Furman Engaged 2025 Deep Reflect
Catherine Rexer

For most of the week before Furman Engaged, I had very little motivation to do schoolwork. The semester was drawing to a close, Spring Recess was rapidly approaching, and the weather was nasty: not what anyone would call a recipe for productivity. I was mostly looking forward to my first Furman Engaged as a day off of classes in which to catch up on homework, with a few presentations sprinkled throughout the day as study breaks. However, once I arrived at the room we Physics majors call “The Fishbowl,” the excitement there was contagious, slightly lifting my cloudy mood. My favorite presentation was on determining the periods of rotation of cataclysmic eclipsing variable stars, systems of two stars each that orbit each other and pass mass back and forth. The presenter was informative and engaging and seemed excited about the implications his research has for other astronomers studying these stars. I’m doing my own physics research this summer and hope to present it at Furman Engaged this coming spring. The presentation I watched helped me put myself in the shoes of someone doing exactly what I aspire to. In addition, it has encouraged me to reflect on how this time last year I would have never dreamed that I would soon be engaging in such opportunities (summer research) myself. I left The Fishbowl that morning feeling reenergized and motivated. Furman Engaged reminds me to look beyond the chaos of homework, papers, and exams toward the future I dream of: all those assignments I was procrastinating on are only stepping stones to bigger dreams and greater achievements than I would have ever thought possible only a year ago. Time to get to work.