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Summer Visit - 2015 - LADDT

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 LADDT team came to visit in June 2015. The core team educators attended, plus 14 students.

Quotes

  • [student: Real astronomy is] Not being afraid to mess up and writing every step you do.
  • [Astronomy] includes people with a broad background of experience, interests, skills, and degrees.
  • The visit seemed absolutely crucial to me because the time we spend in person is about ten times as productive and meaningful as the time spent on telecons and over e-mail. There is something about being in a room together that really pushed out understanding and work forward tremendously.
  • The best part of the trip besides watching the students interact with each other would have to be participating in actual research. Making analysis mistakes, regrouping and getting back to work. I really enjoyed the authenticity of the experience.
  • I was most surprised by the technical depth of our project. I thought I had a good understanding coming in to the June workshop, but I was just at the surface. We were literally drawn deeper into the black holes! I also have greatly increased my skills with Excel.

Related Teams

Summer Visit - 2015 - LADDT