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Summer Visit - 2017 - CephC:LABS

The summer visit to Caltech is 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 CephC-LABS team came to visit in June 2017. The core team educators attended, plus 5 students.


Quotes

  • [student:] I don't think "real astronomy" can be simply classified. I now know that astronomy covers an incredibly wide field of research, from finding active galactic nuclei to finding baby stars to sorting out the mysteries of the universe. "Real astronomy" can't be set in a box. I was semi-surprised that scientific research was so circular. In every science class I have been given a set of instructions and told to follow them. There were no instructions here, and it's so imperative to teach others that.
  • [student:] The best thing about this trip was the knowledge that we are looking at data untouched by other eyes. It gave me such a rush of adrenaline, knowing that our data hasn't ever been worked with!
  • [student:] I don’t think I could handle the work if it was done online. I think it was almost crucia, at least for me, to all be in the same room as we learned what we were doing and tried it for the first time.
  • [student:] I truly enjoyed working with a determined, like-minded team. It made all the difference for this trip.
  • [student:] In my personal opinion the best thing was being able to do actual science and not just something like I do in school.

Summer Visit - 2017 - CephC:LABS