  It is hoped that these lectures will give a point of entry into that vast web
of related ideas that go under the name "string theory". I start with a more or
less qualitative introduction to gravity as a field theory and sketch how one
might try to quantize it. Quantizing gravity using the usual techniques of
field theory will turn out to be unsuccessful, and that will be a motivation
for trying an indirect approach: string theory. I present bosonic string
theory, quantize the closed string in the light cone gauge and show that one of
the states in the closed string Hilbert space can be interpreted as a graviton.
I will end with some general qualitative ideas on slightly more advanced
topics.
