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Summer Visit - 2012 - C-WAYS

The summer visit to Caltech is 3-4 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 C-WAYS team came to visit in July 2012. The core team educators attended, plus 12 students, and two additional scientists.  Dr. JD Armstrong (LCOGT/UH) and Dr. Babar Ali (IPAC) also assissted.

Quotes

  • [Astronomy] proved to be far more interesting than I thought previously possible.
  • While a lot of astronomy is done by computer, nothing compares to having a human look over the data. [..] This is a really good reminder to students who blindly accept what the calculator/computer spits out without checking to see if the answer makes sense.
  • The entire experience was "real astronomy." Nothing was canned. None of us in the room knew what the "final answer" was. Students really buy into the fact that this is real research.
  • "Real astronomy" involves a lot of data analysis. It involves a large amount of time spent at a computer rather than at a telescope. Astronomers have to know a lot more about programming than I had expected.
  • This has made me re-think what I want to do in college and my future.

Related Teams

Summer Visit - 2012 - C-WAYS