Made Ready to Rise to the Stars
Written by Katherine Sinkovitz
Last semester, we asked graduating seniors to look back on their education at Hillsdale College and talk about how their experiences have shaped them. This guest post by Katherine Sinkovitz, ’16, is part of our “Senior Reflections” series.
“Did you see the stars last night? I think I saw Jupiter. I mean, I’m not positive, but I’m pretty sure.” My friends have taken to chuckling and rolling their eyes when they encounter me enthusing about whatever astronomical event or phenomenon I last discovered. In this final semester of my college career, I have found that the people who can understand my enthusiasm are not my fellow humanities majors, the ones lugging around Norton Anthologies or debating the merits of Waugh in the Lane lobby; they are the ones across the grassy quad in Strosacker.
I am nothing more than an amateur astronomy enthusiast. I have never studied physics, aside from Science 101, and I could not explain the mechanics behind most of the things in the sky that I find so breathtaking. My eleventh-hour entry into the world of science, however, has made me realize that it was a long process that got me to this place. Like Dante Alighieri, who had to travel through the pit of Inferno and up the Mount of Purgatorio before he found himself “pure and made ready to rise to the stars” (Dante’s Purgatorio, 33.145), many hours of steeping myself in the beauty of the Word and the beauty of the world was required before I could look up and truly see.
I had looked at the stars many times before this semester. My father, who was born into the generation of Star Trek, Sputnik sightings, and revelry over Armstrong’s immortal stroll, did his best to instill in his children a love for the heavenly bodies. He dragged us to the window every so often to look at the moon and sometimes took us outside to view a meteor shower. The night lights, however, never tugged at my heart the way they did at his. That changed this year.
My education has been staunchly humanities-based. After shuffling through three or four potential majors as a freshman, I happily landed in the English department sophomore year and haven’t looked back. My long-fostered desire to teach propelled me into the classical education minor, and between those two departments, my longings to encounter truth, goodness, and beauty have always been fulfilled. Junior year I stumbled into a semester that would end up fundamentally transforming my intellectual trajectory and my philosophy of education. This came about when, in the previous semester, I overheard students in the hallway of Kendall discussing a seminar, one which was not even on the course list yet, that was going to be taught by Dr. David Whalen. The title of this class intrigued me, and on a whim, I emailed Dr. Whalen and asked if I could be added to the class. Later that week, I was registered for “The History, Literature, and Philosophy of Wonder.”
On the first Monday of this class, I came to the startling realization that wonder, something I had of course read about, referred to, and thought I understood, was something fantastically greater than I had thought. I learned that wonder, far from being just surprise or admiration, is defined as “the awe and fear inspired by awareness of one’s own ignorance.” The shiver that ripples through you when you listen to a good choir and just cannot understand how their harmonies work; the momentary paralysis that strikes when the inexplicably-bright hues of a rainbow catch your eye in the post-torrential sky—these are moments of wonder. Armed with this new definition, I viewed the world as if through a new lens. Wonder became the theme of the remainder of my college experience. I searched for it everywhere and decided that it is the foundation of liberal education.
I came into my final semester excited and certainly not expecting to change. My class schedule was just about as good as could be, except for one little blip: Science 101. Yes, I was one of those seniors who procrastinated with a core requirement all the way to the very end. Less than enthusiastic about spending four hours a week in an introductory science class, I began the semester with the intention to just suffer through, put the time in, and come out with a passable grade. On the first day of the physics half of the class, I sat down in the lecture hall and found myself surrounded by twenty-some freshmen and a few scattered upperclassmen who had likewise put off the inevitable. My cynicism was at an all-time peak when my professor introduced the class and pulled up an internet video for us to watch. The video, “The Known Universe,” made by the American Museum of Natural History, presents video images of the universe starting from the surface of Earth and moving outwards to the furthest known extent of the universe. There, in a lecture hall in the basement of Strosacker, I began to cry. Tears streamed down my cheeks, and despite my embarrassment, I couldn’t stop them. To a level that I never before had, I experienced wonder as I became aware of the extent of my ignorance about the universe around me. Instantly, my attitude toward Science 101 reversed, and I knew that I would be changed forever by that class.
In the months since that first day of class, my thoughts and internet browsing history have been consumed by historical models of the universe, explanations of space-time, and NOVA videos. I am now familiar with the terms “pulsar,” “LIGO,” and “gravitational wave.” Most nights I peer out my bedroom window to see if the night sky is clear, and if it is, I go stand in front of my house and stare until my homework calls me back in.
To the outside observer, my life must not seem to have changed much. I am still an English major who reads a lot of old books, and I will still be teaching in the humanities next year. But a whole world that I never knew I could love has been opened up to me. At the risk of waxing nostalgic, as we graduating seniors are wont to do, it seems that my time in college was all leading up to my understanding of what wonder truly is and that that understanding culminated in my new ability and desire to look up and away from myself to wonder at the stars and He Who made them. From a utilitarian standpoint, it was not the best decision to delay taking an introductory core requirement until my last semester. I am confident, though, that my experience of wonder would not have been possible if I hadn’t been trained to search for and identify the beautiful and the wonderful. I needed the formation of the last four years, the influence of many professors, and the growth in age and maturity for my mind and heart to truly be made ready to rise to the stars.
Katherine Sinkovitz, ’16, studied English and Classical Education at Hillsdale College. She is currently teaching middle school at Oakdale Academy, a classical school in Waterford, MI, where she now shares her wonder at the stars with her students.