In a twist on this series, we video-interviewed students in astronomy and astrophysics to highlight their personal and academic career paths. The purpose of this series is three-fold. It aims not only to give a voice and exposure to those who are up and coming in the field but also to give feedback to the Astronomical community at large about the experiences of students who identify as women. The hope is that these interviews will not only share advice and lessons learned but will shed light on how to encourage and inspire more women, from various backgrounds and skill sets, to follow space trajectories, and reach towards the stars.
By: Libby Fenstermacher
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| Image Credit: C. Whitford |
Below is our interview with Chelsea Whitford, a non-traditional adult student currently taking classes at the community college level in preparation for a future astronomy and/or astrophysics degree. Previously, she earned an Associate Degree in Criminal Justice from Suffolk County Community College and a Bachelor's degree in Political Science with a certificate in International Relations from Arizona State University. Chelsea, a mother of three young children, remembers first being inspired by the stars as a young child herself while looking through a telescope at comet Hale-Bopp with her uncle. Now, having found her way back to this original passion, she is a strong advocate for encouraging women of all ages, in any “season” of life, to find a way to follow their dreams in STEM. She believes that a key to attracting and retaining more women in Astronomy and STEM, in general, is to provide a culture, at both the educational and organizational levels, that is supportive and accommodating towards adults with caregiving responsibilities. For her, a positive work-life balance and taking time to pursue one’s goals are the keys to success. Chelsea hopes that by following her own personal trajectory, she can inspire others, both young and adult, to follow theirs. Outside of her educational pursuits, Chelsea enjoys family time, traveling, and sharing her love of the stars with her children.
“..we have an 8-year-old and five-year-old twins, (...). And we're always telling them, you know, I believe in you, I believe you can do difficult things and hard things. But I have to remember that I need to lead by example with that and that means knowing and believing in myself. That I can do difficult things too. So, when they see that mom can do difficult things, that gives them encouragement and the courage to say, OK, mom can do it, I can do it.” - Chelsea Whitford
Transcript: Libby Fenstermacher and Chelsea Whitford
Libby: Hi everybody, my name is Libby Fenstermacher, thanks for joining me today. I'm here today with Chelsea and she's going to tell us about her journey in astronomy thus far, being a student and being a woman, and her experiences with that. So, thanks for joining me today, do you want to tell us a little bit about your background?
Chelsea: Hi. Thanks so much for having me. It's a pleasure and it's an honor to be here and chat with you and give my experience. Hopefully, it can maybe give other people encouragement and give a different perspective that maybe others have not considered. So yeah, I'm a non-traditional adult learner. I am also a mom of three young kids and right now a part-time student. Hopefully, in the future, I'll be a full-time student. But right now, with little kiddos, it's difficult to do full-time schooling right now. My background. So right out of high school, I started in college, university. I did one year of traditional four-year, freshman year, entry-level, beginning, and realized I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do. So, I switched to Community College and then I was working at the same time as a lot of young kids are, and I wound up getting my associate's degree in criminal justice. At that point, I thought maybe I'd want to go into law enforcement or eventually law school, and that was kind of the route I took. But life happened just like it does for so many of us. So, it was years before I finished my degree, my bachelor's, and I wound up doing that and I finished that about 10 years later.
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Image Credit: C. Whitford
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Chelsea: My then fiancée, now husband, went into the military, as active-duty Air Force. And so, when I finished my degree, my bachelor's from Arizona State University, it was in political science. And then I became a military spouse for 12 years, which was just a journey in and of itself. So, he just a couple of years ago transitioned out, and at that time of him trying to navigate his transition out of the military, it was my turn to navigate my own transition out of that and out of that world and, out of our scenario of moving every couple of years, which was… I think we did seven moves in 10 years. And with that, it's really hard to oftentimes find your own identity or find and keep up with your own career. So, I did a lot of customer service kind of work. I did student teaching, long-term subbing, and things like that in schools where we were based. And then we had kids. And so, I became a stay-at-home mom for the latter half of that. So, now I’m on my own journey to find and work my way through restarting my career; I’m going back to school, and kind of just navigating that now that he's out.
