Harper Talks Episode 46 – Dr. Joseph Sagerer

Harper Talks Episode 46 - Dr. Joseph Sagerer

Transcript

Harper Talks: The Harper Alumni Podcast
Show 46:  – Harper Talks — Dr. Joseph Sagerer

[00:00:01.080] - Brian Shelton

I'm Brian Shelton, and you're listening to Harper Talks, a coproduction of Harper College Alumni Relations and Harper Radio. Today on Harper Talks, I'm excited to speak with Dr. Joseph Sagerer, a 2024 Distinguished Alumni. He's a 1997 graduate of Harper College with a bachelor’s in mathematics and physics from Eastern Illinois University and a doctorate in Physics from the University of Illinois, Chicago. Dr. Sagerer joined me here in the WHCM studio in Building A. Thanks for being here. How are you?

[00:00:27.660] - Dr. Joseph Sagerer

Excellent, Brian. Thank you and thank you Shannon for helping put this all together.

[00:00:32.010] - Brian Shelton

Yeah, Shannon does a great job, doesn't she?

[00:00:33.920] - Dr. Joseph Sagerer

Yes, especially with the busy schedule here with two universities, my university and Harper, trying to match schedules.

[00:00:40.540] - Brian Shelton

It's been great. Trying to match things up. Yeah, it's a lot. Speaking of universities, universities... Could you have picked an easier degree, or were you looking for something challenging?

[00:00:51.570] - Dr. Joseph Sagerer

Physics is one of those things that you fall in love with, or you don't, sort of. When I started out of high school when I was at Harper, I thought maybe engineering, chemistry, one of the sciences, maybe mathematics, maybe creative writing, I didn't really know. And that's part of exploring. And it turns out that I really liked physics, which is why I was thinking about engineering. And then as I took more physics classes, I just realized that's where my passion was. And when I got into the lab and saw the connection between the ideas that we were covering and actual things happening, that really set me on the path that I've taken since then.

[00:01:31.470] - Brian Shelton

Yeah, that's awesome. So let's go backwards a little bit. How did you come to Harper? What made the decision to come here?

[00:01:37.890] - Dr. Joseph Sagerer

The decision was very easy. I don't really mention it to my children, but I wasn't the best student back in high school. I enjoyed the higher-level classes, but I maybe didn't apply myself as well as I should have. And when it came time to move to the next level, I definitely wanted to go into the sciences or or something like that, but I didn't know the path to take. I thought jumping into a four-year school right out of high school didn't make sense for me just because I wasn't prepared.

[00:02:08.630] - Brian Shelton

Well, that's interesting.

[00:02:09.510] - Dr. Joseph Sagerer

And so when it came time to do that, I saw Harper as an opportunity to say, okay, here's a step up onto the next level. I can sort out what I want to do before I commit to doing it. And money is always an issue. And being able to work part-time while I came to Harper, I live relatively nearby, commuted from my parents house, it gave me that opportunity to explore what I wanted to do.

[00:02:36.370] - Brian Shelton

It's very interesting that at high school age, you had the mental wearwithal to say, this is probably not a good idea.

[00:02:43.130] - Dr. Joseph Sagerer

Yes. There were moments where I acknowledged that I may have been mature in my outlook, but not in my education applications. (laughs) There was a moment when I told my advisor, the talented development advisor at my high school, said, we're going to recommend you take this math class because you're not doing well in your current math class. And I said, Well, I'm not really going to do well in either because I'm not going to do the homework. Can I take the higher level one just so I can see what it is? And that argument was convincing, apparently.

[00:03:19.620] - Brian Shelton

So you weren't being challenged enough or you didn't feel challenged?

[00:03:23.810] - Dr. Joseph Sagerer

I just felt like at that time when I was younger, that what I was doing wasn't meaningful to some degree. And when I got to Harper, then you step up on the big stage, you see, okay, now I see all the connections, I see all the ways. And high schools have definitely improved in the last 30 years at giving students those opportunities to see career connections and big ideas connecting into the real world.

