• NASA
  • IPAC

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

  • [student:] I think that patience and dedication are important for an astronomer because astronomy is a long process. I think that being able to communicate and ask for help are also extremely important because astronomy includes a lot of people looking at the same thing and seeing different details that need to be shared.
  • 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:] I think it was way better that we did everything in person because we got to meet everybody and it was much easier to ask questions and learn from the questions of others. The group changed as we got to know each other and we all became friends.
  • 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.
  • [student:] I didn't anticipate the amount of work we were going to be doing and learning in that amount of time.

Summer Visit - 2016 - LLAMMa