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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:] I thought that research would be isolating and that it wasn’t something I could see myself being interested in for long periods of time, but if I were able to work in a team like this one, I think I could imagine doing research later in life.
  • [student:] This for sure changed the way I think about astronomy because I knew there was a lot of work involved but I didn’t think there would be so much time on one topic or aspect at a time. It took us almost a whole week just to examine the SED’s. So I can’t imagine what the whole process must be. We are still going to be examining when we get back to our homes.
  • [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.
  • [student:] Real astronomy is hard. It’s a little bit of guessing, a lot of research and a whole lot of teamwork. [...] I knew that coming to Pasadena would mean that I would have amazing opportunities that I probably won’t get ever again, but I definitely wasn’t prepared for the amount of life changing science I would get handed.
  • The students always impress me. This year they exceeded expectations in their ability to make their computers to what they needed them to do. I was surprised by how efficiently the group attacked the various tasks in the research process. I feel very good about where we are and I am optimistic that we’ll follow through with some nice results.

Related Teams

Summer Visit - 2015 - IC417