Libby: Awesome. I'm so excited for you. It’s never too late to go back and follow your passion. And I'm so happy that you get that chance now.
Chelsea: Yeah, you know, that's kind of the thing is that you never know where life is going to take you, and you never know what dreams you may have had when you were younger or things that you really enjoyed, may pop back up, as maybe back then they didn't seem realistic, but you never know. Life is a crazy journey.
Libby: Yeah, I can totally relate. I'm an adult learner myself and decided to go back to school at thirty-three to finish my degree. The world has changed a lot since when we were eighteen, and nineteen as well. So, I'm happy we both now have the chance to focus on our passions in space.
Chelsea: Yeah, absolutely.
Libby: What inspired you to choose astronomy in the first place?
Chelsea: You know, it's funny because I've always liked science and I feel like growing up, you know, back in the 90s, early 2000s, there was very much this idea of that you were either good at like English and history, you liked to read and you liked to write, you could write really well, or you were really good at math and science. And when you met with your career counselors. You know, in high school, they kind of go, OK, what career path do you want to take? Let's take these tests and figure out what suits your personality. And those are great. But I've always had a passion for learning and studying and trying to figure things out. But I never felt that I was good enough, I guess, to kind of go into that realm. And so, I went more of the social sciences aspect because that was, I felt like at that point where my strengths were. But I do remember when I was a kid, I grew up in upstate New York, like really rural upstate New York, kind of by the Canadian border. And we had, we lived in this old farmhouse, and we were, you know, the nearest neighbor was like a mile down the road. And part of what I vividly remember as a kid was my dad would take tarps and lay them out on the field, like overlooking the hills and we would just sit out there. Because it was so dark, you could see all the stars. You could see so many stars. And so, we would sit out there and look for shooting stars. And then I remember also my uncle when Hale-Bopp was around. My uncle had a telescope and I; you know, I think I was 7 or 8 at that time and he had a telescope and he'd get it out and we would look at Hale-Bopp… and so maybe I was like 9. But it was just one of those things that you… just one of those core memories that sticks with you and, I don't know I've always loved science, but I just never felt that I was good enough at it.
Chelsea: And so, I think the other part of that is I grew up in kind of a more conservative community. And in that community, it was often really hard to reconcile, you know, faith and beliefs with science. It always seemed kind of juxtaposed and at odds with one another, and I never really found anyone or found a community to kind of help navigate or reconcile that until I became an adult. And then it was, you know, then you learn to kind of start looking outside the box and realizing that it's OK to ask questions. Even if you have faith, it's OK to ask questions and to kind of delve through that. And so that was something I had [to work through]. I had listened to a few scientists actually a couple of astrophysicists and a couple of organizations that were faith-based, but also believed that faith and science worked together. And then that was kind of my jumping point. I was like, you know what, hey, it's OK to have faith and science work together. And that's something I'm still personally working through and trying to navigate what that looks like for myself, but it doesn't have to be at odds with one another. And, as my husband started to transition out of the military and I happened to just take it for fun, I took an astronomy course online because I've always loved it and I'd taken them before. I took the, you know, astronomy was my science of choice for my freshman year of college way back when… it had been 20 years. And so, I said, you know what, I'm just going to do it for fun. Like, let's figure it out, see what kind of direction I want to go. And then at that point, I was hooked. And after a lot of talking through and a lot of encouragement with my husband and others around me; that said, you know, I was really apprehensive about this, the math and the coding and the, you know, the technology aspect of it, stuff that was just completely foreign to me. And so with that encouragement, it just kind of came along and doors have opened and here I am with you today chatting.
Libby: What a wonderful journey. I went to Catholic school from first through twelfth grade. So, I understand and relate to that juxtaposition and search for that.
Chelsea: Yeah, absolutely. And it makes it hard. It makes it hard, you know when you're not sure what it is you're questioning or what you want answers to, you know, on a kind of more of a deeper level when it's when you don't have those answers or the ability to find out those answers. But you know, it's that journey of saying, OK, it's OK to ask questions.
