Lutherancolleges push learning beyond the books and outside the box,off-campus and overseas...Where will you go? ...

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Karl Fedje, majoring in math and physics at California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks, California, has gone off campus to explore the nature of foam, the pros and cons of scientific research, advanced math, the countries and modern history of Eastern Europe – and his own capacity for hard work and perseverance.

It was Karl’s advisor, Dr. Cynthia Wyels, who suggested that he apply for the National Science Foundation’s Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU). The REU program is offered in all science disciplines, at universities all over the U.S. At Notre Dame, the summer between his sophomore and junior years, Karl worked on stabilizing liquid foam structures – bubbles – so that they would last the 20 minutes needed for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Why should physicists study bubbles? If we can understand their structure and how they dissipate, Karl explains, we could, for example, discover how to eliminate foam chemical spills faster.

Junior year took Karl to Budapest, Hungary, to study math with 54 other American students. “Hungary has a strong tradition in science and math,” Karl notes.

While overseas, he also traveled extensively, visiting Romania, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Austria. Karl took two math courses and audited a third – but one of the highlights of his stay abroad was a Eastern European 20th century history course.

Karl learned a lot about math, and about Eastern Europe – but he also discovered his own determination to excel. "Many of the other students had taken more math than I had, but I found that if I worked hard enough, I could learn and understand what I needed to, to keep up.”