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Summer Visit - 2016 - LLAMMa

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 LLAMMa team came to visit in July 2016. The 3 core team educators attended, plus 11 students.

Quotes

  • The best thing about the trip was getting to spend time together working. I enjoyed watching the kids get to know each other and the other adults. I watched them grow in confidence and it made me feel very accomplished. Even though I was exhausted at the end of every day, it was well spent time and that face-to-face block of time was necessary for making sure my students and I understood everything.
  • [student:] I think all astronomers must be curious, not afraid of work, hardworking, and must care about what they do.
  • Astronomers need to be independently motivated (be able to work alone with a strong drive) and to also work well in teams (and not just with other scientists). They are problem solvers and love a good mystery. Also, they need to have the patience to stick with a project for years. And they should be able to juggle more than one project at once.
  • [student:] The most surprising thing that I learned and did not anticipate was the amount of diversity that was present. I would have never guessed that you didn’t need some sort of astronomical background to be a part of the astronomical community.
  • The use of large data bases of information like IRSA are a great tool and I have come to understand that large databases are a more important source of astronomy and science research than I believed before or believe the general population understands. I like getting to understand how to use these tools.

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Summer Visit - 2016 - LLAMMa