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Summer Visit - 2012 - HR4AGN

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 HR4AGN team came to visit in August 2012. The core team educators attended, plus 12 students, and one additional scientist.  The scientist mentor is Dr. Varoujan Gorjian. IPAC staff member Jacob Llamas (SSC) assisted, as did Dr. Jean-Christophe Mauduit (SSC).

Quotes

  • The most important thing was that I really got a feel for how astronomical research is done. I found the discussions really interesting as well; every time someone found a trend or a possible trend in the data, there would be a discussion as to what they had found and whether or not it meant anything.
  • [student:] The best thing about my experience at IPAC was getting to meet people from all around the country and seeing what it is like to work on a real research project in astronomy as I believe that is a career path I would like to pursue.
  • [student:] [Real astronomy] is to find the mysteries of the Universe, and to solve the myriad problems that are there, and to solve them. I did it, and it was everything because on this visit we did a lot of work on Excel and it was just pure scientific research.
  • This experience changed the way I think about astronomy. Before this program, I wasn't sure what astronomy entailed. Now, I think I have a better understanding of the work astronomers do, especially the complexity of their work. There are many facets of astronomy that I had never thought of before. [..] I guess my previous conception of astronomy was that it was mostly pictures, not physical data.
  • [student:] All the scientists we talked to, even briefly, were well versed in their areas of study and their passion for their work was inspiring to someone who is considering pursuing science later in life.

Related Teams

Summer Visit - 2012 - HR4AGN