[00:03:50.710] - Brian Shelton

But at the time, you just didn't see where it was applicable.

[00:03:53.800] - Dr. Joseph Sagerer

No, and that's a maturity thing, right? Sure. High school-age students, college-age students, don't necessarily have the best outlook on how the world works.

[00:04:02.090] - Brian Shelton

So what was your time at Harper like? How was it when you got here? What was the best part?

[00:04:07.110] - Dr. Joseph Sagerer

The best part was it was a reset for me. Right? It was an opportunity to say, Okay, all the grades that I had in high school, all the challenges I had, that's done. Now is the time to start over from zero and work your way up from there. And so I took the opportunity. I got my Associates in Arts and Associates in Science because I knew I wanted to do science, but I also wanted to try everything else. And it was a great opportunity to really push the boundaries of what I had looked at previously.

[00:04:37.100] - Brian Shelton

Yeah, that's awesome. That's great. You went all the way through two associate's degrees, bachelor's degree, master's degree, and then a doctorate in physics. That is a long educational journey.

[00:04:48.860] - Dr. Joseph Sagerer

It is a very long educational journey, yes.

[00:04:50.930] - Brian Shelton

Takes a while to do that. I'm curious for those who maybe have no clue, what does one do with a doctorate in physics?

[00:05:00.030] - Dr. Joseph Sagerer

What one does with a doctorate in physics is there are opportunities for research. There's opportunities to work at companies and do engineering-like things. But a physicist is more of a Jack of all trades. We can put ourselves into any problem and do problem solving skills. A lot of physics is learning very basic ideas and then expanding those ideas to difficult problems. Very similar to engineering. Engineering is a little bit more balanced on cost and that thing. But anything that involves research, teaching is always an option. Research and cutting edge stuff. You can also do financial work because they value the skills of being able to analyze large amounts of data.

[00:05:46.050] - Brian Shelton

You are doing both education and research with some practical application?

[00:05:50.300] - Dr. Joseph Sagerer

Yes.

[00:05:50.440] - Brian Shelton

Tell us about your work as a professor.

[00:05:53.340] - Dr. Joseph Sagerer

I teach at a local university. I don't know if I- Yeah, sure. Dominican University in River Forest. I I teach introductory physics classes there. I teach students who are going to be chemists, engineers, biologists, biochemists, pre-med folks. A lot of that is introductory classes, but that's important stuff. It's the physics that I love just at the introductory level, and getting students excited about physics is sometimes challenging, but bringing my passion to it. One of the comments I get from my students is, oh, you're always so happy about teaching physics, and you're always so passionate about subject. And yeah, that's what I am. And then I always wanted to find this balance between that teaching side of my life and doing research, because research is exciting to me. It's that, as I said, getting that experience where you connect out into the real world and being able to do things that nobody's possibly done before. And I found at Dominican, I was able to develop this research project with a colleague at Chicago State University, where what we're going to do is use cosmic rays. So there are cosmic rays, particles that hit the top of the atmosphere.

[00:07:07.260] - Dr. Joseph Sagerer

And then when they do so, they create these particle showers, high energy particles. The ones we're most interested in are muons because they survive to the ground. And they're moving at such high energy that they'll travel through large amounts of matter. So they'll travel through big chunks of rock, hundreds of meters, possibly. And what you can do with that is to effectively build a detector to use those as almost like an X-ray machine for large structures. The project we've developed is to go to the Temple de Culiacan, the El Castillo pyramid at Chichen Itza, and we're putting a detector underneath the pyramid because we can then scan the structure. It's a real unique experience because we go down to Mexico, we build this fancy detector, put it in tunnel that archeologists dug 100 years ago and look up through the pyramid and see, are there empty spaces inside the pyramid? We can do non-invasive archeometry. And so archeometry is the study of archeology using scientific techniques.

