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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:] The most important thing I learned was that it is okay to ask for help and ask questions I may have thought were rather “dumb.”
  • I was surprised by how much we got done in the short amount of time. When we went to JPL, seeing the scale models of the different spacecraft was SO COOL!!
  • [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.
  • "Real astronomy" is using real data to analyze and make conclusions. Research is an iterative process in the sense that we get some answers that generate more questions. And we did that!
  • The least surprising thing [I learned] was the dedication and brilliance of those involved in astronomy research. I realize what a special group of people they really are to understand and persevere with their work.

Related Teams

Summer Visit - 2023 - SCHARP