The results of the 2025 Virginia Junior Academy of Science (VJAS) Symposium came out today. I placed 4th in my category and received an Honorable Mention. Honestly, I felt a bit let down when I first saw the results, as I was hoping for something more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But after letting the news sink in, I realized that this experience was about so much more than rankings. I had the chance to present my research, to stand alongside other passionate students, and to share my love for astronomy with people who actually understood and appreciated it. That\u2019s something I\u2019ll never forget.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Science isn\u2019t just about is not about winning every competition\u2014it\u2019s about curiosity, persistence, and the drive to keep asking questions even when the answers don\u2019t come easily. And in that sense, I don\u2019t feel like I lost anything. This Honorable Mention is still a recognition of hard work, and more importantly, a stepping stone toward what\u2019s next. I\u2019m walking away from VJAS motivated and inspired. The journey continues. \ud83d\ude80\u2728<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The results of the 2025 Virginia Junior Academy of Science (VJAS) Symposium came out today. I placed 4th in my category and received an Honorable Mention. Honestly, I felt a bit let down when I first saw the results, as I was hoping for something more. But after letting the news sink in, I realized […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/galaxyexplorer.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/galaxyexplorer.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/galaxyexplorer.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/galaxyexplorer.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/galaxyexplorer.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=58"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/galaxyexplorer.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59,"href":"https:\/\/galaxyexplorer.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58\/revisions\/59"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/galaxyexplorer.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=58"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/galaxyexplorer.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=58"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/galaxyexplorer.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=58"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}