[00:08:16.920] - Brian Shelton

So you're creating a three-dimensional map of the pyramid showing spaces that we can't see with our own eyes using the muon detector?

[00:08:24.190] - Dr. Joseph Sagerer

Yes.

[00:08:24.460] - Dr. Joseph Sagerer

As the muons travel through rock, a certain amount of them make it through 10 feet, 20 feet, 30 feet, and you lose a little bit each distance they travel. By looking at how many you see when you're outside the pyramid, looking up at the sky, you get a baseline. Then when you go inside the pyramid, when you look up, you can say, oh, well, I see 90% of what I saw outside, or I saw 80%. From that, we can say, okay, that means there's 50 meters of rock here. Then you measure the outside of the pyramid, you say, wait, there's 60 meters between my detector and the outside. That means there's 10 of rock missing. That implies there's an empty void inside the interior.

[00:09:04.360] - Brian Shelton

Then you'll be able to map that.

[00:09:05.910] - Dr. Joseph Sagerer

Yeah, you could do it. You do this at multiple angles, and then you can move the detector around and look at it from different directions and map out the position.

[00:09:12.680] - Brian Shelton

Has this been done before?

[00:09:13.610] - Dr. Joseph Sagerer

This is a technique that's been used, not using our type of detector, but it's a technique that's been used at the Great Pyramid at Giza. It has discovered chambers there. Using a different group has done that. It's used, for example, you can image the magma chamber inside a volcano because the hot rock is a different density than the cool outside of the mountain, and you can see where the magma is. That's been done, again, by other groups. And then there are national security applications as well because you can put a container truck inside of one of these detectors and look to see is there material that's blocking muons that shouldn't be there.

[00:09:53.770] - Brian Shelton

That's very interesting.

[00:09:55.560] - Dr. Joseph Sagerer

Yeah. So it's taking physics where the physics isn't cutting edge. We understand muons very well. We understand the cosmic rays very well. It's an application.

[00:10:05.270] - Brian Shelton

Yeah, the application you're using for them is fascinating.

[00:10:07.430] - Dr. Joseph Sagerer

Which is perfect for I have undergraduate students that are working with me and getting them the opportunity to do things like this where..

[00:10:15.600] - Brian Shelton

That's pretty unusual, isn't it? For undergraduate students to work on a project this big?

[00:10:19.960] - Dr. Joseph Sagerer

Well, that was always our goal. When we designed the project, the project was always the goal of this is something we want undergraduate students to have hands-on experience in. We want them to be an important part of the project. Because when I was a graduate student, I worked on a relatively small particle detector. If you know about Fermilab or like CERN, the collaborations there are thousands of scientists. And the project I worked on was 80 of us, including the graduate students. So you had to do things. There was no sitting back and saying, well, my part's done. Somebody else's problem. It was all hands on deck whenever there was something to do. And this small project is the same ideas. It's mentally challenging, it's physically challenging, it's emotionally challenging because you have to do the design process and go through all the analysis of the data. But we're also the ones who are moving the panels around and assembling the detector and going underneath the pyramid and working in 100% humidity in 95 degrees days. It's all challenging, but it gives the students an opportunity to say, wow, I'm working on a big project like this.

[00:11:32.080] - Dr. Joseph Sagerer

It gives them that outlook.

[00:11:34.380] - Brian Shelton

That's really awesome. How long will you be down there? How long is this going to-

[00:11:37.920] - Dr. Joseph Sagerer

We are scheduled to be there for one year. The detector panels are assembled, they are tested, and they fly on Monday to Mexico. Our colleagues at the University of Mexico, Mexico City, will then assemble them into a frame, we'll do some further testing, and then within a few months, they'll be placed at the pyramid.

[00:11:58.890] - Brian Shelton

How much time will you spend there?

[00:12:00.610] - Dr. Joseph Sagerer

Off and on this year, several weeks.