Libby: What are your aspirations? Where, what do you see yourself doing with astronomy?
Chelsea: You know, I'm still kind of on that journey. It's going. You know, I get asked by family members, oh, how much more school do you have? And all I can say is I have a lot of school left. It's going to take me a long time. I'm trying not to put a time frame on where I have ideas and dreams, but I don't necessarily have, you know, in five years this is what I want to be doing because as a mom and as a wife and having a family, my husband travels for work and so I'm often the sole caretaker for our kids. There are times where I have to be fully immersed in the family side and have to take a back burner to what I'm working on. And so, eventually, I would love to get a doctorate someday. I'm not quite sure in what. I want to study astrophysics, I believe, but I'm not sure what area or avenue yet that I'm interested in. I think I'm feeling that out still and dipping my toes in different areas of study and research that will give me some ideas of what I like and what I don't like or where I want to navigate towards. So yeah, ultimately, you know, it's funny you think about Brian May, the musician who went back to school like 50 years later and finished his PhD. And so it might take me 50 years to finish my PhD, but I'll get there eventually.
Libby: It's for you and no one else, so, it doesn't matter how long it takes.
Chelsea: Exactly.
Libby: What about astronomy excites you?
Chelsea: There's so much unknown I think is what it really is. There's such a vast amount of information that we've learned over the last 100 years but there's so much that is still so unknown and it's a never-ending path of learning and such a cool realm to study. There are things that people don't understand. Even scientists, there are things that they don't understand. But getting to share that with my kids, when we take walks at night or we go stargazing and my kiddos get to look up and have those same experiences that I had as a kid looking at the stars and looking for, shooting stars or watching the moon and looking at the different topography of the moon and just getting to share those experiences with my kids, I think is just such a cool thing as a mom. But I think also seeing women in STEM come up into STEM fields is really cool and it's such an impactful position to be in, I think on a personal level, but also just knowing that I get to be a part of a group of women that in this era, are coming up and doing absolutely incredible and amazing things and contributing. And so, there are so many amazing things about astronomy…
Libby: Overwhelming it is.
Chelsea: It's really hard, especially so early on in my studies and my journey, it's really hard to pick and choose. But I think that just the vastness of our universe… and really on a more philosophical level it kind of gets you down to like… who are we as humans and what's our purpose and then how do we… I don't know it's… yeah… there's so much there's the philosophical part and then back to the scientific research and that's just never-ending, and is always going to be making strides in different areas.
Libby: The philosophical part is what drew me to wanting to work within space as a sociologist in the first place. You know… what is this reality? And my favorite question is, how do you create something out of nothing and how could nothing ever exist? That one I'm waiting for someone to tell me the answer to.
Chelsea: You know, it seems like that's kind of the question, right? I mean it's hard to fathom that. Yeah, it's hard to fathom where we all came from, what the universe came from, and where it started and I think it's interesting too that, science is ever-changing. It's not a stagnant or a static study, it's meant to be changing. You're always meant to be moving forward and learning and growing off of what you know or what you thought you knew and testing to make sure that what you think you knew is correct or not and it's that willingness. Yeah, it's that willingness to move forward and, to constantly come up with new ideas.
Libby: I’m really excited for you and your future path, whatever direction it goes. I'm going to be waiting in the sidelines listening for where you land.
Chelsea: Thank you.
Libby: So, what are you currently working on? Are you taking classes this summer?
Chelsea: My family is in transition right now. My husband, like I said works… he travels for work and so we're in transition right now to hopefully our forever, or at least for the near future home. And so I took a little bit of a break from classes but I've been really excited to… get started again. Actually, my astronomy professor from my school back in Arizona, which is where I was taking classes in the Community College there in the Maricopa Community College system, had attended a seminar or a symposium seminar conference at the beginning of the summer at Chapel Hill, I think NRAO was |
Image Credit: C. Whitford
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hosting it, [regarding] radio telescopes and education in classrooms and how do you use astronomy in the classrooms. And so that means that once we get settled in the next couple of weeks, I'm going to jump back into that. Last semester we had done some, I'd done some ... .telescopes… taking images, radio images with a 20-meter telescope out at Green Bank Observatory. And so, we had been working on some coding, trying to look at the Spectra of… I had imaged Andromeda and so I had been working on that and then took a little break. And so hopefully at the end of the summer, as we get settled a little bit more, I'll be able to jump back into working on my images that I took last semester. And then I also… he had told me about NASA having a community of citizen scientists that do exoplanet research called Exoplanet Watch. So, I actually just joined their group maybe a couple of weeks ago.
