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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

  • [This experience] made me realize it's not easy to be an astronomer, but all the hard work will be worth it. I cannot wait to be one myself.
  • [During the visit,] I came to learn that programming and utilizing the software and computer programs as efficiently as possible was a necessity. Without these programs, our research would be next to impossible. However, just having the software and using it wasn't enough. I quickly learned that investigating the details, applying programming skills, and manipulating our computers would greatly improve our abilities to analyze and begin processing the data. This was also one of the more interesting tasks we attacked. It made us ask questions, taste defeat, but not accept it. It gave us opportunities to learn from one another, especially the teachers and professionals we were extremely lucky to have available.
  • I wasn't aware that there was so little telescope time, and so much computer programming.
  • Never had I imagined myself working with students, teachers, and actual scientists from all across the country and globe. I learned just as much culturally as I did technically.
  • [student:] I had no idea that astronomy involved so much math! When I was first presented with a super long list of unit conversions and formulas, I almost gave up on a career in astronomy. I felt really overwhelmed because math has never been my strong suit. After successfully completing a few SEDs and color-color plots, I felt accomplished and realized that I wasn't as bad at math as I previously thought. Maybe I do have a chance at being an astronomer after all.

Related Teams

Summer Visit - 2012 - C-WAYS