I recently had the chance to talk with Jeffery Bennett, astronomer and author from Boulder, CO, during his recent visit to Charlottesville. After giving presentations to four elementary schools with his children’s books chronicling the fictional space journeys of a dog named Max, he gave a talk at UVa about the search for extraterrestrial life, which itself will warrant another post for the talk and group dinner discussion that followed.
Bennett is also known around the department as first author of the astronomy textbook that we’ve been using for a couple of years now, and he has a lot of good things to say about astronomy education. During a chat with the graduate students in our department, Bennett told us about his personal mission statement, which is a short manifesto of sorts that he wrote when he was younger to help him determine what activities were important to him and how to go about prioritizing and reaching his professional goals. For a scatterbrained and sometimes idealistic student such as myself, I set about on my own mission statement to help guide my activities in science, education, and skepticism. It is not yet polished, nor am I sure that it will ever stop evolving. You can read it in the “More About Me” tab above.
I’ll let you know how it goes in actually helping me down the windy, branching path that I am currently navigating. This would be a great exercise for anyone, so go ahead, try it!
Nicole
Tim
I’m reading the book “7 habits of highly effective people” and they say to write a personal mission statement too! it’s as close as i will get to a self-help book… mostly good ideas in organizing yourself so you can be more effective. i highly recommend it to you! Miss you!
Thanks! I just picked up “The Art of Being a Scientist” which is a similar thing for grad students in the sciences. So we’ll see how that goes. I miss you too!