Her adventure around the world started with a class about space.
Claire James, the inaugural winner of the Wolff Fellowship, which provides substantial funds for post-graduation travel, pinpoints an early astronomy class as key to how she approached her college education.
“I might not have ever sought out that class if it weren’t for the College of Letters & Science’s insistence that its students learn broadly across many disciplines,” says James, who graduated in May with majors in economics and international studies, and European studies and French certificates. “I took the astronomy class thinking I’d be just learning about constellations, but then we’re calculating how long a supernova has left until it explodes! It was hard—I was in office hours all the time—but I did it. And I learned that, rather than be worried about failure, I wanted to embrace the unexpected and develop the skill-set of being curious.” […]