This content was published: October 26, 2011. Phone numbers, email addresses, and other information may have changed.
PCC student leaps at opportunities to propel his career
Story and Photos by Janis Nichols.
Ever play leap frog? Former PCC Rock Creek student Austin Wardrip started leaping at PCC during winter term 2009. Home schooled and 16 years old when he started this journey, he was initially tripped up by the academic calendar and needed to find an open classroom. PCC was affordable, accessible and worked with his timeframe. Once on campus, he volunteered at the Rock Creek Student Learning Center, jumped to a chemistry lab at Portland State University, then into a calculus class where he later served as a teaching aid.
In the summer of 2010, he leaped into an internship at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory where he became intimate with a spacecraft called Rosetta.
Former PCC Rock Creek student Austin Wardrip started leaping at PCC during winter term 2009.
“The goal of this mission is to ‘chase’ the comet as it swings around the sun, watch how it behaves, and drop a small lander on the comet.” He added, “The most exciting part of the internship happened on July 10 when Rosetta passed by the asteroid 21 Lutetia…a major milestone before it is put into deep space hibernation. Watching the first images and data come in was a major event for the entire laboratory and it felt exhilarating to be a part of it, even if I was simply an intern for the summer.”
Chasing comets is definitely cool but the experience didn’t ease Austin’s concerns regarding his academic future. “I asked myself how far could a community college student go? Would I be able to transfer to the school of my choice? I knew the odds against out of state transfers,” he said. “I would have to give 110 percent.”
Austin fell in love with chemistry when he was in middle school so the need to out-work the competition suited his focus and his determination. His plan to give 110 percent resulted in his being accepted as a transfer student by Stanford University, one of only 47 transfer applicants from around the world.
“In my time at PCC, I discovered that I enjoy teaching and I would love to integrate that activity into my future. I desire to become a scientific researcher,” he said. “I want to study and understand the physical universe around us. I like the idea of working in academia where I could do all of these things.”
Austin’s adventure started at a PCC launch pad in the Pacific Northwest, took a meteoric swing through deep space and ended with a soft landing in California. Not a terribly direct route, but nicely done.