[00:12:03.960] - Brian Shelton

Several weeks? Yeah.

[00:12:04.450] - Dr. Joseph Sagerer

The hope is we've tried to design everything so it's remotely controlled, so we can control it from Chicago. The challenge is that never 100% works, right? There's always the issue of-

[00:12:18.060] - Brian Shelton

Somebody has to push a button.

[00:12:19.430] - Dr. Joseph Sagerer

Yeah. We tried to design it so if the power goes out and the power comes back, it resets itself on its own. But there's always that moment of, oh, jeez, we forgot there's a switch on this box that somebody needs to go to the car.

[00:12:30.920] - Brian Shelton

Even right here at this radio station, every once in a while, somebody has to push a button, and it's usually me, so I hear it.

[00:12:36.000] - Dr. Joseph Sagerer

You get that call, and when you're called in, I assume it's not a thousand miles, an airplane trip and then a car trip.

[00:12:41.600] - Brian Shelton

It's still not convenient, but no, it's not. But you're like a regular Indiana Jones here. This is a really fascinating thing.

[00:12:49.010] - Dr. Joseph Sagerer

It's amazing. It's one of those things where when you start off, and again, the reason I love research is you don't know where you're going. I never anticipated that I would be working on this project. You really get a sense of history when you're there and you're allowed to go past the ropes and go inside the pyramid, which tourists aren't allowed to do anymore. They used to be able to when there weren't any rules. But being able to go inside and work there, you just get this sense of awe and just this moment of... What am I doing? This is not something that anyone does. I was telling you, I've been in the pyramid under this thousand.... More than a thousand-year-old pyramid, trying to get a Wi-Fi signal on my phone so I could update the software on a computer. For the record, we've added Wi-Fi to the pyramid now, so there is Wi-Fi under there. Nice. Yes. We We are in better shape than we were, but originally it was like that. It's just awe-inspiring that we get to do this and work on this interesting location and bring students with us, and the students get the ability to tell the story, Hey, I went and did this.

[00:14:02.970] - Brian Shelton

It's great things for their future careers, too.

[00:14:05.930] - Dr. Joseph Sagerer

Oh, yeah. It's one of those things you put it on your resume, and future employers or future graduate programs are like, can you tell me a little bit about this? And you have that ready to go story of, oh, we went to Mexico, we did this. It's a great experience for you.

[00:14:19.040] - Brian Shelton

That's pretty awesome. What a great opportunity. It's so great when other professors do that because I imagine that, as you were saying, you were given some opportunities to work on some projects while you were in school. I think that's very, very important. As a professor, I try to bring that to my students as well because I know that them working on practical application of their work and getting them out there so they have something on that resume, and they can go to someone and say, look, I did this already.

[00:14:49.920] - Dr. Joseph Sagerer

I know how to do that. It's what we call a high impact practice. It's that job experience, that research experience, that getting into the lab and doing something outside the classroom. I really value it for my students because oftentimes it's that first moment where we're doing physics, but we're not doing a lab experiment that's been run 100 times and we know it's going to work. I often don't know that things are going to work because it's research. I'm like, I think we're going to try this. We're going to see if it works. If it doesn't work, we'll adapt. For students, there's that moment of, Wait a minute, you're not sure this will work? It's a mind shift from, I just have to check these boxes, to, Okay, now I have to think through the problem.

[00:15:36.990] - Brian Shelton

Now, I know that in the end, your The research on this project will be published in some journals and things like that as all academic stuff is. But will it be anywhere where it's more accessible to people who are just interested in the pyramid and that thing?

[00:15:53.470] - Dr. Joseph Sagerer

Yes, we will be putting things on a website, and as the detector is running, we hope to have available a method for you to see what's going on. I think that's probably the best way. I'm hoping to build a display that we could make public-facing. So we'll have the research side where the scientists can see what's going on, but then the public side seeing, Oh, the detector is live. Here's what it's seeing at the moment.

