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Summer Visit - 2013 - CM4Sy

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 CM4Sy team came to visit in July 2013. The core team educators attended, plus 11 students.


Quotes

  • [student:] I have a deeper appreciation and understanding of astronomy and the astronomers because of this project. I have also found that I find astronomy incredibly interesting and fascinating. If I didn’t have the opportunity to go on this trip then I never would have found out that I am really interested in astronomy.
  • I knew that astronomers conducted most of their research with computers accessing data from distant telescopes and spacecraft, but I didn’t realize how much of it is available to the general public and how readily available it is to amateur astronomers and other interested folks.
  • The NITARP program reaches far beyond the inspired individual teacher or student with whom they work directly.
  • I discovered that astronomers are just regular people that don’t know everything. They make mistakes just like the rest of us. They are just passionate about what they do and are rewarded for that passion with admiration (but not necessarily money) from the general public. They have cool jobs in awesome places, but most do not get rich from their pursuit of knowledge. Access to data and astronomical images is easy. It is coming up with great questions that makes an astronomer great.
  • [student:] Every single activity was surprising and interesting to me. I’ve never had experiences like these before so all of it was new to me.

Summer Visit - 2013 - CM4Sy