Libby: How exciting.
Chelsea: Yeah. So, it's really cool. You know there are so many opportunities for even citizens, who are interested in science but don't necessarily want to jump into it as a full-time career but want to have a little bit of a contribution. There are opportunities for people to just get involved. And so, I started that and then we'll see. There are a couple of other projects that I'm hoping to kind of jump into doing some vetting maybe with test research, the test data looking for exoplanets. We'll see. Just trying to work on some of those projects while I can in my free time and then hopefully in the fall I'll start getting back into the math. I started over when I went back to school because I hadn't done math and sciences in 20 years.
Libby: I had to do the same thing.
Chelsea: So, I started all over and started, literally from I think it was like high school algebra and then slowly started working my way up and so, I've got to start jumping into the calc 123, all that kind of stuff. So that's where I'm at right now, jumping into the math. I'm a little nervous about it. I'm a little apprehensive, but we'll get there.
Libby: You're going to do great. Just take it slow. They say the best mathematicians are the ones that take the longest to do it.
Chelsea: So, that's the biggest thing I think I've learned, is that it just takes practice. I think that's one of those ideas that science is this exclusive community of geniuses. And absolutely, there are people that are absolute rock stars and geniuses, but there are people that just work really hard and may not do well in school and just keep going and failed classes and they're not straight A students and… you just keep pressing forward and it's just a lot of practice and humility and keeping on going... keeping on chugging.
Libby: Yeah, practice and passion.
Chelsea: Yeah, exactly.
Libby: What advice would you give to someone considering a trajectory similar to yours?
Chelsea: To not be afraid, I think. Don't doubt yourself. It's funny, I'm always having these conversations with my kids when they complain or say I can't do this mommy, we have an eight-year-old, and five-year-old twins, and they're in that learning phase of doing things on their own and figuring out what they're capable of. And we're always telling them, I believe in you, I believe you can do difficult things and hard things. But I have to remember that I need to lead by example with that and that means knowing and believing in myself. That I can do difficult things too. So, when they see that mom can do difficult things, that gives them encouragement and the courage to say, OK, mom can do it, I can do it. So, I think not being afraid to jump in and know that you're not going to know everything. It's going to take time; you'll never know everything. You know, in science again, it's always changing, and you will never know everything. And I think that was something that I was apprehensive about, was not being good enough or not knowing enough to find my footing or find my place. And I think another aspect of that is knowing how to advocate for yourself. I think that comes with life experience. Which is why honestly now that I'm older and on this journey as an adult and am someone who has gone through different phases of life, that's something that I think I can really appreciate, in comparison to some of my younger peers and colleagues who are in the same position, just starting off, but are much younger and haven't had the same kind of life experiences that I've had. That is, learning how to advocate for yourself and that it is OK to advocate.
And also know your limits as well. This summer, I was thinking about taking a math class and my husband said, we've got a lot going on. You might think about that because you want to make sure you're taking advantage of, you know, that you're actually focused on it and learning. And so, knowing when to set your boundaries. And again, that's something that I'm always trying to teach my kids or remind my kids is, it's OK to have boundaries. It's OK to know what your own limits are. And then again, don't be afraid to advocate for yourself if you need something or if you have questions or even just reaching out to professors.
And one of the big things that I've learned in just watching or reading about other people in similar science fields is not being afraid to jump at an opportunity that you may not think you're worthy of having or that you don't have the experience to do, because you are going to learn something even if it's not what you thought. You never know if you will have that opportunity again, but you might just be the perfect person for that opportunity at that time and that's something. You know, that was kind of something that I wasn't quite sure about doing when I first started my classes. That was something I was really apprehensive about saying in the back of my mind. I would even talk to my astronomy professor about it and say, I'm too old to do this. I don't belong in this young group of kids that are doing all these amazing things.