[00:16:20.030] - Brian Shelton

That's cool. Awesome. You mentioned Fermilab earlier. I've worked with a few people out there, and you have a project there called Vamos Fermilab. Tell me about that.

[00:16:29.450] - Dr. Joseph Sagerer

Vamos Fermilab was a project that Fermilab scientists recognize that if you look at the national lab statistics, there are scientists that are of Hispanic descent. There's just fewer of them than the general population. And the majority of them that are there are from outside the United States. So they're from countries outside the United States. And the idea is we want to build that pipeline in the United States. We want to get our students to go there. And the Dominican University where I teach is a Hispanic-serving institution. We have a very large Hispanic population of students, and their goal was to just get students to apply for summer internships. It's a small step. For most students, you want to, junior or senior year, get those outside experiences. It wasn't that it wasn't available, it wasn't advertised or students didn't feel ready for it. What we did there was they brought together a group of students from a bunch of different universities in the area to Fermilab, and they had them shadow a researcher for three days and have lunch together, that thing, meet together and said, Hey, okay, now you've got something on your resume.

[00:17:36.360] - Dr. Joseph Sagerer

You've done this program. You've shadowed these folks. Now write an application to come and work with these folks for the summer. One of my students actually had a successful completion of that program where they went. They did the program for one summer. That winter, they applied to do a summer internship, and they spent six weeks. You're paid very well at a national lab for an undergraduate student, and they got to do a bunch of research, and it's just getting your foot in the door and getting those opportunities to step into the research world.

[00:18:09.320] - Brian Shelton

What an amazing opportunity. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks for doing that for students. That's awesome. That's amazing. It's good stuff. No, you're being shy about it.

[00:18:18.060] - Dr. Joseph Sagerer

No, I am uncomfortable because that's what I expect an instructor should do, right? Because getting opportunities for students is critical. Before I had my research project, I made connections with other folks at Fermilab, some of the chemists there. I'm not a chemist, I'm a physicist. But they were doing ongoing research problems, and I got some of my students into a chemistry lab because I have chemistry students as well. It's just getting those opportunities to be in a place that's doing research. The research community is broader than what you're working on. It is all of these different projects. The national labs are amazing because when you're there, you get exposure to all sorts of different fields, all working at the highest level, pushing to do their best. And you get real excited about research. You get those moments of, wow, I couldn't do what you're doing because I took a different path, but I'm so happy you're doing that. And now I'm inspired to go and redouble my efforts on what I'm working on, right?

[00:19:18.250] - Brian Shelton

That's really cool. That's great. When you are not teaching, doing research, finding holes and pyramids, and providing students opportunities, you've been on a couple of school boards, and you're on a school board right now.

[00:19:30.360] - Dr. Joseph Sagerer

Tell me about that. I am currently on district 59 Board of Education for another two weeks.

[00:19:36.070] - Brian Shelton

Another two weeks?

[00:19:37.080] - Dr. Joseph Sagerer

Yeah. So this is the end of my first term for four years. I've served there. It's the school district where my kids all went, and I took the opportunity to apply some of my passion for education, some of this feeling of, I received this great education. I really want to pay that forward to future generations and make sure that my kids and all the other kids in the area get that opportunity and really push education forward. I've done that for four years, including a year, serving as board president. I'm currently board vice president. And in two weeks, I will be switching. I've been elected to the district 214 Board of Education with the local high school districts.

[00:20:18.110] - Brian Shelton

Okay.

[00:20:18.440] - Dr. Joseph Sagerer

Because, again, two of my kids are now in the high school. And I, again, feel this connection of... I do so much work with my undergraduate students at the college and university level. I really want to make make sure that students are prepared for whatever challenges go forward. Again, with my experience as maybe not having been a student who applied themselves very well, I really think that there's a lot of students out there that we can reach who just need that little nudge and push forward.

