If you told me, even a week before June 23rd that I’d be running to a class on black holes at 9 in the morning on a sunny Friday morning during the summer, I’d have taken that info and thrown it out the door. But here I am, a month and a couple days into the Summer Science Program(sometime wish it was Summer Sleep Program).

Two hours into a hands on, brain exercise, my boy Sean and I are cracking our heads at some differential equations problem that relates to some celestial entity. I am genuinely tweaking because I’m tryna get this done and play some brawl stars with my homie Joey. But, at least Dr. Le calls time and then gives us the most fascinating talk about not science, but himself. We knew there was some lore in his life, cause his mysterious aura doesn’t go unnoticed. We truly learned about the “gravitational forces” in his life.

And then we’re off, early even today. My def-not favorite TA Lucien and a couple of us start heading towards the Panda Express on campus, the only eatery other than our dining hall on campus. We got some crazy good grub, including my favorite Cream Cheese Rangoons and Veggie Spring Rolls!!! With a stomach full and content, I opened my fortune cookie to top it all off. I open it, and it’s, “You’re gonna gain some confidence or sum.”

…..ermmmm … .as my teammate Tut likes to say….WhAt the SiGMa??? What is this cryptic message?? Like genuinely, anything but, this. Hey I’m grateful, but this is why I don’t find truth in fortune cookies. “To be or not to be?” – Somebody smart, someday, somewhere. But, I eat, and then I drag myself and big boy Max who’s already out sleeping on the table at Panda Express, along with the rest of my homies back to the afternoon session with Dr. Rengstorf.

Right after an amazing AMA session with Dr. R, where he lowkey gave us some crazy life advice that I might take to the grave, my teammates and I eagerly got to work finishing up our last set of images as we finally got a fourth set of observations to look at. We finished that up and finally got our long awaited stickers, nearly completing every part of the sticker chart, something the TA’s kindly put up for us.

And the night started to wrap up soon after a full stomach at dinner, sitting with my other favorite TA, Kathryn and our squad. As we worked hard through the night to get our final code in before our OD report was due the next day But you know the night doesn’t go out without a bang…and a lil crazy stunts. Kevin ended up getting a makeover by my the homies Grace and Siyona. I think he might have ended up becoming their project for their talents, and might become the next model for vogue.

And that’s a wrap on a great day. With only a few more left, I’m going to miss these people and the experiences and memories I’ve gathered. But you know what, that’s life and we’ll remember each other, and look forward to the day we all meet again, with more stories in store. To forever..and beyond!!! – Buzz Lightyear or sum

My name is Nikhilesh and I am a rising senior from Valencia High School in Santa Clarita, California. I love working out, having deep conversations and just messing around in general. But, most importantly, the friends I’ve made at SSP are just something else. It truly has been what they said it would be: An educational experience of a lifetime!!!

The post T-Minus Collision: All Hands On Deck first appeared on SSP International.

The one thing I didn’t procrastinate at all on, I realized I did completely wrong.

 

When we first learned about the blog posts, I immediately started planning out mine: how great the program was, how I loved learning about astronomy (something I don’t have much experience with), and how much I loved the people. Don’t get me wrong — all of those are still true — but I don’t think what I had planned was nearly enough to capture my genuine thoughts about the program.

 

Starting on the first day, we were already completing asteroid proposals while clicking through countless JPL Horizons settings. To be completely honest, I had no idea what we were doing for a solid two hours. Normally, similar proposals would probably take at least three days at school, but we were only given one. I knew SSP was going to be difficult, but I was still taken aback by exactly how hard it was. One of my most common thoughts throughout the week has been, “I don’t understand this, but it seems so cool.” Everything seemed like it would make sense… until I really thought about it. Maybe it’s because I had done little astronomy before the program. Maybe it’s because what we learned forced us to view Earth and time in a completely different way from what we were used to. Or maybe it’s because I was tired from the lack of sleep. Either way, I would be lying if I said that everything just clicked as soon as I learned it.

And yet, despite the utter confusion and frustration that I felt while working through some of our assignments, I found myself enjoying all of it. From the “ding dong choir” to random drawings on a shared screen (ha ha ha I really tried to remove my background for Dr. Tarter’s talk but I’m kinda bad with zoom sometimes and failed miserably), SSP has already become an experience unlike any other. Even though my computer might explode any day from zoom, vscode (especially vpython), and 100000 chrome tabs open, it is 100% worth it. Or maybe my brain will explode before then, who knows.

 

SSP Online

Having already been through weeks of online school, I was disappointed when I received the email about SSP being online. I was also terrified about how I was going to make new friends without actually seeing any of them in person. However, I was extremely surprised (but in a good way) when my fears proved to be wrong. Below are two pictures of us trying to write out SSP with the telescope app (I tried, but mine didn’t turn out so well LOL).

Everyone here is extremely smart (btw I’m sorry Sarah B for having you explain that one pset problem so many times), but what I find different about them is that it’s not intimidating to talk with them. We’re all here with similar goals, and everyone (including TA’s and the instructors) is extremely supportive and welcoming. Though everyone is trying to do their best, I found the SSP environment to be much more collaborative rather than competitive. Instead of competing against each other to see who can finish the fastest or who can receive the highest grades, we’re all working together so that we can all achieve our goals.

Final thoughts

The first week has been one of the longest, but also fastest, weeks in my life. It was long because I’ve already learned more about astronomy than I had ever before, and because it feels like I have already known everyone for much longer than a week; it was fast because the entire process was so much fun and I genuinely loved the 8+ hours that zoomed by. If even the first week of this program was this amazing, I’m so excited for the coming weeks and what they will bring.

 

Before I end this blog post, I just wanted to say one last thing: watch kdramas (ESPECIALLY crash landing on you, it’s okay to not be okay, or vincenzo)!!!!!

The post The end of the longest, yet fastest week first appeared on SSP International.