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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

  • 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:] 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.
  • [student:] The most surprising part to me was how much this project is truly ours. Our scientist has us do all our own work and trusts our abilities in doing so. We sit, struggle, but then we figure it out, with only assistance when really needed, and that our scientist isn't doing all the work for us. We make the charts and look over the research and we find the answers. So I guess I am surprised by how much we do in this projects, and that it isn’t the scientist doing all the work.
  • [student:] I think real astronomy is going through all the research you may have had in the archives or new data you got, and taking it and learning from it. Still with the scientific research I am surprised how much the scientist really trusts us with it, and how she lets us work hands on with true scientific research.
  • Astronomy research often involves using public astronomy archives, and sometimes it only involves using archives. Success in astronomy is not just a result of brilliance (though brilliance doesn’t hurt). Success also requires quite a bit of persistence.

Related Teams

Summer Visit - 2015 - IC417