[00:20:48.710] - Brian Shelton

I don't want to put you two on the spot here, but what do you maybe see as the strengths and weaknesses of our local schools? My daughter goes to school in this area as well, so I'm just curious, what do you think are some of the strengths that we have and where we improve, you think?

[00:21:08.210] - Dr. Joseph Sagerer

The strengths are that the districts in the area are very well respected. They put a lot of effort into ensuring that our teachers are high quality, our teachers and staff, all the staff and the administrators all work for the students. And for the high schools, again, 30 years ago, they didn't have these opportunities that the students have nowadays with access to programs that give you more career advancement. 214 has done an amazing job of pushing students to, hey, consider what the future looks like. And again, you don't have to make a decision now, but you should start thinking about things now.

[00:21:44.190] - Brian Shelton

And maybe take some classes related to something you're thinking about.

[00:21:47.890] - Dr. Joseph Sagerer

Right. And getting them opportunities to take college-level classes or to get into the trades and work in the auto shop and think about, is this a path I can see myself doing? And maybe, if not this, maybe something related to it. So, I think they do an amazing job on that. Where the challenge has been is our local area has a lot of elementary school districts and two big high school districts, and getting a vertical integration of every elementary district, when their students get to eighth grade and are ready to matriculate into the high schools, do they have these skills? It's something that I know 214 has started working on. I know there's efforts at 211, which is where we're sitting right now, to make sure that those sender districts, the districts that go up into the high schools, are getting the students where we expect them to be. It's been challenging because a lot of what's happened over the past 30 years, again, is a change in the student populations. There's a lot more low-income students than there were in the past, and the schools have had to adapt, and they've been adapting,

[00:22:57.140] - Brian Shelton

but not quite quick enough.

[00:22:59.710] - Dr. Joseph Sagerer

There's also a certain pace you can maintain without burning out all the teachers and having other issues pop up. So they're working on that adaptation over time.

[00:23:10.350] - Brian Shelton

It's really hard to be at the high school level. If you didn't get it when you were at the elementary and middle school level, when you get to high school, it makes it a lot harder to move that along.

[00:23:20.200] - Dr. Joseph Sagerer

It's a lot harder at the university level as well. And I don't have the opportunity with my students at the university level. You don't have that moment of, well, I can sit down and work with you on the algebra you need to do physics. I need to say, well, you have to go and remediate your algebra before you can do the physics. I'm not as tied into all the different subjects for that individual student. That's the I think the challenge of being an undergraduate educator is oftentimes you really want to do a lot more for the students.

[00:23:51.860] - Brian Shelton

But you can't always.

[00:23:52.630] - Dr. Joseph Sagerer

You can't do that in every single subject, though.

[00:23:55.630] - Brian Shelton

Yeah, I have that problem. Students come and it's like, well, no, you should be able to write when you get here. You should be able to do that. And I'm happy to push you along the right direction and give you the right resources and stuff. And then what we find in the last two years now, everyone's, why should I write when I can just use AI? And it's like, well, no, I need you to think because thinking is writing.

[00:24:15.160] - Dr. Joseph Sagerer

Writing is the act of thinking your thoughts on the paper and organizing your thoughts. The AI issue is challenging because it's great. You can use it as a tool, but it should not be the primary way you write. Another issue, as you just alluded to, when a student shows up in your classroom door, they are not an empty vessel ready to learn. They have all these other issues going on, and you don't necessarily know that as a university instructor. You have to give them a little grace and say, all right, what's going on with you? Most students, when they're struggling for whatever reasons, may not be willing to open up to you. The elementary schools, the high schools have become more and more a part of delivering social services, making sure students have social emotional health, that they have mental health, that they're physically well. That, again, is different than it was, and that's something that the schools have had to adapt to over time. But it's necessary. You can't teach a student who's hungry. You can't teach a student who's in crisis mentally. Having those resources is critical for getting our communities healthy enough to learn.

