Andre’s story about growing up in East German was really fascinating. It was especially interesting to hear about how the difficulty of travelling out of the country partially inspired to him to travel abroad as an undergrad to do research. He mentions in the middle that he learned more from those practical experiences than from any of his classes. I wouldn’t go as far as to say that I don’t learn anything in my classes, but this semester I’ve been participating in astronomy research with a few graduate students. I’ll admit that I don’t understand everything, but just begin involved with other researchers and seeing what real physicists are doing has helped me learn in a new way.