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Summer Visit - 2019 - IDYL

The summer visit to Caltech is 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 IDYL team came to visit in July-August 2019. The 4 core team educators attended, plus 5 students.

Quotes

  • I find it amazing that a group of individuals, from across the nation, with a variety of different backgrounds can cooperatively produce a research project in one year. I learned the research was not only about being able to master [..] the discipline but actively engage in group-supporting soft skills. I learned more about star formation and SEDs than I ever thought possible.
  • [student:] The work we did was intense, and I would be lying if I said I did not get confused more times than I would like to admit. However, being a part of a group was very helpful and I felt like we were a pretty good team. We helped each other figure it out.
  • I knew that there would be a lot of work to do going in to this week so I guess that is what was least surprising for me. I have been looking forward to this for a long time and I absolutely loved learning the specific math and physics behind what we are doing in our project. It makes me want to take more classes in astrophysics!
  • The best thing about the trip was the ability to work with my NITARP group in person. Yes, it was a lot of work. Yes, the down time was minimal at best but we all learned from each other in a very (very) supportive, yet guided, learning environment. I know that I would not have understood the process or the product as well by working through conference calls.
  • My favorite thing about this kind of work is the ways that different people demonstrate mastery at different moments in ways that you can’t predict ahead of time.

Related Teams

Summer Visit - 2019 - IDYL