[00:25:35.020] - Brian Shelton

It was a big shock for me. I used to teach at Rock Valley College in Rockford, Illinois, a community that has much more problems than this community. This community has its challenges and everything, but I started working with a charity up there that was raising money to buy students' socks because the students in the local school district didn't have socks. And you're like, If you don't have... This is like bare bones necessity stuff here. We don't have socks. How can we go to school and learn algebra?

[00:26:01.850] - Dr. Joseph Sagerer

Right. And it's not just the students, it's the families. Because if I'm a parent and I'm struggling to get my kids socks, when do I have time to help them with homework? When do I have time to encourage them to read or to do other activities that are educational, I probably don't. And so schools need to offer those opportunities to students.

[00:26:22.010] - Brian Shelton

Yeah, it's very important. And you're good to be on the board and give of your time to do that. I really appreciate that.

[00:26:27.300] - Dr. Joseph Sagerer

I am blessed in that I have... I teach, but I do have some free time, and I do research, and I do have some free time now. When it's a moment like this where we're ready to install a detector in Mexico, and I know I'm going to have to spend several months this summer in Mexico. Time has been challenging, as we said, trying to set up this interview was challenging.

[00:26:52.400] - Brian Shelton

Yeah, but it happens. So you were nominated and chosen as a 2024 Harper College Distinguished Alumni. What was that like for you?

[00:27:01.210] - Dr. Joseph Sagerer

That was, again, starting where I started from is not something that 18-year-old me would have ever anticipated. It is an honor. It is humbling to just think that the student I was and who I was coming into Harper to have had the experiences I've had here and had all the opportunities going forward and having instructors who work to teach me, even though I may not have been the best receiver of that education, as we said. That, and then getting to where I am now, you can see all the things that had to help me along my way. That's what I want for students in my university, and that's what I want for students in the high schools around here, and that's what I want for students elementary schools is to say, okay, there's adversity for everybody. Everybody's got their own challenges. How do we get you going on whatever path you're headed for? And I don't think it's like destiny or anything, but it's all these opportunities that add up to great chances and getting those great chances. And being honored as a distinguished alumni, I mean, yeah, I guess. Right? I don't-

[00:28:27.630] - Brian Shelton

 Am I distinguished enough?

[00:28:29.110] - Dr. Joseph Sagerer

Yeah, it's one of those things where the title feels awkward to me, but I think that's because I'm more of a hands-on guy. I'd rather go be in a lab and be building something.

[00:28:39.430] - Brian Shelton

But it's pretty cool to be recognized by the school for that.

[00:28:41.030] - Dr. Joseph Sagerer

It is amazing. I got a nice award, and I got lots of interesting people to talk to at my awards ceremony.

[00:28:47.730] - Brian Shelton

Yeah, I've interviewed so many of the distinguished alumni, and almost all of them have the same story. Was not a good student, came to Harper, figured out what I wanted to do, went on, became very successful, giving back to their communities, and then wound up being a Harper Distinguished Alumni. There's a very similar pattern, almost all those stories there.

[00:29:06.940] - Dr. Joseph Sagerer

And again, it's like that, like I say, with the National Lab, I may not be doing the work that you're doing, but I can see how awesome it is. That's how I felt when I was talking to my fellow distinguished alumni is, wow, you're doing this and you're doing that.

[00:29:19.430] - Brian Shelton

But they're thinking the same thing about you. So yeah, trust me. So one last question I ask everybody, what advice do you have for current Harper students?

[00:29:27.880] - Dr. Joseph Sagerer

What advice do I have for current Harper students? That is a good question.

[00:29:31.880] - Brian Shelton

That's why I ask it every time.

