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Summer Visit - 2016 - HIPS AGN

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 HIPS AGN team came to visit in June 2016. The core team educators attended, plus 8 students.

Quotes

  • [student:] Don’t be afraid to ask an ungodly amount of questions. And don’t be afraid to be wrong. I certainly was at first—like, pretty much all the time—but when I finally stopped worrying about it so much, I found I had all this extra room in my brain that I could devote entirely to learning why I was wrong, and how to be less wrong (because no one is ever really right—that’s just not how astronomy works).
  • [student:] This is the first time where I was able to be a part of a team where everyone had the same aspirations and motivations. There was no one who thought of themselves as the leader. Everyone looked at each other as equals and helped each other when it was needed.
  • [student:] Though I don’t like to admit it, I had certain expectations regarding the teachers and students on this trip. To be entirely honest, I was expecting them to be a bunch of socially awkward nerds. Therefore, I was quite surprised to find that everyone was actually very normal—funny, talkative, and knowledgeable on a wide range of topics spanning past simply astronomy. It was certainly refreshing, and it made me realize that I’d fallen victim to an unfortunate stereotype.
  • [student:] The best part of the trip was the people who made it into something so special. I don’t think I’ve ever quite met a group of people like that who I just completely clicked with like that. Being able to explore California, learn and expand my knowledge of space, hash out a ton of numbers over Microsoft Excel, and make memories to last with people who were complete strangers two weeks before was an opportunity that most don’t get to have, and I’m very fortunate to have been able to do. It was truly spectacular. Also, being able to interact and work with like-minded nerds was awesome. It was definitely refreshing to be put into a setting where everyone in the room cared.
  • [student:] Seeing people be so passionate about learning something they love and that interests them really inspired me and let me understand why so many people have chosen to pursue astronomy. Plus, I learned that most astronomers are secretly very dorky (the good kind, I promise ☺) and will gladly talk with you about anything “nerdy” (i.e. Star Wars, Doctor Who, etc.)

Related Teams

Summer Visit - 2016 - HIPS AGN