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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:] 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:] Everything could not have been done online, since we were able to be together we could much more easily help one another and actually trust one another. The group became much closer after spending a week together and I feel like we became very good friends.
  • [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:] I truly enjoyed working with a determined, like-minded team. It made all the difference for this trip.
  • The work we conducted at Caltech could not have been accomplished online. The benefits of all working in the same room were enormous. We could get/give help, ask questions to Luisa in person, and check our answers. There is no way I could have a thorough understanding of the SEDs, aperture photometry, or the color-color and color-magnitude diagrams without hearing the description from Luisa, working on it, asking questions, collaborating, and working some more. I believe we could have benefited from having one more day (or even half day) as a work day similar to the Thursday workday.

Related Teams

Summer Visit - 2017 - CephC:LABS