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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:] In my personal opinion the best thing was being able to do actual science and not just something like I do in school.
  • I think it was really important for us to spend a substantial amount of time together, get to know one another, struggle with concepts together, and work toward a common goal. Online hangouts are a decent (and cheaper $ !) substitute, but can’t replace face to face interaction and problem solving. Also, physically being at a college campus or at JPL is a powerful experience for our students. I expected our group to feel more cohesive after the trip and I definitely think we left California as a stronger team.
  • [student:] The most surprising thing I experienced was the technicality and tediousness of calculating and entering the data.
  • Best thing about the trip = Learning how to do astronomical analysis and participating in the process of authentic science. Nobody in the history of humanity has done exactly what we’re doing. That’s amazing.
  • Astronomy is always depicted as a single person looking through a telescope. I was aware that modern astronomy is collecting and analyzing data, but I did not have a clear understanding of the massive amount of data available and the steps required to reduce it in order to make an analysis. I was also unaware that astronomy is very collaborative.

Related Teams

Summer Visit - 2017 - CephC:LABS