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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

  • It would have been impossible for me to develop the depth of understanding I achieved about our project through telecons. I came to Caltech thinking I possessed a thorough understanding of our project, but quickly realized it had much more depth. We still have much analysis to do that I could not have done without direct supervision. I am much more confident now after having worked side by side with the LADDT crew. Correlating the filters and redshits is still at the edge of my conceptual field, but it is coming into focus thanks to the direct contact I experienced at Caltech.
  • Real astronomy goes beyond pretty pictures, which are only representative images. I was not expecting to do photometry but am sure glad we did. That is a tool I will be employing in my classes to give students a deeper understanding of what the data means and where it comes from.
  • [student:] This experience definitely changed my preexisting views of astronomy. Beforehand, I never really thought about how many different things you could do in the field, and after participating in this program, I learned a lot about some possible career paths.
  • [student:] This experience has totally opened my eyes to all the different jobs actually in astronomy.
  • 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.

Related Teams

Summer Visit - 2015 - LADDT