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Image Credit: C. Whitford
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But, for example, NASA has a program that is called NCAS and it's for community college students who are interested in STEM and math. It's a three-mission scenario where the first mission was where we learned about the history of NASA, and we had to study all the directorates and their purposes and the centers. And then the second mission was getting to work virtually with a team and come up with a moon Rover. Our project is coming up with a Rover for, moon or lunar reconnaissance. And that was a phenomenal opportunity because we got to sit in and work with JPL engineers and NASA engineers, you know, virtually and then. Mission three, I don't know if they're still doing it in person anymore, but when I did it last summer, if you got selected for mission three, you actually spent a week at a NASA site working and learning alongside aeronautics. Yeah, at least our team. I was at Armstrong at Edwards Air Force Base, but it was, you know, coming up with a project and then presenting in front of NASA engineers your ideas. And so when we were introduced to the idea of it in our astronomy class, a year or two years ago…I want to say I was really apprehensive about it. And I said this is not, this is for the younger kids, like let them go, have the opportunities, you know. But then after talking to my husband and my professors and some of my peers, they said, you know what, you're just as much a student as everyone else and you need to do this and, don't forget, to advocate for yourself. If you don't jump at these, these opportunities aren't going to just come to you. You need to jump at them. And so, I think, you know, just not being afraid to try things that you might not necessarily give yourself credit for or might be nervous to do. Just go for it.
Libby: We all deserve these experiences anytime in our lives. So that's great. I'm so happy that you had the courage to reach out for it and grab it.
Chelsea: Yeah, it's one of those things that is not just in your studies, it teaches you how to advocate in other aspects of your life. You know, as a parent, we're always advocating for our kids and it teaches you how to have the strength to do that, in different areas of your life. And you become a really great role model for your kids through advocating for yourself as well.
Libby: Yeah, absolutely. Did you receive any mentorship yourself along your path? And if so, what would you say is the most important guidance that you've garnered?
Chelsea: You know, yeah, I have. I actually had a couple of amazing professors that I'm so thankful for and it was with my two astronomy classes, Dr. Kevin Healy and Dr. Melissa Bunte at Mesa Community College. If anyone's going to Maricopa County Community School, I would absolutely, hands down, recommend either of them. And then one of my math professors, Dr. Professor Sylvia Llamas Flores at Chandler-Gilbert. I was very apprehensive about the math, and I went in saying, I don't know if I can do this. And I actually wound up taking her for two semesters because she was so great and just so encouraging. And so having those professors, at least for me, was a huge part of it. Having people that are willing to teach you and find your value in what you can share, even if you're just at the beginning of your journey. Doctor Healy has been an amazing mentor in giving me chances and opportunities to throw out ideas of, hey, what do you think about me doing this project or researching this aspect? Even if it's not his specialty, he's been along for the ride and said, hey, you know what, yeah, absolutely. I'm here if you have questions. And so yeah, I think it's given me the opportunity again to find my place and develop that confidence and having people that are willing to find and invest their time and their energy into you as a person.
Chelsea: And also understanding. You know, for me as a mom, knowing that my priority is my kids and my family, and that sometimes that has to come first. A lot of times that has to come first. Finding those mentors and those people that are in the field who are willing to understand and to work with you is really important because if they don't understand where you're at, then it's not going to work. That cohesion of learning from each other, because they're learning from us just as much as we're learning from them, you know, people that have been in the field a really long time. And so having that cohesiveness and that understanding was imperative, and was important for me from the get-go. And that was something Doctor Healy said the first time I took his class. I emailed him, and I said, hey professor… you know again advocating for yourself. I asked if the lab would go longer than the times that were slotted for, in the daily schedules in the syllabus and things like that because, I had to pick up my daughter from school and it was a half-hour drive. So, having that understanding from the professors was imperative. And then that support as an adult learner, that understanding that you bring a different view and perspective was just really, really important. And I'm so thankful it's given me such amazing opportunities just to find my own footing and interests that may not necessarily just be in the syllabus for the class, giving me that opportunity to push outside the box a little bit.
