wasn’t easy being with them when they were disinterested in the one subject I loved. ![]() I had my website, I was enrolled in a college class, and I was even volunteering at an observatory-still, I felt like I had no connection to my peers. And my dad took me to local observatories to stargaze at night-we even shared a magical moment when we spotted Betelgeuse (a star in the Orion constellation) together. They encouraged me to created a blog called “Astronomy for Minds of the Curious” to share Instagram posts and provide fun facts every week so I could expand expand my reach and find more people interested in astronomy. They helped me enroll in a computer science class in a local university, as coding is heavily used in astrophysical research. They saw my passion and grit for learning astronomy, and instead of discouraging my atypical interest, they encouraged it. Which meant, my friends and I didn’t have much to talk about.įortunately, my parents recognized how excited I was to share information about outer space and appreciated the sparkling glint in my eyes whenever I’d find a star in the sky. In the end, I came back to astronomy every time. I tried studying biology for a few days, but I never understood it. I thought studying psychology might be interesting, but it turns out it wasn’t. Not having a mutual interest made me feel disconnected from them. The problem was, they preferred talking about subjects like biology or business, which were subjects I didn’t care much about. I loved outer space so much, I wanted to share fun facts about it with my friends. I read articles online, watched YouTube videos, and even visited observatories to stargaze. I learned more about pulsars, quasars, white dwarfs, brown dwarfs, Magellanic Clouds, and supermassive black holes. ![]() In my teenage years, I dug deeper into astronomy. When I was just six years old, I became fascinated by NASA’s “picture of the day.” Colorful nebulae, sparkling stars, spiraling galaxies, and swirling clouds on Jupiter stole my breath away. None of those options appeal to me, though, and sometimes I feel like I don’t fit in with my friends and my society because the career path I want is unusual. Come join us.In my Indian culture, families expect their children to pursue careers in healthcare, computer science, law, or software engineering. And as Caltech employees, we are uniquely positioned to meet those challenges through world-class engineering, science and technology, benefiting humanity through our missions, innovations, and research.Īnd it’s the bold, passionate spirit of our people the deep expertise and incredible diversity of our collective experiences, backgrounds and skills, that makes JPL so awe-inspiring. Since 1958, NASA has entrusted JPL with some of its biggest challenges and boldest steps into making the unknown known. There is no better place to be on the planet - or off the planet - for those who are driven by curiosity, purpose, and engaging with amazing people. We help build telescopes that peer at some of the earliest galaxies, and satellites to advance understanding of our home, here on Earth. We are a leader in robotic space exploration, sending rovers to Mars and probes into the farthest reaches of the solar system. JPL holds a unique place in the universe.
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