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Summer Visit - 2015 - IC417

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 IC417 team came to visit in June 2015. The core team educators attended, plus 8 students.

Quotes

  • [student:] This has for sure changed what I thought about astronomy, especially engineering. I respect what they do a lot more because none of it is easy. And I learned that you can’t have astronomy without the engineers to help them get them where they want to go.
  • I believe most astronomers spend most of their time working with data and not with telescopes themselves [...] I have not experienced working with real data on real ongoing research before. I think the experience gave me a better understanding of what be a scientist is actually about. Especially when I asked if something I had done was correct or not and the answer given was they did not know based on the fact that I was the one determining that and I had to back up what I had done.
  • [student:] I saw that you have to be patient with the sometimes tedious work you have to carry out and when things go wrong, but you also have to be creative to solve your problems and come up with ways to be efficient.
  • [Astronomers need to] be patient, thorough, mathematical as well has have a good understanding of most different types of science as astronomy seems to be related to all branches. You also need to be able to communicate effectively.
  • I was impressed by the many different paths that a career in astronomy can take, from engineering to PR jobs to theoretical science.

Related Teams

Summer Visit - 2015 - IC417