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from his website: http://astro.berkeley.edu/~mikewong/

My fan mail.
POSTED: Mon Nov 19 18:07:39 PST 2007

Earlier this month, on a day when I was particularly frustrated with proposal-writing, I was cheered to find a delightfully unusual letter in my inbox. A parent of one of my summer students wrote in to tell me that I had gotten his daughter excited about astrobiology, and thanked me for my influence on her life.

As I told Doug, educators are always delighted to have students who are genuinely interested in the material. Catherine was one of those advanced high school students who enrolled in UC Berkeley Summer Sessions. She stayed after class several times to chat about things that we covered in lecture, and conversations like these give teachers the feedback they need to build a good class. So I didn't expect any more reward or recognition, but getting parent fan-mail takes this to another level. Here are some gratuitous quotes about how awesome I am (Doug said it was OK to post these):

I wanted to take the time to write you and thank you for the time you spent with my daughter outside of class... you may have changed her life forever.

She has found her life's calling as an "astro biologist." I remember she called me the day she met with you and I had never heard her so fired up before. She had taken an Astronomy class at the local community college, but I never heard her excited like this before.

I wish you continued success in your most fascinating career and hope you will never lose the ability to reach out to students in the way you did with my Catherine.

-- Doug Traub

 

 

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