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Summer Visit - 2013 - C-CWEL

The summer visit to Caltech is 3-4 days long and is the only time during the year of work when all the participants on the team come together in person to work intensively on the data. Generally, each educator may bring up to two students to the summer visit that are paid for by NITARP, and they may raise funds to bring two more. The teams work at Caltech; the summer visit typically includes a half-day tour of JPL, which is a favorite site for group photos. Reload to see a different set of quotes.

The "C-CWEL" team came to visit in August 2013. The core team educators attended, plus 11 students.

Quotes

  • [student: The most surprising thing] is that I am learning to use these complex tools and programs.
  • For students, I think they need to understand that the project is ultimately ad investigation into something brand new – there is not right or wrong, clear end point, or place to check your work. They also need to remember that this is real research – not a basic lab or pull out session – there is real work that lasts longer than 55 min at a stretch and takes dedicated brain effort. Also not to be upset if wrong from time to time – it is all part of the process and a great learning opportunity.
  • [student:] Being able to work with professional astronomers on real data is a unique and inspiring opportunity that I feel privileged to participate in. Another important aspect to me was being able to meet other students from different states who had similar interests.
  • [student:] I felt like I came out of the trip with a ton of skills related to our project, but it also provided me with a greater curiosity about manipulating my computer and assorted programs. I realized that I knew nothing about computers beyond how to write essays on one and surf blogs. However, after this experience I became more curious about programming.
  • I was pleasantly surprised at the mature behavior and intellectual level of the student participants. They have taken the work seriously, enjoyed the out of work time activities and gained an incredible new network of resources for their future career endeavors. The students make excellent partners for learning and are highly able to acquire new skills. When partnered with more careful and experienced researchers, they can move through large data sets with ease, and accuracy. They are more easily frustrated by errors and do not have training in trouble shooting and meta-cognition that can let them solve more problems alone.

Related Teams

Summer Visit - 2013 - C-CWEL