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Summer Visit - 2023 - SCHARP

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 SCHARP team came to visit in June 2023. The 5 core team educators attended, plus 10 students.

Quotes

  • [student:] I was most surprised by how quickly much of the data we were given was processed in such a short amount of time, even when doing work "by hand." The SEDs, for instance, were expected to take a long time to complete, but even when doing them in Excel, my team was able to complete them very quickly.
  • [student:] I think the most important part was also being able to see the growth and change in myself as I became a more passionate learner.
  • [qualities important for an astronomer are] Resilience and being comfortable in not knowing. That has got to be so frustrating. And strangely rewarding at the same time.
  • [student:] I loved astronomy prior to the trip but I have even more interest in it now that I’ve gotten to do some actual work in the area.
  • The least surprising thing about the summer meeting at Caltech was the rich, immersive environment that allowed the teachers and students to learn a large amount of content in a short period of time and apply it immediately.

Related Teams

Summer Visit - 2023 - SCHARP