How I Became a Space Exploration Enthusiast in a Week

I am a junior at USC, and recently we registered for classes for the spring semester. One of the most popular classes at the school is “Space Exploration: Settlement of the Universe.” Of course, all the spots in the class filled up before I could register. As a junior, my learning journey for space exploration was probably over. Or so I thought.

Ironically, I was suggested an article called The future of spaceflight - from orbital vacations to humans on Mars. I opened it, and it absolutely stole my attention for 10 minutes- I couldn’t stop reading. I was caught up in the 21st century race that includes competition over space territory, commercial space flights, and even space hotels. I eventually came across over 20 articles on the topic I was excited to read, but didn’t know how I would remember long-term what I read.

The Breakthrough

This is when a friend introduced me to Polar, an advanced reading and annotation tool that helps students learn robust information quickly. I downloaded the chrome extension and immediately started saving all the articles in Polar so I could create a space exploration learning experience. This includes the original article that sparked my interest and I wanted to add annotations and comments to:

I now use Polar to create tags on different aspects of space exploration such as “Moon Missions” and “Private Space Companies” thus making finding information on those categories quick and efficient. In many regards, I feel like an expert in just a week and am inspired to learn more.

Here are some of the annotations/takeaways I share with my friends for key learnings- I usually share these instead of the article actually: