As we grow up, it becomes natural for people around us to lose contact with the hobbies that once were dominant in their lives. While it's painful to accept this, the new reality becomes normal for most of us as we face new academic, adult and job responsibilities.
I've been dancing since I was four and I plan to continue dancing in college. However, I've always feared that dancing will affect my study and eventually become a brilliant memory of my childhood. After learning about Sommer Gentry's story, I had an answer.
Sommer Gentry, previously a professor of mathematics at the United States Naval Academy and a coach at the Naval Academy's Swing Dance Club, is currently a teacher at NYU Grossman School of Medicine. Gentry and her husband also started a swing dance community to introduce non-dancers to swing dance.
Through teaching, Gentry was inspired to view dancing from an engineering point of view. She said, "I realized it is an engineering question: how do you dance well with someone? It'd be great to give people mathematical and engineering proofs that they have to dance the way I say. " Gentry investigated the complex haptic (触觉的) communication behind the moves in swing dance and showed that two persons could move in coordination (协调) with pure haptic communication, She entered an exciting area of research which is about engineering, psychology and human motor control.
It's incredibly inspiring that Gentry was able to intertwine her academic work with her passion for dancing. Gentry said, "It means that even when I'm dancing outside, I'm thinking about my research project. "
Gentry found that digging into her academic interest does not mean letting go of her other non-academic ones. Instead, she found a way to include both in her professional life. Just like me, Gentry is a mathematician and dancer, thus, her story resonates (引起共鸣) strongly with me, and I want to be like her in the future.