[00:29:33.440] - Dr. Joseph Sagerer

Yes. It's hard to get around. Do I talk about what advice would work for me, or do I try and pitch it to a student who maybe... I would say take the chances and opportunities that are given and realize now's the time to explore and maybe change paths if you don't find something that specifically works for you. So I don't know. Go to the speech team thing and attend a few meetings. And if you suddenly realize, oh, wait, this is taking a lot more time, or I'm not enjoying this, go try Chess Club. Go do other things because when you get into that path and career, you don't always have those opportunities, but you may find things that you love. And even if they're not career, not everything has to be career-driven. It can be just interest that you're going to find throughout in your life.

[00:30:30.640] - Brian Shelton

Yeah, and it'll carry you through. I won't identify the sport because I don't want to out the student. Not that the student is actually listening to this podcast, but I had a student last week. I asked them, Are you doing your sport this semester? And they said, well, I really have to work and pay bills, and so I'm not really sure that I want to commit to being on the team because I don't want to let the team down if for some reason I can't. And I just looked at them and I said, You can work and pay bills your entire life. You have this one opportunity to do this here right And that student looked at me and said, I know my mom said that they would pay my car insurance if I wanted to be on the team. So maybe I should be on the team. I'm like, Yes, be on the team.

[00:31:09.370] - Dr. Joseph Sagerer

Take those opportunities.

[00:31:10.350] - Brian Shelton

When are you going to get to do this again?

[00:31:12.610] - Dr. Joseph Sagerer

Oftentimes, students are like, Maybe I'm not good enough. Okay, maybe you aren't. But maybe you are, and you just didn't realize it. So, give yourself a shot. There's a lot of that imposter syndrome that students suffer from of, Do I really belong here? Give it a shot.

[00:31:29.500] - Brian Shelton

Give it a shot.

[00:31:30.230] - Dr. Joseph Sagerer

You'll find more often than not that you wind up in places that you didn't anticipate, but you do belong. Yeah.

[00:31:37.810] - Brian Shelton

I mean, that's what we do here. The radio station is not training people to be on-air personalities. We're training people to use their creativity and their voice and to learn how to manage that and to do something with it. It's not our intention for students to go on to be radio DJs. Some of them will, but that's not necessarily what's going on. And us being very open to that has attracted students from all over campus, from all different majors. We have science majors arts majors and music majors and everybody in here. It's just you got to go after those different opportunities to figure out what it is makes sense to you.

[00:32:09.450] - Dr. Joseph Sagerer

Given those opportunities to work with people outside of your field is often real interesting because you get opportunities at the university. There's only a couple of us, two physicists, and the rest of them are a bunch of different things. You get opportunities to work with fashion faculty or humanities faculties faculty and foreign language faculty, and everybody brings their own skillset, and they make you better because you learn a little bit about the way they approach things. Having those multiple views on a problem often moves things forward in a great way and gives you a better result.

[00:32:49.910] - Brian Shelton

Well, thanks so much for taking the time to come. I know that you're very busy. I appreciate you coming and being on the show today, and look forward to seeing the results of your project. When I read about that I got really excited. I'm like, Oh, I can't wait to see what happens.

[00:33:02.720] - Dr. Joseph Sagerer

It's going to be an exciting but busy year.

[00:33:04.960] - Brian Shelton

Yeah, but it'll be good for you.

[00:33:06.790] - Dr. Joseph Sagerer

It'll be great. Oh, it'll be great.

[00:33:07.440] - Brian Shelton

Yeah, I can't wait to see the results of that. That's awesome. Dr. Joseph Sagerer is a Harper College graduate and distinguished alumni working to unlock some of the mysteries of our world. If you're enjoying Harper Talks, please subscribe. And while you're at it, rate and review us so that others might find us. Harper Talks is a coproduction of Harper College Alumni Relations and Harper Radio. Our show is produced by Shannon Hynes, who's amazing. This episode was edited by Koby Pozo. Our online content producer is Vicky D. Our theme music was created by Aiden Cashman. I'm Brian Shelton. Thanks for listening.