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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

  • Real astronomy isn't just looking through a telescope and jotting down notes. It involves using data from multiple resources, performing calculations, and making judgments about what is being observed. On the trip, I expected to be working with information from telescopes, but I was not expecting the large amount of conversions that needed to be done.
  • [student:] Meeting and listening to these experienced professionals made the world of science very realistic and made me feel more capable of having a potential future in this area of work.
  • Most surprising (for me anyway) was how little I actually knew about astronomy. I always thought I knew more than I actually did, but now I can positively say that through this program I learned more than most adults I know in this field.
  • Everything after the uploading of the images was new to me. And no matter how much it surged over and drowned my brain, the wave of new knowledge was quite welcome.
  • Overall the program is confirming what I knew about the amount of math and physics involved in real astronomical research. [..] to be part of the process, to see it all in so much more detail makes me appreciate the hard work even more. And it will help convey to young students what they need to move forward to be scientists.

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Summer Visit - 2012 - C-WAYS