For the Spring 2012 semester I chose to take WR 150: Rediscovery of an American Hero: The Essential Writings of Martin Luther King, Jr. because I thought being able to study Dr. King while attending the school where he received his degree in theology presented a great and rare opportunity. The course also appealed to me because as a writer I was interested in how words could make a difference, and I knew that Dr. King’s words had changed the world.

For our third and final paper, we were asked to choose a topic related to Dr. King’s life and work. When our class visited the Martin Luther King, Jr. Reading Room at BU’s Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center, I was really surprised to see that one of the papers from King’s student days that was on display featured him writing about my major, archeology. I really felt a connection to Dr. King knowing that we both thought archeology was cool.

While no essay is ever effortless or easy for me, “A Day of Sputniks and Explorers” allowed me to write about a lot of topics very close to my heart, including space exploration, aviation, public perceptions of science, and social reform. I was surprised by how many little details I’d picked up in my reading for pleasure over the years were usable in the paper: Yuri Gagarin’s biography, the history of film adaptations of Frankenstein, a New Yorker cartoon. There actually turned out to be a whole lot more material that I considered using but didn’t wind up fitting in.

ZOE STRASSFIELD, a member of the Class of 2015, is currently preparing for her sophomore year at Boston University. A native of Southampton, New York, she is majoring in archeology in the College of Arts and Sciences and hopes to take part in a field school in her junior year. She is a member of the Boston University Astronomical Society, the BU Quidditch Team, and the BU chapters of Students for the Exploration and Development of Space and the American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics. This essay was written for Mikel Satcher’s course, WR 150: The Essential Writings of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: Rediscovery of an American Hero.