Meet Aelin Hunt, Class of 2023

Caltech's nothing like where I grew up. If you have a funky crazy idea, you can still probably find a few other people who want to do it with you, and then you can just go do it! Right now, I'mmodeling a cylinder full of randomly distributed spheres with the heat transfer equation. So fun computer modeling, interesting stuff. My name isAelin Hunt. I'm a senior studying materials science

and chemistry and I'm a member of DabneyHouse and a social member of Blacker House. Coming from the Midwest, I did not have the most exposure to the LGBT community, and you know, I had some moments of self-discovery when I was a frosh. So this was good, a very supportive community... And this was really helpful when I was trying to figure out, like, what sort of person

am I. A lot of us are queer, and this can be hard for yourparents or family to deal with. Because I've gonethrough a lot of these processes I can help otherpeople who are going through them. It's nice to do that. When I was a first year here, I took an art class with Jim Barry: drawing and painting. It was really fun and so I started todo

it more. I just enjoy the process ofcreating murals. I like it when people likemy art, but for me the fun part is making it. When I became president of Dabney House, I had thechance to approve murals. So that's howI ended up doing more murals in Dabney. I painted the very very large mural of mushrooms. I thoughtthat we could have more of the forest in there! My

favorite mural is a Joshua Tree with stars swirlingaround it. Our house goes to Joshua Tree everyyear, It's a place that Darbs become familiarwith. We spend the night stargazing or hiking, and it's always been an enjoyable experience, and one that I don't think I'll forget I started a lot of new hobbies when I came toCaltech. I always scrambled around trees when I was a kid, but now

of thinking aboutthings or perceiving and sharing emotions. So, cooking class meets every Thursdaynight from 7 to 10. I'm one of the headTAs, so I make food for the whole classfor before and after they start cooking. So that's been really fun. It'sa lot of work but it's worthwhile. Caltech is great. You have a chance of shaping your own life here. You know, follow your passions and things

will turn out okay.