Prize Recipient

Christophe Schmitz

Background:

My name is Christophe Schmitz and I am of German, Dutch, African and Native American ancestry. I am 18 years old and enjoy learning foreign languages, traveling, skateboarding, swimming and playing tennis and ping pong.

During my entire youth, I was fascinated with motion, friction and the concept of how things worked. At a very young age, I played with trains on small tracks and observed how friction played while the train was in motion. Soon, I became very interested with the concept of energy and forces.

Throughout middle school and high school, I developed a stronger sense of the connection between these scientific areas and mathematics. It is my hope to begin with a sense of the earth and geo-physics to continue to foster interest and my intellectual growth in these fields.

Physics to me is amazing since it defines our everyday lives. Driving, for example, involves friction with the tires on the road, initial momentum, braking and unfortunately damaging ones car goes back to Newtons Third Law of Motion; one reaction will cause another equal and opposite reaction.

In addition, I have aspirations to possibly become an engineer, whether it is a nuclear engineer, mechanical, computer, internet or any of the like. I will seek to take these courses to determine whether it is my field or not.

I look very much forward to my intellectual experience at Vassar to further improve my skills and to delve into the depths of physics in many realms.