Libby: That's awesome. Hats off to your professors for being so progressive and on top of it and role models for the rest of the astronomical community. That's really wonderful to hear.
Libby: What, if any, changes would you like to see for women in astronomy?
Chelsea: I think in education and academia as a whole, understanding that we're not all in the same seasons of life. I think a lot of someone like myself who is starting into this career late when my kids are still little. My ability to focus only on my schooling is not something that I'm able to do. It's a balance. Finding that work-life balance. But it's also important to have people who understand that if I miss a class or if I need to zoom in to the class because my kid is sick and I can't take them to the babysitter or whatever the case is, something like that. You know not just for women, but as parents in general, that's something I think is really important and it's that season of life where I'm in and so I'm able to empathize with other parents that are in similar situations and advocate again for those kinds of changes in academia, in the work environment and then understanding, you know, that single parents, oh man, hats off to single parents. When my husband travels and I'm the sole caregiver, though I might be the sole caregiver for that time frame, I still have him as my advocate and he's in the back seat helping me out, and when he comes home then you know we're a team again and it just continues. But those single parents out there, I don't know, I have so much respect and so much appreciation for their ability to do what they do and sacrifice the way that they do. So, I think having that understanding for those single parents is a really important thing and giving them the same kinds of opportunities.
I think there's been a lot of really good changes for women, but at the same time, there's always more that can be done. I think about this one time I was listening to a Zoom call that had been on YouTube, and it was one of the academic societies out there that was doing a talk on something. And I don't remember the specifics of it, but I remember I had to pause it because one of the kids came in, and when I paused it, the screen, you know, it was on zoom and so they have different blocks of faces, and there's probably twenty or thirty people on the blocks on their pictures were up there and it was all older white men that were on the screen. And I'd had those discussions, with my professors previously. And at different times just about how the changes that have happened over the years, things like the double-blind board selections for telescope time and things like that, but it just was one of those cemented moments of, Oh my goodness, OK this really is a thing where it's older white men that kind of encompass much of science and much of the research opportunities. And I find it really encouraging to see other women that are in STEM fields, (...) people of different backgrounds and cultures and ethnicities and races and genders and religions and it's just really important, to have all of that in in the realms of science, to represent the people that are in the community and give them voices and opportunities.
Libby: Yeah, absolutely. And to bring more people into the community too, so, they know that they have allies and it's not just that you're sticking out in that Zoom call as the one woman.
Chelsea: Exactly. Exactly, yeah.
Libby: Speaking of media, what is your favorite TV show or movie?
Chelsea: Oh, you know, we don't watch a ton of TV. When we do, my family, my kids included… we love Expedition Unknown. We love that show. I love that he goes to all these different places. My husband and I have had a really good chance to travel the world and have a lot of different experiences and see a lot of different cultures and things. And so, I love getting to see when he goes to all these different places. And my daughter loves the history aspect of it, you know, especially like the Egyptian… when he goes to the tombs and the pyramids and all that kind of stuff. So, we watch a lot of that kind of stuff. Even it might be as kind of cheesy, but it's fine. And then as a kid, this probably should have been a precursor for, you know, like a, hey, hey, come on, this is what you're going to do eventually. But I remember as a kid watching Contact with Jodie Foster and Matthew McConaughey and being like, this is the best movie ever.
Libby: Another one of my interviewees said the same thing. So, we have two for Contact now.
Chelsea: Oh my gosh. Well, you know, it should have it. I loved the fact that there's Arecibo and the VLA in it, and I've actually gotten to see both of those. I got to go see Arecibo before it collapsed and to see the amazing technology that it was, it's just really cool. (...) Those are the two places that I've always wanted to go and, to have that recollection of being like, oh, Jodie Foster was here... And then I think, (...) Interstellar, that's another, you know, more modern classic. I think it was just such a great movie and, the soundtrack was amazing with Hans Zimmer. And yeah, such a fantastic movie.
