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Summer Visit - 2016 - HIPS AGN

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 HIPS AGN team came to visit in June 2016. The core team educators attended, plus 8 students.

Quotes

  • Our team worked so well together. We came in as strangers, we left as friends, we worked collegially as scientists, and we all grew together, both teachers and students.
  • [student:] I was surprised about how our procedure veered off from its original course[...]
  • [student:] This experience really normalized astronomers as people for me. I always felt that I was never smart enough to be an astronomer, and it was too out of reach for me. But it was so nice to see that everyone faced similar struggles as myself. This experiences helped solidify my goals of working in the field of astronomy, and made the dream seem much more feasible.
  • It would have been really difficult to do this online. The group was able to get through a lot of material in only a week—it would have taken many weeks to have done this using some sort of online method. We even discovered that one of our techniques was not going to give us enough sources and so we changed our procedure then and there—it would have taken much longer to have come to that conclusion and have reacted to it had we not been talking things over together as we went.
  • [student: What qualities do you think are important to be an astronomer?] I think an ability to collaborate with others by sharing your own ideas clearly and being resourceful with others' time and skills is essential. I also think creativity in order to think past unexpected obstacles is important, as well as an ability to make connections (in order to interpret data or draw conclusions). Finally, lots of patience and persistence!

Related Teams

Summer Visit - 2016 - HIPS AGN