I came to Putney for environmental studies. I see it all around me, and everything I’m doing is so amazing. I’ve been a part of afternoon activities in sustainability, gardening and landscaping. I get to make the compost that goes into the flower beds that I also take care of. I get to actually practice regenerative and organic agriculture. Experiential learning is such an incredibly amazing and astonishing part of Putney. We travel, we go on hikes, because we need to experience nature to truly appreciate it.
I’m in astronomy, and I see it as a tool for environmentalism because it shows you a pollution free night sky. I started off wanting to do a project, and that’s where my journey of telescope repair began. At first I was basically supplementing other people’s telescope projects. A friend of mine would listen to me obsessing about this stuff, but has multiple sclerosis and can’t walk to the observatory. My solution was, I’ll bring the observatory to you.
So I started repairing a telescope, and was able to put it right on the hill in the center of campus. And that was the first time my friend ever saw Jupiter and Saturn through a telescope. Putney has cultivated this idea of community, that anything I do has to be working for something greater and bigger than myself. And that’s something that I think is really awesome.