Libby: Yeah, the soundtrack to that is incredible. I put it on Spotify sometimes. It's so good.
Chelsea: I do too. It is. And it's funny cause, some people say they have to study in like complete silence and some people have to have a TV show going on. I listen to music too. Either piano music or classical, but I have to have some sort of instrumentation or instrumental music going on in the background.
Libby: We'll have to share Spotify lists. I do the same thing. Helps me focus.
Chelsea: Yeah, same.
Libby: Yeah. I love a good swelling soundtrack score.
Chelsea: Yeah, exactly. It does. It keeps me focused.
Libby: Your cat has been joining us this entire interview and it's been just a pleasure.
Chelsea: Oliver.
Libby: I feel like I should have asked him a question.
Chelsea: He's just having fun enjoying the sun.
Libby: I love it. Is there anything else that you would like to share before we get off our interview today?
Chelsea: I don't think so. I appreciate this. Thank you so much for having me. This has been such a pleasure. And I just hope that maybe, even though I'm very early on in my journey, in my career and aspirations, I just hope that it helps other people that might be apprehensive like I was to jump into something that they might not think that they're capable of doing. Because again, like I tell my kids, we are capable of doing difficult things and it's just learning to take the good or the bad and know that it's going to be hard but that as more of us jump into these positions, especially as a woman and as a mom and I just hope that those of us that are out there and in these spots and in these places can use our voices to kind of bring others along with us and encourage other women and other people that are in different seasons of their lives who might be hesitant to do it, to just say, you know what? We only have one life, at least I think we do. I don't know, who knows, but you know, just, just do it. And yeah, you can always, if you don't love it, then you can always change, but you'll always have that kind of, notion in the back of your brain that says, oh, I don't know, maybe I should have done it if you don't. And so there are more of us out there than you think who are going along this journey too and paving the way. There are people that have gone, women that have gone before us, and women that will come up behind us. And so it's just a great feeling to be a part of that community.
Libby: Awesome. Well, thank you so much for joining me for this. I feel inspired. I'm about ready to go down to Community College to get myself some astronomy classes.
Chelsea: That's the one thing I will say is that I think there's this notion that you have to go big, and, you have to start at the four year or you have to go to these huge schools, which of course, you know, there's benefits to both. But that's not always the case. That's not always the reality for a lot of people. And I would never discount community colleges for anyone. And there's several astronomers and astrophysicists, there are PhD candidates that, I follow on social media that have kind of had that same route of starting off at Community School, and for a lot of people, they don't have the option of going to a four-year. And again, my journey has, I went to community and then four,-year and now back at community and there is such value in community colleges. And I think, you know, when you asked about… that's probably something I should have mentioned in academia, what would you change, is that I would love to see that the community colleges get more support for undergrad research and undergrad opportunities and as being a gateway to these bigger universities that a lot of people don't always have access to right out the gate. So don't underestimate Community College because there are a lot of professors that are willing and wanting to share their time and their resources and give students opportunities that they might not have.
Libby: Absolutely. Community College is a wonderful step. I did it myself and the professors tend to have more time to work with you. And so if there's anybody watching this that feels hesitant about taking that first step, that's a really great place to start.
Chelsea: So absolutely. And they have connections too. You know, they've gone through the whole gamut of classes and degrees and experiences as well. And so that's a great way to just get started. And if you're not sure about it and you're not sure that this is something, you know, whatever it is that you're studying is something that you want to do for the long term. That's a great way to kind of jump in and test out the waters first and see what resources are out there and then decide from there.
Libby: Awesome.
Chelsea: Well, you are too. Thank you for doing this. I'm so excited to hear, you know, all the different interviews and read everyone's experiences and connect with other people. So, thank you for doing this. This is amazing.
Libby: Absolutely. I will make sure to stay in touch with you and find out where you've landed on your journey.
Chelsea: Same. Same here.
Libby: Bye.
Chelsea: Thanks. Bye.
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